Drug dealers recruiting nightclub pill-pushers
John Silvester
April 11, 2008
DRUG syndicates are offering trusted customers unlimited credit to lure them into becoming large-scale pill-pushers in Melbourne nightclubs, a secret police taskforce has found.
The syndicates are targeting habitual nightclubbers with no criminal records to distribute large quantities of ecstasy and cocaine at clubs in Prahran, South Yarra and the city.
Drug taskforce investigators from Operation Trench last night arrested five men allegedly connected to one of the entrenched syndicates and seized about 5000 pills.
Up to 60 drug detectives last night were conducting a series of co-ordinated raids around Melbourne as part of the eight-month investigation.
A group of detectives intercepted a silver BMW and arrested two men on busy Toorak Road in South Yarra.
In earlier raids they arrested three men with no criminal records and seized 8000 tablets destined for the nightclub market. They have also seized 7000 pills, ecstasy powder and cocaine valued at $130,000.
Operation Trench investigators believe the syndicate, centred in Melbourne's northern suburbs, receives regular shipments of cocaine and ecstasy from international connections.
Police say it has also set up its own local pill production line. Detectives have raided a family home in Thomastown and recovered enough ecstasy powder to make 18,000 pills.
They have traced the syndicate's connections to known organised crime figures with decades of involvement in drug manufacturing and distribution.
The group rents a city hotel room on Saturday nights to supply individuals and its smaller-time distributors to top up supplies during their peak times.
Operation Trench investigators, led by Detective Sergeants Karen Bennett and Tim McKinney, have conducted a series of connected raids over the past four months to disrupt the supply, retail and leadership arms of the cartel.
The head of the drug taskforce, Detective Inspector Steve Smith, said police were finding that young men and women who did not consider themselves professional criminals were being manipulated into becoming large-scale traffickers.
"They don't seem to understand that there are no second chances for people convicted of trafficking a commercial quantity of drugs," he said.
"With asset seizure laws they risk losing all they have and also being sentenced to substantial jail terms."
He said regular drug users often began to buy for friends and eventually became small dealers.
"Once they are trusted they are encouraged to buy larger amounts on consignment. They pay after they have sold their shipment. But if they lose the pills they can find themselves in serious debt to organised crime syndicates," he said.
Inspector Smith said some of those arrested were not aware of the extent of their criminal exposure until they were questioned in an interview room. "By then, of course, it is too late."
Under the system, so-called "clean-skins" buy pills on consignment for $15 and sell them for about $25, giving them a profit of up to $75,000 per large-scale deal.
Inspector Smith said the supply was virtually endless. "It is only a matter of how much they can move."
He said drug traffickers recruited non-criminals because they were not recorded on police intelligence files and were initially harder to detect.
Inspector Smith said the drug taskforce, which has been operating for 16 months, was concentrating on exposing new syndicates that were moving in on the turf of the groups destroyed during the gangland war.
"There is clearly a huge market and criminals will always move into area where they can make large profits. But they are detectable and we have no shortage of targets."
As part of Operation Trench, police arrested three men aged 25, 26 and 32 on January 17. They were charged with trafficking a commercial quantity of ecstasy.
Last night drug taskforce detectives were continuing to raid the homes of key suspects in Melbourne.
