Chris Wilkins: Massey University drug researcher suspects meth-laced lollies came from Mexican cartels

Auckland police have recovered more meth-laced lollies overnight, and are investigating a report someone tried to sell one.

The fake Rinda pineapple sweets were donated to Auckland City Mission - which unwittingly distributed them in food parcels.

Police have retrieved another 13 since yesterday, bringing the total to 29.

Massey University's Professor Chris Wilkins suspects Mexican cartels may have been behind this incident.

"The Mexican cartels are particularly innovative and have expertise in smuggling, because they have been, for many decades, transporting drugs across the borders of the US." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now it turns out that someone's rigidly allegedly tried to
sell one of those meth lollies on Facebook marketplace. Already
the cops are investigating that. So far, they've managed to
find twenty nine of the lollies and they're still trying
to recover the remainder that are out there. Chris Wilkins
is a massive university drug researcher.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey Chris, hi there, how are you going?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well? Thank you? Now, why do you reckon that they've
come from a Mexican drug cartel?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I mean it's all just speculation. I mean, I'm
just putting together a few pieces of the puzzle. So
in Australia they had some very large sieges of liquid
metham fetamine in the last six months, and they've done
some analysis and they're saying that seventy percent of their
methamphetamine now comes from Mexico, Canada or the US as

(00:45):
opposed to the more traditional markets in Southeast Asia.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Apparently the Mecans like putting their drugs in food, Is
that right?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah? Well, I think the Mexican cartels are particularly innovative
and have experts and smuggling because they have been for
many decades transporting drugs across the border to the US,
and of course that is incredibly challenging and US drug
enforcement is very diligent. So they've been involved in that

(01:17):
kind of thing for a while, and that there's been
some really maintaintly innovative techniques used of converting metha and
feed amount into liquid, impregnating it in all types of
different products, and then when it gets to the destination,
they break down the products and get the met out again.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
And so how does it then end up at the
Oakland City Mission.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, that's another bit of a mystery. So I'd say,
I mean, it's pretty clear that what's happened here is
has been some breakdown in terms of so a cartel
or a drug smuggling organization usually gets what they call
a catcher who's just beyond the border and they intercept

(01:59):
that product and then take it out of circulation and
take it back to the gang. And looks like there've
been some kind of breakdown in terms of that person
hunting down this package and taken out of circulation or
you know, or alternatively, it's just just literally ended up
in some household, and those people that live in that

(02:20):
house so I don't realize what that product is.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Because there was another theory which was positive. That was
positive rather, and that is that actually it might have
been taken there deliberately in order to be sold to
people there, but somehow it's ended up being mistaken for
what it actually is.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I mean, who knows. I mean, we can speculate kind
of all day. I would say that would be less
likely because honestly, I can't really see why you'd need
to go to all that trouble.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, and belkably, when you're getting it sold, like if
you're going to sell it to somebody, you're not selling
it in lolly form, right, You're selling it in whatever
powerful or whatever it normally comes in.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, that's right. So the concealing it in those packages
and the legitimate products is really just for the process
of moving it across the border. But once you've got
it across the border, then you want to because as
has been already been covered, it's quite highly concentrated methamphetamine
and there's three grams of that in one product, and

(03:22):
at retail level, that's not how you sell methm fedamine.
You sell it an zero point one gram kind of points, right,
and that's two or three hits, so you wouldn't really
sell like three grams and a big lump like that.
So they tend to get quite concentrated because you want
to concentrate as much drug into the smallest package to

(03:45):
reduce the likelihood that that's going to be detected and
taken out of circulation. And then once you get it
over the border, you take it out of the product
and you dilute it again and make it into essentially
the retail saleable amount.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Chris, how much is a three gram chunk of the
stuff worth?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well? Unfortunately, prices of myth have been declining in New
Zealand for a number of years, so now it's something
around three hundred and fifty dollars a gram, so about
one thousand dollars probably. Well, I suppose you.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Can see why they're trying to sell it on the
old Facebook marketplace. And hey, thank you, Chris, really appreciate
your time. That's Chris Wilkins, Massive University drug Researcher. For
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