Hong Kong triads are working with some of New Zealand's most notorious crime gangs to cash in on the country's growing methamphetamine business.
Organised crime groups the 14K, Sun Yee On, Water Room, and Big Circle Gang all have a presence in the country and most recently gangsters from Fujian have become prominent. They work with New Zealand's most powerful organised crime groups, the Headhunters and Hells Angels, buying and selling the addictive hyper-stimulant.
Police in New Zealand say indigenous gangs saw the profits to be made from methamphetamine and realised they needed contacts to buy the drug, or its main ingredient, pseudoephedrine, from a source country like the mainland. Quickly, Asian organised crime groups became crucial players in the drug trade and over time their international links made them the real power brokers.
'Commodity is power,' Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Cahill, of the Auckland Metro Crime Squad told The New Zealand Herald. 'The Asians have the commodity. So they have control.'
New Zealand police say Hong Kong's 14K gang is the most powerful Asian crime group in the country. 'The money is on another scale. For police, it's the money in the Asian crime that has stunned us,' Cahill said. 'Young guys driving around in NZ$100,000 (HK$564,000) cars, 18- to 22-year-olds with NZ$20,000 cash in their pockets. An apartment with NZ$1 million in it. That sort of money.'
The indigenous and incoming criminal groups work together as one network in the best interests of business. 'There's plenty of business to go around. No one is fighting over territory, it's bad for business. Nothing attracts more attention than violent crime,' Cahill said.