clipped from: www.nzherald.co.nz A multimillion-dollar drug ring allegedly run from inside New Zealand's most secure prison was discovered after police bugged the phone of a businessman suspected of murder.
Officers stumbled across the alleged large-scale methamphetamine ring when a homicide inquiry was launched to find missing man Grant Adams, a known associate of Brett Ashby - brother-in-law of notorious Paremoremo prisoner Arthur Taylor.
Police believed the trio were manufacturing P together.
Tauranga detectives bugged the cellphone of Ashby, a Tauranga company director, and allegedly later intercepted numerous phone calls between him and Taylor, while inside prison.
But the intercepted phone calls between Taylor and Ashby prompted two further police inquiries.
More than $5 million worth of the drug was seized, - a fraction of what is likely to have been imported.