Three men will stand trial over New Zealand's largest Ecstasy haul after police and customs intercepted a BMW gearbox stuffed with 25,000 tablets, and laid an elaborate trap.
Guo Ming Cai, Eric Yuk Chu Lo and Simon Wu were yesterday committed for trial on charges of importing Ecstasy and possessing the class B drug after written depositions presented in the Auckland District Court alleged that the trio were caught red-handed.
Police and customs officials in January raided a Great South Rd motel room where Cai and Lo were found standing over the dismantled gearbox, which had contained an estimated $2.5 million of Ecstasy.
But what Cai and Lo thought were thousands of Ecstasy tablets were placebo pills planted in the gearbox by a senior customs officer after seizing the real consignment on its arrival from Belgium.
Customs officer Bruce Berry had also coated the tablets' plastic packet and the gearbox with a fluorescent dye.
Ultra-violet light subsequently revealed traces of the dye on Cai and Lo's hands and clothing.
The random decision to inspect the gearbox when it arrived at Auckland International Airport on January 15 yielded more than 25,100 terracotta-coloured tablets embossed with a tulip.
An x-ray had showed the gearbox had "a large area of shading inside the bellhousing cavity ... that was consistent with a concealment of a foreign nature."
While police and customs were uncovering the record haul, Cai, Lo and Wu were allegedly making preparations for the arrival of the gearbox.
Motel rooms and a vehicle were hired and paid for with a "thick wad" of $100 notes, and one motelier described the Asian man she dealt with as appearing anxious. "His eyes were wide and darting all around the place," she told police.
Wu allegedly arranged for an Otahuhu panelbeater to unwittingly pose as the package's recipient and for a friend of his to collect it from the airport once it cleared customs.
Unbeknown to the trio, however, Customs officials and police were tracking the gearbox, culminating in raids on the motel room and Wu's home the night the package was collected.
Cai, aged 38, Lo, 41, and Wu, 32, will stand trial in the High Court at Auckland before the end of the year.
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