Documentary: New Zealand has tried and failed to fix its methamphetamine crisis for 20 years. Now the country is facing a second wave of the epidemic.
Cabinet Minister Casey Costello established an expert group in February to give advice on how government agencies can work better to combat organised crime.
The group’s first report says New Zealand’s drug problem is ‘overwhelming’ and the Government needs to take bold steps.
Final recommendations will be made in September but ‘deficient’ information sharing between government agencies is highlighted as a problem.
New Zealand is “losing the fight” against organised crime and bold changes are needed urgently to tackle the growing threat, according to a sobering report from a group of experts advising the Government.
In recent years, there have been record-breaking drug busts at the border as global crime syndicates– including Mexican cartels and outlaw motorcycle gangs such as the Comancheros – have targeted New Zealand as a small but lucrative market.
But despite more drugs being seized than ever before, the consumption of methamphetamine more than doubled in 2024 to the highest levels recorded in national wastewater testing, as previously revealed by the Herald.
In June last year, just over 15kg of meth was being detected each week. For the next six months, weekly consumption exceeded 29kg and peaked at 39kg in October.
The spike last year was “dire” and showed that police and Customs were “swimming against the tide” despite their best efforts, according to a ministerial advisory group appointed by Cabinet in February.
“Availability of methamphetamine is one indicator that organised crime is thriving in New Zealand. This is sadly having a devastating impact on the lives of many New Zealanders,” the advisory group wrote in its first report in March.
The independent panel is chaired by Steve Symon, a veteran prosecutor and senior partner at law firm Meredith Connell, and reports to Casey Costello, the Customs Minister and Associate Police Minister.
Other members include former senior police officers John Tims and Craig Hamilton, sociologist and gang researcher Dr Jarrod Gilbert, and Owen Loeffellechner, a banking security expert.
“New Zealand is losing the fight against transnational, serious, organised crime. This is not from a lack of will. The people involved, and the agencies they work for, are dedicated and passionate … but current activities are not keeping pace with the accelerated growth of organised crime,” according to the group’s March report.
“Successive Governments have set ambitious targets. There have been endless reports, committees, sub-committees, and working groups talking about these strategies. Despite these efforts, organised crime is worse than ever and continues to grow.”
The ministerial advisory group noted that Costello wants a “step change” in the way government law enforcement and regulatory agencies work, individually and together, to “detect, deter, and dismantle” organised crime groups.
“It will take new ways of thinking, and bold changes, to alter the course for New Zealand.”
More than 500kg of methamphetamine was seized in Northland in Operation Frontia in 2016. It was a record-breaking drug bust but the first of many large-scale importations over the coming years. Photo / Supplied
Since first convening in late February, members of the expert panel have met with government agencies, such as Inland Revenue, the Serious Fraud Office and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
They also met with representatives from banks and other private stakeholders such as New Zealand Post, Auckland Airport, as well as the Salvation Army and gang members.
Consistent themes raised in the discussions were concerns about corruption of “trusted” positions within organisations, as well as violence and intimidation.
Most government agencies recognised they “can do more” to combat organised crime, while the private sector believed it could play a key role but felt excluded from the Government’s strategy.
“Everyone said information sharing is a critical problem,” the advisory group wrote in the March report to Costello.
“Information sharing between government agencies is deficient. In some cases, that is because there are specific legislative barriers. In others, the willingness to share information proactively is due to the culture of organisations,” the advisory group wrote.
“We need to have a mature conversation about the privacy settings which balances the need to combat organised crime effectively, without compromising individual privacy interests.”
As well as improving the sharing of information between agencies, the advisory group said the Government must focus on the financing of organised crime.
While the current anti-money laundering system provided a reasonable framework, the expert group said it could be made stronger.
“Organised crime is all about money. Therefore, organised crime’s biggest vulnerability is money. Like any business, removing cashflow and other financial resources means it will fail,” the advisory group wrote.
“This requires much stronger involvement of a wider range of regulatory agencies and private sector players such as banks and other financial institutions.”
Drugs and cash seized following an investigation into a Mexican cartel operating in Auckland in 2023. Targeting the finances of organised crime is essential, says a ministerial advisory group. Photo / NZ Police
Over the next six months, the ministerial advisory group will issue a series of reports to focus on different problems but also make recommendations as practical solutions.
“New Zealand needs to act, and act with urgency,” the group wrote in the March report.
Symon told the Herald the goal of the advisory group’s first report was to explain the threat posed by organised crime to New Zealand.
“We don’t think the public realise how bad it is. We’re not talking about the future, we’re talking right now,” Symon said.
“Everyone we speak to, from veteran police officers to staff at the Salvation Army and [addiction clinic] Odyssey House, are saying the same thing: ‘This is different, we haven’t seen this before’.”
The experienced prosecutor compared the risk of organised crime to the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It seems like it’s crept up on us. Suddenly, there’s this big threat in the community but we don’t know how great the harm will be. But it’s there.”
Responding to the threat might mean the advisory group makes some “aggressive” recommendations to the Government in future reports, Symon said.
“Being bold is the only way to stem the tide.”
Costello, who was a senior detective in a former life, told the Herald she established the advisory group because she was already aware of a “disconnect” between government agencies from her own experience in running private investigations into migrant labour exploitation in recent years.
“At an operational level, there is really good co-operation at the grassroots. Everyone just wants to get on with the job,” said Costello.
“But further up the food chain, we’re putting barriers in front of ourselves. Sometimes it’s justified. Sometimes it’s [lack of] resourcing. But a lot of the time it’s ‘we can’t share information because we can’t share information’. And nobody’s challenged it.”
Costello said government agencies needed to co-operate closely with one another, just like organised crime groups do, and there was a “strong appetite” from the coalition Government to make it happen.
“This is big business. Billions of dollars are being dragged out of the economy, so we have to operate like [organised crime figures] do: we have to be nimble, resilient and pivot quickly to make it as hard as possible for them to do business.
“These guys are out there dining at the best restaurants, driving the best cars, living in the best houses. But most of the public wouldn’t realise the scale of the harm they’re having in our communities.”
As well as the wastewater testing that shows consumption of meth doubled last year, New Zealand’s drug problem is starkly represented in the quantities seized at the border.
Ten years ago, Customs seized nearly 55kg in methamphetamine over the entire year.
In 2024, Customs stopped an average of 90kg every single week.
“In the past, there was a clear impact on consumption following major seizures, but this is no longer the case,” the ministerial advisory group wrote in March.
“That means we are not stopping enough to affect the market.”
In the past, New Zealand was seen as a small drug market but increasingly lucrative. A kilogram of meth, worth just a few thousand dollars in Southeast Asia or Mexico, can command $100,000 to $150,000 here currently.
These profits attracted the attention of global organised crime groups such as Mexican cartels, Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs such as the Comancheros and Mongols, as well as Asian drug syndicates.
“These groups and individuals are bringing new expertise, access to global networks, and a greater willingness to use intimidation, firearms and other violence, and coercion to achieve their ends,” the ministerial advisory group wrote.
There was a correlation between New Zealand’s main trading routes and “crime corridors”, the advisory group wrote, with the Pacific Islands increasingly being used as a gateway.
The involvement of sophisticated crime networks with control of commercial-scale drug laboratories overseas is reflected in a string of record-breaking busts in New Zealand.
For many years, the largest shipment of meth found in New Zealand was 95kg in 2006.
Operation Major dwarfed every other seizure for the next decade and was seen as an outlier until 501kg was found near Ninety Mile Beach in 2016.
Since then, seizures of more than 500kg have become almost routine. The current record of 713kg was found inside maple syrup bottles shipped from Canada in early 2023.
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland and Gangster’s Paradise.
