Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Drug and Organised Crime Unit Superintendent Lee Morgan says a $1.5 million cocaine bust is the biggest he’s aware of in the NT

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Drug and Organised Crime Unit Superintendent Lee Morgan says a $1.5 million cocaine bust is the biggest he’s aware of in the NT · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: But we know that two men of face court over
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: what the Northern Territory Police says one of the biggest
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: drug bus So the pair, aged forty one and forty two,
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  Speaker 1: facing a string of charges after police seized three kilos
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  Speaker 1: of cocaine worth one point five million dollars, as well
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  Speaker 1: as six kilograms of cannabis and around two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in cash. Now joining me to tell
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  Speaker 1: us a little bit more about the situation is Superintendent
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Lee Morgan from Drug and Organized Crime. Good morning to you.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Superintendent tell us a little bit more about when
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  Speaker 1: police sort of started monitoring these two blokes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so in late April, we received the phone call
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  Speaker 2: from Nie south Wall's Police who let us know that
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  Speaker 2: a gentleman they'd been looking at in New South Wealth
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  Speaker 2: for a couple of months he'd made his way to
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  Speaker 2: Darwin and they thought we might want to have a
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  Speaker 2: look at him. So we conducted some preliminary investigation did
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  Speaker 2: in relation into this chap which led us to get
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more interested and the end result is
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  Speaker 2: three killers of cocaine and a couple hundred thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 1: To put that three kilos of cocaine into perspective, I
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  Speaker 1: suppose for people like me who don't know a huge
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  Speaker 1: amount about drugs, like, you know, how many people or
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  Speaker 1: how much would that.
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  Speaker 3: Sort of mean if it was out on the street.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's I mean, cocaine roughly in the territory
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  Speaker 2: cells for about five hundred dollars a gram, So that's
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  Speaker 2: where the one point five million dollars of value comes from.
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  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of street level deals. We don't
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  Speaker 2: know whether cocaine was destined for was it going to
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  Speaker 2: be larger deals street level deals, But what we do
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  Speaker 2: know is the use of illicit substances is a massive
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  Speaker 2: driver for street level crime, and taking three killers of
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  Speaker 2: cocaine off the street will hopefully impact on the crime
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  Speaker 2: statistics and keep the community a little bit safer.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think we talk so much about alcohol
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  Speaker 1: as we should and the different drivers there. But the
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  Speaker 1: fact is there is still big issues around the North
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  Speaker 1: Territory when it comes to drugs.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't that absolutely okay? I mean I've worked across the
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  Speaker 2: territory Greed Island, Ella Springs and the misuse of a
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  Speaker 2: list of substances in those communities, is really horrible to
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  Speaker 2: see and the impact that has on the children is massive.
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  Speaker 1: Now tell me how did you uncover the drugs or
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  Speaker 1: are you able to say that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I can talk a little bit about it. So,
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  Speaker 2: once we realized that this forty one year old male
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  Speaker 2: was involved in something that he probably shouldn't be, we
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  Speaker 2: monitored his movements through a number of techniques which I
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  Speaker 2: won't go into for his reasons, but it enabled us
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  Speaker 2: to get a pretty good idea of where he was going,
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  Speaker 2: what he was doing. You know, he made some purchases
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  Speaker 2: that were quite suspicious. Then we were able to monitor
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  Speaker 2: his movements as he tried to bury something on the
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  Speaker 2: East Lannard. You know, a short time later we found
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  Speaker 2: his secret stash far out.
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  Speaker 3: So it's trying to bury bury them, Yeah, yeah, clearly.
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  Speaker 2: I mean I suggest he was going to bury it
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  Speaker 2: just for safe storage overnight, probably go back and get
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  Speaker 2: it the next day. But fortunately we're in a position
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  Speaker 2: to get it. Sure you get back to it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, good on you guys.
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  Speaker 1: Phenomenal work really by the Northern Territory Police and buy
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  Speaker 1: the Drug and Organized Crime Crew. Tell me how significant
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  Speaker 1: really is a bust like this? Is it? One?
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  Speaker 3: Of the biggest that you've seen in the territory.
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  Speaker 2: So I've been in placing twenty five years. I'm not
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  Speaker 2: going to claim it is the biggest one, because there's
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  Speaker 2: always something out that you don't know about. But in
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  Speaker 2: my time, as far as the schedule one substance like
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  Speaker 2: the cocaines and the heroins, the harder drugs, this is
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  Speaker 2: the biggest seizure that I'm aware of. At least someone
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  Speaker 2: wants to educate me otherwise. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Then, and so, in addition obviously to what had happened
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  Speaker 1: to long the Esplanade, there was also a situation as
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  Speaker 1: part of all of this where you then execute the
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  Speaker 1: search warrant at a property out at Howard Springs and
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  Speaker 1: that was where you got the cannabis.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so we know the forty one year old male
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  Speaker 2: visited address at Howard Springs weekend. Then conductors some further
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  Speaker 2: inquiries which led us through a search warring out there
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more cocaine, some cannabse and cash.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: Pretty phenomenal stuff.
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  Speaker 1: But I guess it shows as well how important it
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  Speaker 1: is to work with the police from other jurisdictions and
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  Speaker 1: to have that cross border sort.
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  Speaker 3: Of cooperation absolutely, Catie.
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  Speaker 2: I mean this investigation was primarily conducted by a joint
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  Speaker 2: Organized Crime Task Force which also consists of the Australian
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  Speaker 2: Federal Police Border Force ACIC and Officer Home Affairs. So
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  Speaker 2: that's the collaborative team that works together all the time.
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  Speaker 2: But then when New South Wales fed that information in,
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  Speaker 2: historically police of them been great at sharing information. This
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  Speaker 2: just goes to show how successful it can be when
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  Speaker 2: any information is shared in a time in yeah.
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  Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I know you can't go into obviously that surveillance
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  Speaker 1: too much, but lock had just sort of seen him
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  Speaker 1: trying to on sell drugs or that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 2: No, there's a lot of unknowns yet in this one's
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  Speaker 2: deal for this type of seizure is normally the result
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  Speaker 2: of a longer term investigation to get a seizure of
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  Speaker 2: three kilograms after a couple of days. Whilst it's great
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  Speaker 2: to get these drugged off the street, it does leads
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  Speaker 2: and questions asked as to where was it going, where
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  Speaker 2: was it what was his intentions with it? But the
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  Speaker 2: important thing is we got off the streets.
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  Speaker 1: Now, what is the message for the community following on
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  Speaker 1: from an arrest.
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  Speaker 3: Like this, So.
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  Speaker 2: Police can only act on information that we have. We
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  Speaker 2: don't know everything. We continually encourage people to report suspicious behavior,
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  Speaker 2: and we cannot talk enough about the damage that drugs
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  Speaker 2: do on the streets. So you know, unfortunately, I've worked
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  Speaker 2: in the major crime area dealing with death as a
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  Speaker 2: result of drugs, talking to families who have suffered a
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  Speaker 2: child or a brother or sister in this dying as
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  Speaker 2: a result of drug use. We can't push that message enough.
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  Speaker 2: Please just stay away from the stuff and report anything
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  Speaker 2: that you can do.
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  Speaker 1: You reckon, We're seeing and I don't know whether this
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  Speaker 1: is the case or not, but do you reckon? We
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  Speaker 1: are seeing sort of an increase in drug use amongst
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  Speaker 1: young people as well, or you know, can you say
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  Speaker 1: anecdotally even.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I can only speak from my own personal experience,
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  Speaker 2: like Katie, we don't have real statistics to back this up,
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  Speaker 2: but you know it's from my time growing up. You
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  Speaker 2: see more kids turning to things like ecstasy. It's a
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  Speaker 2: lot cheap, forty dollars for a pill and spend two
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  Speaker 2: hundred dollars an holcohol on a night out. So it
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  Speaker 2: has grown over the last twenty years from what I've seen,
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  Speaker 2: and it's really quite sad because two hundred dollars is
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  Speaker 2: an expensive not on alcohol, but a forty dollars pill
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  Speaker 2: could be the end of your life.
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  Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And it's funny. Back when I was
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  Speaker 3: in high.
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  Speaker 1: School, which is a long time ago, Lee, there was
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  Speaker 1: like there was actually quite a bit of education about
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  Speaker 1: that education about the unknowns of taking some of those
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  Speaker 1: different drugs. And I don't know whether that still happens.
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  Speaker 1: I'm assuming that it does to some degree, but I
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  Speaker 1: think it's really important that young people do have a
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  Speaker 1: good understanding of what some of these illicit substances can
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  Speaker 1: actually do to them.
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  Speaker 2: That's absolutely Cadie. I mean, what we don't know a
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  Speaker 2: lot of the time is where these drugs come from.
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  Speaker 2: They're manufactured in shed in backyards in really undesirable places,
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  Speaker 2: and they're made up of all sorts of things, you know,
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  Speaker 2: various chemicals that you would never ever put into your body.
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  Speaker 2: If you knew what was in that pill, you wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: take it. Yeah, and it only takes one bad mix
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  Speaker 2: to in somebody's life.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, spot on.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Superintendent Lee Morgan from Drug and Organized Crime, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: just before I go, do we know what those men's
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  Speaker 1: charges are at the moment, what they've been charged with,
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  Speaker 1: or are you still working through all that.
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  Speaker 2: Possess commercial quantities of drugs supply. Yeah, I couldn't rattle
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  Speaker 2: them off off the tophead, but yeah, no.
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  Speaker 3: I appreciated.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be, particularly when you look at the
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  Speaker 1: value and the know how much they had. Basically, Lee Morgan,
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  Speaker 1: really appreciate your time this morning. Thanks so much for
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: coming in and having your chat with us.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me Katie, Thank you