Cocaine swoop caps lengthy watch

By TONY WALL and NAOMI LARKIN

Police yesterday swooped on a boat and visited properties around the country as they lifted the lid on an 18-month surveillance that helped to bust one of New Zealand's biggest drugs syndicates.

Officers and customs agents had worked with their Australian colleagues to track two New Zealanders said to be at the heart of an international cocaine cartel.

The operation paid dividends on Tuesday morning when Australian police pounced on the New Zealand yacht Ngaire Wha as it docked at Broken Bay north of Sydney.

Officers found 15 bales of cocaine weighing 500kg and with a street value of up to $286 million.

Two of the seven people arrested were New Zealanders: Hamish Edmond Thompson, aged 46, and Sir (his Christian name) Thomas Graham Fry, 47.

The Herald has learned that both men visited South America last year.

Yesterday, Gisborne police searched the schooner Lonebird, owned by Fry. It has been moored between fishing boats on the Gisborne wharf since Fry left New Zealand.

Police were reluctant to give details of the overall operation, but it appears a boat loaded with the cocaine left South America last month bound for New Zealand, and was tracked across the Pacific by satellite.

It met the Ngaire Wha in New Zealand waters, the drugs were transferred and the ketch set sail for Australia on January 17.

Every new piece of technology in the Australian Customs Service's arsenal was used to track the Ngaire Wha, including a $A20 million surveillance centre in Sydney.

New Zealand police say they were involved in the operation from the start.

Asked if undercover work was required, national crime manager Detective Superintendent Bill Bishop said: "We won't talk of specifics of how we gained our intelligence as that could damage any edge we might have."

Further arrests were possible, he said.

A couple living in a house in Panama Rd, Mt Wellington, told the Herald last night that a detective from Otahuhu had visited about two or three months ago looking for Fry.

The house-owner, who did not wish to be named, said Fry had lived at the house with three other people for most of 1998.

Fry was away for about eight weeks during the year and told the landlord he had bought an old boat in Nelson that he was doing up.

He planned to have it available for charter during the America's Cup and Sydney Olympics.