WELLINGTON: An Auckland man has been convicted of smuggling more pseudoephedrine into New Zealand than anybody else.
Hui Zhang disguised nearly 400kg of the drugs needed to make methamphetamine as “bread crumbs” from China destined for an Auckland restaurant, which he used as a hub to distribute through his network across the city.
At the beginning of the trial in June, the 44-year-old admitted 34 pseudoephedrine supply charges as “simply a link in the chain” but denied the three more serious charges of importation.
But after deliberating for two weeks, the jury found him guilty of smuggling two shipments of Class B drugs – totalling 392kg – although acquitted him of a third importation of 91kg hidden inside a water cylinder despite his fingerprints being found inside the sealed container.
Zhang now faces a prison sentence likely to be longer than the 13 years and eight months recently given to Van Thanh Tran, who admitted smuggling a 250kg shipment after being targeted in Operation Ghost.
Tran and Zhang were at the top of their respective syndicates dealing pseudoephedrine, once the active ingredient in New Zealanders’ favourite cold and flu medicines, but now illegal as an ingredient to cook P. Despite running their networks independently, and with no evidence of any contact between them, Zhang and Tran shared the services of a “delivery man” Ziyang Ma who would courier parcels on their instructions.
Pseudoephedrine is extracted from a medicine in China called ContacNT. Fingerprints belonging to Zhang led police to the restaurant in Auckland, which cannot be named, where a covert camera captured drug deals in the carpark.
Photographs show Lulu Zhang, who worked at the restaurant, passing a bag holding parcels to Guo Pei Chen sitting in a car. The Crown case was Lulu Zhang controlled the supply on Hui Zhang’s behalf, when he was out of the country, while Chen was a dealer who purchased drugs from the syndicate.
