A Dunedin duo\u00a0\u2014 featuring a high-flying academic \u2014\u00a0became entwined\u00a0in a crime syndicate\u2019s\u00a0importation of\u00a0at least\u00a0$4m of party drugs, a court has heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthony Kane Hawker, 31, appeared in the Dunedin District Court this afternoon\u00a0where he was jailed for four years\u00a0after\u00a0admitting 11 charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reghan William Shaw Laurie, 24, was sentenced to seven months\u2019 home detention on three counts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The court heard the university psychology student Laurie \u2013 who was awarded a lucrative scholarship at the time of his crimes –\u00a0had completed his Masters\u00a0thesis while on bail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Judge Emma Smith described\u00a0Laurie\u00a0as formerly \u201ca man of incredibly good character and disposition\u201d,\u00a0a reputation which had now been compromised.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She rejected an application for permanent name suppression.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In January last year, police and Customs launched \u201cOperation Unit\u201d\u00a0after noticing a boom in the\u00a0flow of\u00a0controlled drugs to the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Consignments\u00a0containing\u00a0massive volumes of\u00a0class-B\u00a0Ecstasy were\u00a0intercepted\u00a0and soon led to police\u00a0identifying\u00a0the\u00a0primary\u00a0catcher as Hawker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to court documents, Laurie was enlisted by him to help retrieve\u00a0the packages\u00a0but was involved on only three occasions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Intercepted communications from an encrypted messaging service on Hawker\u2019s phone\u00a0shed light on\u00a0the\u00a0criminal\u00a0syndicate\u2019s\u00a0hierarchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBUGATTII II\u201d was referred to as \u201cboss\u201d in the messages\u00a0and another person\u00a0codenamed\u00a0\u201cBRX3\u201d\u00a0also\u00a0sat above the defendants in the chain of command.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their identities were never discovered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two anonymous handlers would\u00a0monitor\u00a0the status of the packages once they had cleared Customs and\u00a0often arranged for them to be redirected to the depot for collection by the defendants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A\u00a0parcel\u00a0listed as \u201clight manual clamping machine\u201d\u00a0was sent from\u00a0Le Mans, France, destined for a\u00a0\u201cStuart Yates\u201d\u00a0at a St Clair business.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On January 21 last year, Customs examined the contents and discovered\u00a0nearly 6kg\u00a0of Ecstasy inside the hollowed-out\u00a0rectangular devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If broken down into smaller quantities, the haul was worth a potential $1.2m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Further enquiries revealed a similar package \u2014 this time listed as\u00a0\u201cPorsche\u00a0microfibre\u00a0cleaning\u00a0cloth\u201d \u2014\u00a0had\u00a0been bound for the same address\u00a0earlier that month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But before it could be dispatched, someone called the courier company and had it redirected to Hawker\u2019s home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With that, police had their\u00a0lead\u00a0and Customs\u00a0identified\u00a0another\u00a0parcel which had been delivered to a Dunedin nail salon the same month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laurie picked it up from the business\u00a0and less than an hour later, posted it to an unknown Auckland address.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0syndicate\u2019s\u00a0message thread, viewed by police, appeared to show BRX3\u2019s unease that Hawker had\u00a0brought in another catcher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is your job you gave to someone else on the\u00a0low,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAnd I get killed for you if it goes wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0remainder\u00a0of\u00a0the police\u00a0operation, which lasted only a few weeks, followed a similar pattern.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Customs seized a package\u00a0containing\u00a0another illicit haul, they would search for\u00a0previous\u00a0consignments to or from identical parties, which led them to other shipments that had\u00a0slipped\u00a0the net.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The parcels were often listed as car\u00a0parts\u00a0but there were others described on documents\u00a0as \u201cyoga equipment\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authorities in Kentucky examined one from Germany, which was\u00a0sent to a Mosgiel address.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside an exercise slam ball was 3.6kg of class-C Ketamine with a street value of $792,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They removed the drugs and allowed the package to\u00a0continue on\u00a0to its destination\u00a0where Hawker picked it up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll that effort for an empty box,\u201d BRX3 later messaged the defendant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Across the four\u00a0interceptions\u00a0$3,365,600 of Ecstasy was seized, plus the Ketamine in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five further packages, which were the result of charges,\u00a0contained\u00a0unknown quantities\u00a0of illicit\u00a0substances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hawker, who\u00a0was paid about $2500 for each collection, was arrested in Christchurch in February last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When police searched his Dunedin home and\u00a0a\u00a0vehicle, they found more than 3g of Ecstasy, 70g of cannabis and $4580 cash in the boot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laurie was arrested in Queenstown and admitted he had been working on the directions of\u00a0his friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hawker told Probation he had become\u00a0part of\u00a0the\u00a0criminal\u00a0enterprise\u00a0initially because the financial lure was \u201cirresistible\u201d but claimed a man with a firearm had threatened him to ensure his continued\u00a0involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Judge Smith acknowledged the \u201catrocities\u201d the man had suffered as a child and\u00a0endorsed his intentions to study while in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his pre-sentence interview Laurie said he thought he was\u00a0simply\u00a0helping out a friend and felt manipulated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was no evidence of him making any money from his limited role, the judge accepted.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dunedin duo\u00a0\u2014 featuring a high-flying academic \u2014\u00a0became entwined\u00a0in a crime syndicate\u2019s\u00a0importation of\u00a0at least\u00a0$4m of party drugs, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-372401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}