Frost leaves dealer on ice
A methamphetamine dealer and his Auckland-based supplier are looking at long stints behind bars after admitting to running a largescale drug dealing operation from Dannevirke.
Logan Bunny Whaitiri and Jansen Studz Nehemia were to stand trial alongside Stephen Kani Reiri in the Palmerston North District Court this week, charged with supplying methamphetamine.
While Reiri was found not guilty on Thursday of helping Whaitiri possess methamphetamine for supply, the other two pleaded guilty to charges on Monday before the trial started.
Suppression orders surrounding Whaitiri’s and Nehemia’s offending lapsed once Reiri heard his verdict.
Nehemia pleaded guilty to supplying Whaitiri with methamphetamine on three dates in 2015, while Whaitiri admitted supplying methamphetamine in Dannevirke from May to July 2015, and three charges of possessing methamphetamine for supply.
The trio was arrested after a car Whaitiri and Reiri were travelling in was stopped at an intersection north of Napier on July 25, 2015.
A package containing 542 grams of methamphetamine, found to be 79 per cent pure, was discovered by police behind the dashboard of the car.
That interception brought an end to Operation Frost, which focused on Whaitiri’s drug dealing in Tararua.
Police monitored his text messages and phone calls, and managed to get a High Court judge to allow them to record his calls and undertake personal surveillance.
The investigation discovered Whaitiri was getting his product from Nehemia.
Detective Jane Borrie told Reiri’s trial police applied to get Whaitiri’s bank records and the records of his mother’s accounts. They also applied to get records of Whaitiri’s TAB betting activity, as they thought he could have been laundering his drug profits through TAB stores.
Whaitiri and Nehemia will be sentenced in February.