cocaine<\/a> in Hawke\u2019s Bay, carried out this year by the National Organised Crime Group.<\/p>\nThey obtained warrants authorising them to intercept communications devices, including Lamborn\u2019s.<\/p>\n
On April 30, he twice called a dealer. The first call went to voicemail but the second was answered.<\/p>\n
During the call, Lamborn arranged to buy 6g of cocaine and have it delivered to him at a bar in Havelock North.<\/p>\n
Later the same afternoon, he called another person, whose identity is unknown, and confirmed he had taken some \u201ctreats\u201d, which police believed referred to the cocaine he obtained earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the call, the defendant discussed a hunting trip he was going on the following day with other associates,\u201d the police summary said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant advised that he was bringing the \u2018treats\u2019 on the hunting trip.\u201d<\/p>\n
On May 1, Lamborn called the same unknown associate and confirmed he was at an airport on his way to the hunting trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe confirmed that he had carried the \u2018treats\u2019 through airport security and had brought them along on the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt one point during the call, the defendant referred to himself as a \u2018reliable mule\u2019, gloating about having transported drugs through security before.\u201d<\/p>\n
When questioned by police, he told them he had bought cocaine from the dealer but was \u201ca user not a supplier\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n
Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With an American-born father, he also played 23 tests for the US men\u2019s national team, the Eagles, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,17287,5098,9525,20926,1757,285584,2740,1019,285583,111,139,69,16792,9617,675,6327,213,313,11554,1316],"class_list":["post-579539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-busted","tag-buying","tag-caught","tag-cocaine","tag-drugs","tag-eavesdropped","tag-former","tag-international","tag-lamborn","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-phone","tag-player","tag-police","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super","tag-tony","tag-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579539","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=579539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}