NZ prisons worse says Kiwi behind bars in Ecuador
The largest cocaine bust ever recorded in New Zealand may signal Mexican drug cartels are looking to gain a foothold, an expert on the global drugs trade warns.
Police and Customs officials were celebrating New Zealand’s largest haul of the drug yesterday.
Customs found 35kg of highgrade cocaine valued at $14 million was smuggled inside a diamante-encrusted horse sculpture.
The 400kg sculpture raised eyebrows after being freighted by air from Mexico to Auckland in May, and sparked a joint investigation by Customs and police.
Author and film-maker Ioan Grillo, who has covered the Mexican drug wars for 15 years for media including CNN and the New York Times, says New Zealand authorities needed to be vigilant about the narco-traffickers’ ‘‘spider web’’ spreading to these more distant shores.
Speaking from his hometown of Mexico City, Grillo says the record 35kg cocaine bust was a clear sign of a burgeoning market for cocaine in New Zealand.
It is understood police believed some of the cocaine was destined for Christchurch, where they searched two houses in the suburb of Linwood.
A Mexican man was arrested at one of the homes, and two others were arrested at Auckland International Airport on Friday as they attempted to catch a flight to Hawaii.
A 44-year-old Mexican and a 56-year-old American appeared in the Manukau District Court yesterday, charged with importing a class A drug and possession of a class A drug.
Both were remanded in custody until tomorrow and interim name suppression was granted to the 44-year-old man.
Grillo says the men were likely to be ‘‘mid-level players’’ in a much larger operation.
They could be footsoldiers for one of the Mexican drug cartels, such as the feared Los Zetas or Tijuana Cartel, or a splinter group looking to branch out on its own.
‘‘Where these markets are created, the violence can follow,’’ he said. A Kiwi arrested in Ecuador with 2kg of cocaine in his suitcase has been sentenced to more than two years in jail.
Scott Elliot, 29, was arrested in March at Quito International Airport. He said he thought he was only moving a large amount of money, and claimed he was framed.
Speaking from prison yesterday, the 29-year-old said he was ‘‘pretty happy’’ with the sentence.
Although sentenced to 30 months, he is expected to serve only another five months.
His sentence also meant he had to leave the country once he was released from prison, and was not allowed to return for 10 years.
‘‘I paid $2000 to my lawyer to pay the prosecutor to get a lower sentence, and make sure I wasn’t going to get deported,’’ he said.
He did not want to be sent back to New Zealand after serving his sentence because he faced a three Where these markets are created, the violence can follow.
Ghettoisation, drug and inequality fuelled
‘‘All of these conspire to give a lot of oxygen to organised crime. Right now we see chaos in poorer countries in the Americas – and you have to keep an eye on it. These things spread. It’s a sideeffect of globalisation.’’
More than 100,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, and 27,000 are missing. The savagery employed by cartels has left the country traumatised. addiction drug violence. to six-month jail term due to insolvency charges.
Prison life in Quito was ‘‘not too bad’’, even though there had been a murder there about a month ago, on the other side of the prison.
‘‘It’s pretty relaxed here, New Zealand jails are worse than this. When I got arrested I was a bit worried about going to a South American prison, I didn’t know what they’d be like.
‘‘In my cell there’s six other
The trade in black market goods is impossible to measure accurately, but Grillo estimates that for every kilogram of cocaine that gets detected, five make it through.
Grillo says the cocaine is likely to have started its journey in Colombia or Peru, where the majority of people, two of them speak English, I get along with them, I get along with everyone pretty much.’’
Elliot said once he was released, he planned to go to Brazil, or France. He had friends in both countries.
He could not go to Australia, as he’d been deported from there before, he said.
Elliot was jailed in New Zealand in 2002 on wounding and robbery charges.
While he was on bail facing drugs charges in 2007, he admitted his part in an aggravated robbery in which convicted killer Graeme Burton attacked a man in a central Wellington apartment building.
This time when he’s released, Elliott hopes to stay away from prison.
‘‘I didn’t plan on coming to jail but yeah, I’m just going to focus on legitimate business now. I’m 39, nearly 40, I’m getting a bit old for this.’’ the world’s coca leafs are grown by poor farmers. They sell the raw leaf to gangs who process them into paste, before a complex process involving the use of toxic chemicals turns it into powder form.
By the time it had passed through the hands of any number of smugglers, gangsters and couriers before reaching New Zealand – where a gram sells for as much as $400 – it was worth around 140 times the wholesale price.
‘‘It’s an insane amount of markup,’’ says Grillo.
‘‘That’s why everyone wants to smuggle cocaine, because the profits are so big.’’
Grillo says drug smugglers endlessly ingenious.
Drugs have been smuggled in prosthetic human bottoms, stashed inside replica World Cup trophies, or catapulted over the USMexican border. are
‘‘Everything the human mind can think of to smuggle drugs without being found, they will have tried it.’’
Then there’s the smuggling routes, which include freight ships, cruise liners, home-made submarines. They might try bribing an airline employee, as has been increasingly common in South America, or use air freight, as was the case with this week’s New Zealand bust.
New Zealand’s isolation and small population have largely seen traffickers overlook exporting their goods here – until now.
And while 35kg may seem large, it is dwarfed by seizures elsewhere.
In November, the US Coast Guard seized 25 tonnes of cocaine in two dozen drug busts at sea.
The diamante-encrusted horse may have seemed a strange vessel to try to hide drugs, but it’s consistent with the ostentatious style of Mexico’s narco drug trade.
Cartel members show off their private zoos, suitcases full of dollars, and gold-plated machine guns in Instagram accounts.
Grillo says the ‘‘narco culture’’ is a fascinating element of the drug trade.
‘‘It’s this bizarre situation, they have a whole industry of making movies about them, band playing songs about them, even soap operas.’’
The blurring of lines between celebrity and narco culture hit a new high when Sean Penn met with the most famous living narco war lord, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman for an interview with Rolling Stone in 2015.
Grillo says combating the spread of organised crime and drug violence requires a three-pronged approach – drug policy reform, a strong justice system and treating drug addiction as a health issue.