Students in $7 million P ring trial

Oscar Yu-Cheng Lin and Bowen Xu. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Students from two of Auckland's top schools were involved in an elaborate drug ring, importing ingredients capable of making P worth up to $7 million, a court has heard.

The pair - year 13 students at Rangitoto College and Westlake Boys High at the time of the alleged offending - are accused of importing pseudoephedrine hidden in objects such as a Buddha statue, a metal bollard, table legs and tea-bag packaging.

The parcels, intercepted by Customs, were sent from China, Japan and Korea to North Shore and Onehunga addresses over six months, Crown prosecutors told Auckland District Court last week.

Oscar Yu-Cheng Lin, 20, denies two charges of importing a Class C controlled drug - pseudoephedrine - and one charge of possession for supply. Bowen Xu, 20, denies four charges of importing pseudoephedrine.

The Crown alleges the accused were involved in a venture to import the legal Chinese cold and flu medicine Contac NT - illegal in New Zealand - with the "ultimate intention of it being on sold for the manufacture of methamphetamine".

The court heard the pair were paid up to $1000 for each package sent to New Zealand. The Crown said up to $7m of pure methamphetamine could have been produced from the 100,000 Contac NT capsules that were allegedly intercepted.

Pseudoephedrine is classified as a Class C controlled drug and illegal to import because the drug found in cold and flu medicine is the most important base ingredient used to manufacture P.

Auckland roofer Ryan Louden, 20, gave evidence against his former school friend, Yu-Cheng Lin.

He said the pair met as third formers (Year 9 students) at Rangitoto College. Their friendship petered out but, at the end of their Year 13 studies in 2006, Louden said Yu-Cheng Lin asked if he would receive a package. "I asked what was in it," Louden told the court. "He just said nothing bad and would not tell me. He just said give me a call when the package arrives."

Louden said he received a call from Yu-Cheng Lin about three weeks after the initial conversation, advising "if the package comes just say you weren't expecting it. It's not yours".

The package was detained by Customs and never delivered.

Shih-Hsuen Chin, known as Kevin Chen, said Yu-Cheng Lin met with his group at an inner-city gaming parlour and knew "we could make money through receiving parcels for [a man with name suppression]".

"It started because everyone was in need for money. $1000 for each parcel."

He said the group were told never to sign their own names when accepting parcels and to write "return to post office" and leave the package outside the property before pick-up.

Chen, an engineering student at SAS Institute at Parnell, pleaded guilty to nine charges of importing Contac NT at Auckland District Court a fortnight ago. His co-accused, Yungpeng Nie, also known as Peng Nie, formerly a computer science student at Auckland University now studying homeopathy, pleaded guilty to six charges of importing Contac NT.

Under cross-examination last week, Chen admitted he was expecting some credit at his upcoming sentencing for becoming a Crown witness.

Xu's defence lawyer, John Moroney, told the court another Crown witness was unreliable and had changed his story.

A third Crown witness, former Westlake Boys High student, Yun Tian Liu, 21, said Xu contacted him via MSN computer messages at the end of 2006, asking if he would receive a parcel.