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baraka
Registered: 07/15/00
Posts: 10,768
Loc: hyperspace
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
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Big LSD Bust Threatens Party
#2127454 - 11/21/03 01:03 PM (20 years, 4 months ago) |
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http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,237786-1-7,00.html
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Nov 21, 2003
The future of a popular South Island dance party is in doubt following a police drug bust.
Detectives claim they have cracked an international syndicate importing large quantities of LSD.
And among eight arrests are two directors from the Alpine Unity dance festival, which is held near Christchurch in January.
The arrests were part of a five-month electronic surveillance operation called Operation Syrup, involving authorities in New Zealand, the United States and Canada.
Police raided a Christchurch house and say they found equipment which is used to make synthetic drugs.
LSD tablets thought to be worth about a quarter of a million dollars were seized earlier this week.
"These folk were intent on bringing into New Zealand LSD in particular, but they also face a number of charges in relation to supplying cocaine, Ecstasy, methamphetimine and other drugs like that," the Wellington District Crime Manager, Detective Inspector Harry Quinn, told ONE News.
Three people were released on bail in Wellington District Court following their arrest as part of the international drug investigation.
Bail was granted to a 35-year-old New Zealand man, a 25-year-old American man and a 21-year-old Canadian woman.
They have all been required to surrender their passports.
A 22-year-old New Zealand man is in custody and is expected to apply for bail next week.
The four face 38 charges relating to the importation and supply of LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy.
Three other people have appeared in court in Christchurch and an eighth has appeared in Manukau.
The two Alpine Unity directors, Tael Smolski and David Brennan, are based in Auckland and are charged with importing and supplying LSD.
And now their event is in doubt. Rhombus is supposed to be the headline act at Alpine Unity, but the manager of the Wellington band says the event is up in the air.
"It's a shame as we've been approached by others to perform over New Years' and had to turn them down," Koa Williams told ONE News.
"We were expecting to get a deposit around the first week of December... now the future is uncertain," Williams said.
Quinn said that the extent of the impact of the arrests on Alpine Unity remains to be seen.
So far around 1,000 tickets have been sold.
Capital shop and ticket vendor Hunters And Collectors say they have had a lot of calls from ticket buyers wondering where they stand.
But organisers seem determined the party will go on.
In a statement released on Friday afternoon, an Alpine Unity spokesperson said they had been busy contacting sponsors to allay their concerns, and they say the event will still go ahead.
-------------------- This is the only time I really feel alive.
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ZippoZ
Knomadic
Registered: 06/17/03
Posts: 13,227
Loc: Pongyang, North Korea
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Re: Big LSD Bust Threatens Party [Re: baraka]
#2128823 - 11/22/03 06:49 AM (20 years, 4 months ago) |
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"Three people were released on bail in Wellington District Court following their arrest as part of the international drug investigation."
they had better start running
-------------------- PEACE zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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zeta
Stranger
Registered: 05/24/02
Posts: 3,972
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Re: Big LSD Bust Threatens Party [Re: ZippoZ]
#2129483 - 11/22/03 06:41 PM (20 years, 4 months ago) |
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If they pay me with acid I'll let them hide in my garage
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Sheepish
Registered: 04/02/02
Posts: 10,137
Loc: Exile
Last seen: 5 years, 11 months
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Re: Big LSD Bust Threatens Party [Re: zeta]
#2143824 - 11/29/03 05:08 AM (20 years, 4 months ago) |
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Damn! I had no idea this was happening in my own country. Good on them for trying to supply us with more LSD though. If only they hadn't got busted Then again, for every person they bust, another one goes undetected
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