Reghan William Shaw Laurie, 24, was sentenced to seven months’ home detention when he appeared before the Dunedin District Court yesterday on three counts of being a party to drug importation.
Judge Emma Smith accepted he played a "limited" role in the crimes as a catcher, but the scale of the enterprise was huge.
Across only six weeks, New Zealand and US Customs seized more than $4 million of party drugs concealed in various products.
Anthony Kane Hawker, 31 — who was jailed for four years yesterday — said he had been approached by an associate and lured into his role as catcher with an offer of $2000 a parcel.
He said he knew the situation was "dodgy", but then enlisted the help of Laurie.
On February 12 last year, Laurie appeared in the Otago Daily Times after being awarded a postgraduate research scholarship by ACC worth $7500-$15,000.
The University of Otago psychology masters student’s research focused on farmers and the mental health system.
Nine days later, he was arrested in Queenstown.
Judge Smith described him as a "man of incredibly good character and disposition", a reputation which had now been ruined by his involvement in "highly serious offending".
In January last year, police and Customs launched "Operation Unit" after picking up on a boom in the flow of controlled drugs to the region.
Intercepted communications from an encrypted messaging service on Hawker’s phone shed light on the criminal syndicate’s hierarchy.
"BUGATTII II" was referred to as "boss" in the messages, and another codenamed "BRX3" also sat above the defendants in the chain of command.
Their identities were never discovered.
The two anonymous handlers would monitor the status of packages once they had cleared Customs and arrange for collection by the defendants.
A parcel listed as "light manual clamping machine" was sent from Le Mans, France, destined for a "Stuart Yates" at a St Clair business.
On January 21 last year, Customs examined the contents and discovered nearly 6kg of ecstasy inside the hollowed-out rectangular devices.
If broken down into smaller quantities, the haul was worth a potential $1.2m.
Police had their lead, and Customs identified another parcel which had been delivered to a Dunedin nail salon the same month.
Laurie picked it up from the business and, less than an hour later, posted it to an unknown Auckland address.
The syndicate’s message thread, viewed by police, appeared to show BRX3’s unease that Hawker had brought in another catcher.
"This is your job you gave to someone else on the low," he wrote. "And I get killed for you if it goes wrong."
The rest of the police operation followed a similar pattern.
When Customs seized a drug-laden package, they would search for previous consignments to or from those parties, which led them to other shipments that had slipped the net.
Authorities in Kentucky examined one suspicious parcel from Germany, which was heading to a Mosgiel address.
Inside an exercise slam ball was 3.6kg of class-C ketamine with a street value of $792,000.
They removed the drugs and allowed the package to continue to its destination where Hawker picked it up.
Across the four interceptions, $3,365,600 of ecstasy was seized, plus the ketamine in the US.
Five further packages, which also resulted in charges, contained unknown quantities of illicit substances.
Hawker’s counsel Ethan Huda highlighted his client’s contrition, said he had various mental health difficulties and had been homeless at 16.
The judge acknowledged the "atrocities" of the defendant’s upbringing.
"It’s highly unlikely he’ll ever find himself in the dock again," Mr Huda said.
For Laurie, Paige Noorland stressed he had undertaken community work and counselling since his arrest.
The defendant had "high aspirations" and had dedicated great energy to his studies, she said.
Judge Smith, however, declined an application for permanent name suppression to protect his employment prospects, saying it fell well short of meeting the required threshold.
