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Core Topics => In the Media => Topic started by: Chip on July 11, 2015, 02:49:03 AM
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from http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/thaw-on-drugs-cops-vow-to-stop-meth-dealers-after-children-used-to-take-ice-orders/story-fni0cx12-1227431420456
Thaw on drugs: Cops vow to stop meth dealers after children used to take ice orders
ICE-dealing parents have been caught using their primary school-aged children as “concierges” at homes in Wagga Wagga during an unprecedented country drug sting netting 46 dealers.
Straight-talking commander Superintendent Bob Noble has vowed to tackle Wagga’s ice problem head on, saying he won’t sit by and let money-hungry drug dealers “wreck our town”.
His comments follow Strikeforce Calyx, one of the biggest rural drug operations in NSW history, which exposed the depraved behaviour of drug-addled parents who allegedly used children as young as seven to take orders for ice and other drugs at their front door.
“It’s abhorrent. To use a child in such a fashion, well it’s exploitation in the extreme,” Supt Noble said.
“There is evidence the children were unwittingly being used by their parents as a concierge to insulate themselves from detection.
“They were greeting people at the door of the dwelling and then going between that person (the buyer) and the alleged offender (dealer) to basically facilitate a transaction. You learn to expect anything in this job, but it’s just despicable.”
After spending four months gathering evidence, 110 police officers closed in on the network of drug dealers, arresting a staggering 46 people and laying 141 charges for dealing prohibited drugs.
The arrests came on the back of a worrying upsurge in property crime across the Wagga Wagga region, with car thefts and home break-ins more than doubling in the space of six months this year.
"You couldn't look anyone in the eye and tell them we don’t have a problem with hard drugs in Wagga. We clearly do,” Supt Noble said.
As a police commander and father of three, Supt Noble said he was stunned to learn children were being used as pawns in their parents’ drug dealing enterprises.
At one home, officers discovered five children living in a drug den and immediately called in Family and Community Services to take the children into care as their parents were arrested.
Police intelligence suggests Wagga is being targeted by drug suppliers — often with ties to outlaw motorcycle gangs — because it is conveniently placed between Melbourne and Sydney.
“People are targeting Wagga because it’s a growing, thriving, and prosperous community,” Supt Noble said.
“Well I'm here to tell you, if people keep consuming drugs at the rate they are willing to, we won’t remain prosperous for very long.”
More than half of those arrested remain behind bars after being refused bail. Police are expected to arrest six more dealers in the operation, taking the number of arrests to 51.
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