Police have today publicly released their strategy for tackling organised crime.
Commissioner Howard Broad said organised criminals were suffering at the hands of a consistent, coordinated and multi-agency approach to organised crime over the past year.
"The strategy doesn't give away any operational secrets, but rather outlines the approach we are taking as the agency that has the lead on combating organised crime."
"The approach is one of Intelligence and community focused policing in partnership with domestic and international agencies.
"The results we are getting reinforce for me that we are on the right track
For the past year we have been running a coordinated national strategy to tackle methamphetamine. Organised crime groups are involved in every stage of the methamphetamine supply chain in New Zealand.
As a result of this work we have had a 15 percent increase in methamphetamine related offences this year compared to the two previous years and a 17 percent increase in apprehensions across the same period.
Seizure data from Police and Customs show that the amount of methamphetamine seized in 2010 to 30 July represents a 140% increase compared to the same period in 2009.
"Police is not doing this work alone. The Organised & Financial Crime Agency of NZ (OFCANZ) has been a major development in the fight against organised crime. OFCANZ works with the whole of government to attack organised crime networks from every angle."
Earlier this year OFCANZ made a sizeable dent in the organised crime networks in the North Island bringing down a multi-million dollar money laundering ring and seizing $500,000 worth of ContacNT.
"New legislation means we not only take away their drugs, but we can get at their profits and assets as well."
As at the end of September, $29.7 million worth of assets had been restrained under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act.
An estimated $30.6 million worth of assets are being investigated as a result of methamphetamine offending.
A few weeks ago we released our annual organised crime assessment. A document prepared by our National Intelligence Centre. This is the first time the assessment has been publicly released. We did it because we want people to know that organised crime is not something that happens somewhere else - it affects our own communities - our own neighbourhoods.
Today, I put our strategy into the public arena to highlight that the New Zealand Police is committed to an ongoing programme of work to disrupt and dismantle organised crime in all its forms.
The strategy is on the police website at http://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/tackling-organised-crime-...
ENDS
Jane Archibald
NZ Police
04 474 9442