KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's largest drugs bust foiled a plot to flood the country with enough methamphetamine to supply a hit for every person in Auckland.
Six men are accused of executing an elaborate plan to smuggle $135 million worth of drugs into the country in plastic boxes secreted in
tins of green paint.
The men were arrested in May 2006 after a joint police and customs investigation which also seized tens ofthousands of dollars in cash and loaded guns including a military-style rifle, pistols and a pen gun banned in New Zealand.
The men - Ming Chin Chen, Guo Wei Deng, Li Fan, Kin Kwok Leung, Wei Feng Pan and Yong Lei Zhang - have pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges and are defending them at a trial expected to last a further month in the High Court at Auckland.
The crown case is that the drug shipments came into the country from China within days of each other.
One contained 95kg of crystal methamphetamine and the other had 154kg of pseudoephedrine, a substance that can be used to make methamphetamine.
Detective Sergeant Scott Steedman, who led the inquiry dubbed Operation Major, said the pseudoephedrine could have made 30-40kg of methamphetamine, also called P.
It was hidden in plastic blocks secreted in the bottom of cans of green paint. Mr Steedman said the drugs were discovered after every tin was individually removed from the container.
They were hidden so well when they were screened by sophisticated x-rays at Customs they were not noticed. It was only when investigators probed into the tin that theyrealised that the "bottom 100ml was solid".
The arrests came after the police left a car in St Lukes shopping centre carpark with 19 packages of a placebo meant to look like methamphetamine inside - and a 20th package containing 50 grams of real crystal methamphetamine that was laced with a marking powder and an electrical device that let off a signal when the bag was open.
A jury this week heard the first details of a police operation, the "controlled delivery phase" of methamphetamine on May 22, 2006.
Just after 3pm a police officer parked a grey Toyota Corolla in the St Lukes carpark.
The officer - a detective with the Auckland drug squad - got out and put the car key under the front-right-wheel arch and walked off. An Asian man approached soon after and drove away.
Police followed the car to a Kohimarama Rd address and executed a search warrant, kicking the front door down and allegedly finding the methamphetamine, cash and loaded guns.
Two of the accused men - Guo Wei Deng and Li Fan - were inside. Deng was allegedly found in the living room while Li was in an upstairs bedroom.
Mr Steedman told the court a rifle had been found, wrapped in a bedspread, in the garage but other guns were found inside, including a revolver and a small pen gun.
"All the firearms were in working order, capable of firing."
The rifle, a military-style semiautomatic, had also been modified to be able to fire on fully automatic.
Mr Steedman said $50,000 was also found in a shopping bag in the corner of the room while a money counter was also discovered.
THE BUST
* 95kg of crystal methamphetamine worth $95m was found hidden in paint tins imported from the Chinese port of Shekou.
* 154kg of pseudoephedrine was found in a separate shipment that could have made a further 40kg of methamphetamine.
* The drugs were intercepted by police who, with customs officials, set up a "controlled delivery" of real and fake methamphetamine.
* Police tracked two of the accused to a Kohimarama Rd house where they allegedly found methamphetamine, cash and loaded guns.
* The drugs bust was the largest of its kind in New Zealand.
