'ISO' MAN EXPOSED - Dairy owner claims set-up

A Moerewa dairy owner is feeling the heat after being caught selling ingredients to make the drug P in an undercover sting that screened on national television news.
Along with neighbouring dairy owner Mahesh Patel, Nick Patel of Moerewa Four Square was fingered for selling substances that can be used for making the drug methamphetamine, or P.
Nick Patel claims he was set up and harangued by a news team who confronted him in his shop after an undercover buyer purchased isopropyl alcohol and other items.
The day after Monday night's expose on TV One, posters went up in both shops saying isopropyl alcohol would no longer be sold there. The shop owners were also sending their remaining stock back to the distributor.
Sometimes called "rubbing oil", isopropanol is commonly used as a cleaning fluid, paint thinner, anti-freeze, cooling agent, disinfectant, even a white-board or CD cleaner. It is also a key ingredient for making cannabis oil.
Mr Patel is adamant he did nothing illegal in selling the chemical, which is widely and legally available throughout New Zealand. He also rejects claims he should check buyers' identities.
"Do you have to have an ID for a cleaning product?" he said. "When the customer buys a product you don't ask what they want to do with it."
But Mr Patel did not look good on television. In reply to a request from the hidden camera-carrying actor, he said he could not sell larger quantities of "iso" because it would attract police suspicion.
Storekeepers are encouraged by police and anti-methamphetamine protocols not to stock large amounts. They are also expected to let the police know if someone buys large quantities or is suspected of making drugs.
Mr Patel claims he was referring to that understanding when he told the undercover buyer that stocking larger amounts would attract police suspicion. "I told the guy in the sting I encourage my customers to buy in bulk, but that I couldn't supply bulk isopropyl alcohol."
Mr Patel said he had a habit of joking with his customers and what was meant to be a "putting off" comment had been twisted.
In a second news segment shown last night Mr Patel told the reporter he knew people bought the substance for drug-making.
But yesterday he told The Northern Advocate he had been brow-beaten into saying that. "She asked a hundred times if I knew the customer wanted to make drugs. I said no every time and then finally said yes to get her out of my shop."
Mr Patel said he was shaken after the news item screened but had been cheered by support from townsfolk.
He was now worried that because of the bad publicity Foodstuffs would take his Four Square brand off him. He also said he felt physically ill. "I am afraid I might not survive this. I need people's support to get through this terrible thing.
"I'm a good citizen. I never have been and never will be a person who supports drug manufacturing or anything that is harmful to the community."
Northland-based former detective Mike Sabin, who set up the anti-drug education consultancy Methcon, said he believed that although the multi-use isopropyl alcohol was not illegal or restricted, it was not an item the average person would buy often.