Glen Dobson: Drug Detection Agency CEO on the exponential increase in seized drugs at the border

Drug traffickers have their eyes on New Zealand as Customs deals with a massive influx in border seizures. 

A Cabinet paper shows the volume of intercepted drugs more than quadrupled between 2018 and 2024, going from 1.5 to 6.5 tonnes. 

Drug Detection Agency Chief Executive Glen Dobson told Ryan Bridge officials are stepping up.  

He says we're being actively targeted by organised crime groups, and recommends greater cross-agency consultation.  

But Dobson says greater seizures are also a success. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the supply chain for drugs apparently quite a lot
more resilient than oil. Huge drug halls are being caught
at Auckland Airport. Numbers have quadrupled between twenty eighteen and
twenty twenty four, from one point five to six and
a half tons. That's at Auckland Airport alone. And the
Customs Minister Casey Costello has revealed for the first time
that the nine weeks of this first nine weeks of

(00:22):
this year, more than twelve tons of cocaine has been
intercepted in the Pacific. Glenn Dobson is with the Drug
Detection Agency, the chief executive there. Glenn, good morning, Yeah,
good morning, right, So lots of it's still coming through.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, look there is, and it shouldn't be a surprise
to us. I guess won't tell us two things. It
tells us that the scale is increasing. But the good
thing is also secondly that the border agencies are get
better detecting it all.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Does it mean that we are getting I mean, is
it the tip of the iceberg that we are getting?
So if we're seeing six and a half tons that
have been intercepted, does that mean we're going to have
you know, sixty tons that aren't.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, that potential. What it's certainly showing is that, and
the paper outlines as well, is that New Zealand's definitely
been equally actively targeted by the organized crime groups of
the scale. But it also shows that, as the paper
recommends closer consultation between the agencies, that greater seizures also
means that they're starting to get some great successes as well,

(01:23):
which we want to keep working on as a country.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
They're coming from some odd places, like there was a
spake there last year. I don't know if it's still
happening now. They're coming in through the airport from Canada.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, Canada. It's funny enough. Canada isn't an unusual place
for drugs to come through on a global supplied network.
Often they'll move in all sorts of places to make
it look less obvious where the original destination is from,
and Canada is a known country for the global supply
of drugs.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Do you think this Ministerial Advisory Group is actually going
to make changes, like is it going to have an
effect that means that we have less drugs that they
therefore become more expensive in New Zealand?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, I mean, look, I think what this paper shows
is that we as a country and the government start
to step up, but the reality is that there isn't
a single solution. We need enforcement, we need protection, but
we also need to reduce demand, and that's one of
the big things. As long as there's a high demand,
the supply will keep coming. So that's where the community
resilience side of the paper really steps up, and that's

(02:27):
where every person in this country needs to step up
to try and reduce that demand.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
In your work, what type of drugs are people are
you finding that people are using?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, from the Drug Detection Agencies perspective, we released a
quarterly reports a couple months ago and we saw a
huge increase in cocaine across the country. We see the
same strong usages of methamphetamine, and both of those drugs
that we're seeing increases and strong use in are also
mirrored in the recent government the steps as well, So

(03:01):
certainly we're seeing a strong use of both those drugs.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Appreciate your time, Swaning Glenn. Thank you. Glenn Dobson. Drug
Detection Agencies.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
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