Underworld kingpin Arthur Taylor was discovered planning P deals inside a maximum security prison after police bugged the cellphone of a businessman suspected of murder.
Taylor, 54, was yesterday found guilty of forming a criminal conspiracy with a fellow inmate, who has name suppression, to supply the class-A drug between May and June 2007.
The pair used smuggled cellphones to organise P deals from inside Paremoremo prison and to arrange for money to be deposited in TAB accounts.
But Taylor was found not guilty of three charges of offering to supply methamphetamine. The conspiracy was discovered after police bugged the phone of a Tauranga businessman.
Operation Spider was launched in 2007 to find missing man Grant Trevor Adams, a P cook and known associate of a company director, Brett Ashby, 50, who was Taylor's brother-in-law.
Detectives were granted a High Court warrant to bug the cellphones of Ashby and Taylor to intercept phone calls in which the pair discussed drug deals.
Ashby was later charged with the murder of Adams. Police alleged he shot Adams and buried his body with a digger near Taupo.
He denied the charge, but died from liver cancer before a trial.
The tapped phone calls prompted further police investigation which led to the drugs charges against Taylor.
He represented himself at the two-week trial at the High Court at Auckland, with the assistance of David Jones, QC. In his defence, Taylor told the court he could have been referring to sugar, which is contraband inside prison, and not methamphetamine.
He will be sentenced in May on the single conspiracy charge.
Taylor is a notorious figure with dozens of convictions for armed robbery, kidnapping, firearms offences and escaping custody. In 1998 he escaped Paremoremo with three other prisoners, including Graeme Burton, before being caught in the Coromandel after several days.
I laughed when i saw this on the news the other night. Twelve thousand dollars for an ounce of sugar huh Arthur?!?!? If i had been on the jury, i think i would have found him guilty - just for insulting my intelligence.
I shared a link to a story once before, in relation to this man, his associates that are mentioned in this article, the growing methamphetamine trade, and how gangs are now working together in order to profit off this evil drug.
It is a very interesting read - so i thought i would share it again.
Chemical Brothers - David Fisher
Right...that is enough blogging for me for one day! I had an appointment at 9am this morning. I had run 7 k by noon. I then attempted to avoid the sun, until it was time to pick up the girls from school. We stopped for Peppermint Magnums on the way home from school, just because it was one of those afternoons that just screamed out for ice creams to be consumed...It's been a quiet evening here with just me and Billy, as the girls are at Nick's for the night.
I am going to hit the sack early. I am stressed about tomorrow.
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