Colombian Drug Cartel Members Disguise as Farmworkers in New Zealand; Drug Traffickers Milk Cows, Feed Pigs to Hide International Operation
An alleged Colombian Drug Cartel in rural Canterbury was exposed after fifty kilograms of cocaine were seized in New Zealand and overseas as the 10-month police investigation dubbed Operation Mist ended with multiple arrests.
Colombian Operated Drug Syndicate in News Zealand
The revelation shocked the authorities as the group did not exhibit the usual drug cartel mold of fast cars, expensive restaurant dinners, and heavy artillery.
According to Stuff, nine individuals were arrested this week in a police operation that exposed a sophisticated drug group that was apparently controlled from Colombia. The Colombians were arrested after hiding drug trafficking modus while working hard on Canterbury farms on valid work visas.
Authorities in New Zealand had a hard time locating the drug traffickers as their lifestyle showed none of the extravagances that were usually associated with drug cartels. The Colombian nationals usually got up early, milked cows, fed pigs, lived in the middle of flat green paddocks next to the area's dusty roads and even drove ordinary cars.
Drug Traffickers Hide Operations in Farms to Avoid Being Detected by Authorities in New Zealand
Based on the report, New Zealand Police said that the farm owners and managers did not have any knowledge of any drug dealing by their foreign employees. The police and fellow workers said that the farmworkers were responsible, trustworthy, and hardworking that is why they did not suspect the Colombians.
Moreover, 34-year-old Felipe Montoya-Ospina, who faced a raft of charges, worked on a large dairy farm in Hororata and shared a small farmhouse with another young man from Colombia.
The man, who shared some information in the condition of anonymity, said that he was shocked to see his housemate arrested on Wednesday. He arrived from Colombia in June and said that Montoya-Ospina lived like an ordinary and reliable farmworker.
"I didn't suspect anything. I never saw him live like a gangster," the housemate of one of the suspects said.
Montoya-Ospina faced eight charges, including allegedly participating in an organized criminal group, attempting to import cocaine, and two charges of supplying cocaine. The 34-year-old Colombian pleaded not guilty and was elected to trial by jury.
Furthermore, the National Organised Crime Group (NOCG) and Customs operation laid more than 60 charges against the nine arrested so far. Further arrests were expected after the arrest of nine individuals. Seven among them were Colombian and one was Argentinian.
The director of NOCG, Detective Superintendent Greg Williams, and New Zealand Customs intelligence service manager Bruce Berry said that the police believed that the group has been operating in New Zealand for around two years.
Williams said that the transnational organized crime groups were specifically targeting New Zealand because the users in the country paid some of the highest wholesale and retail prices for drugs in the world which would result in huge profits.
Williams added that to maximize the profits, the drug groups were inserting their own people into New Zealand who would set up the importing pathways, the distribution to local gangs, and would move the money out of New Zealand as quickly as they could.
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Jess Smith
WATCH: In full: Alleged Colombian cocaine smugglers arrested in New Zealand -nzherald.co.nz
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