An experienced New Zealand Customs officer says only one in every 10 illicit drug imports is being seized at the border and the majority of frontline staff feel overworked and undervalued.
The whistleblower, who didn't want to be identified, has worked at Customs for more than a decade in a range of roles. He told Newshub he is passionate about his job, but he feels the concerns he and others have raised with management haven't been taken seriously.
He says hundreds of drug seizures aren't investigated further because officers are swamped with work and don't have enough support staff.
"Class B (drugs), anything which is 5kg or less is not going to be investigated unless there are links to other imports, and that's purely down to a lack of resources," the officer tells Newshub. He says small imports are often ignored without further criminal inquiries. "A couple of grams through the mail centre, if it's picked up, will likely just be destroyed, noted in our system and very seldom followed up."
Customs has confirmed New Zealand is facing record levels of drug imports -- especially methamphetamine. Figures show imports of methamphetamine, cannabis and ecstasy are well up on previous years. Last year, almost four million tablets, or 890kg of chemicals used to make P, were stopped at the border. In 2014, 641kg of precursor material was seized.
The officer says based on estimates he's aware of, Customs is only able to detect and intercept a fraction of what's flooding into the country.
"I've heard the number one in every ten gets caught. One every couple of days slips through the net and these are decent sized consignments. I'm not talking about cannabis seeds or a couple of grams, I'm talking about a couple of kilos either through fast freight, through shipping containers or through the airport."
Customs General Manager of Border Operations, Paul Campbell, says there's always room for improvement and he accepts imports of lower-end drugs like cannabis are not normally given priority. However, he doesn't believe officers are only seizing one in every 10 drug consignments.
"Some obviously get through. We can always do better. But there is no ratio that I am aware of," Mr Campbell says. "One in 10 would suggest that there is some evidence to support it. I would be very keen to see the evidence."
Paul Campbell says he knows some officers have complained about being overworked, underpaid and unhappy in their roles, and he says there are plans to make changes in this area.
"We survey our staff frequently," he says. "Our staff feel they spend a lot of time carrying out tasks that are largely administrative, as opposed to being engaged in frontline enforcement activity." He says Customs is in the middle of "reorientating" the workforce, which means more focus will be put on risk assessment and intelligence. Under the changes, junior staff would be put into roles like passport control, and helping people get through Smartgate to free up highly skilled, experienced staff to work in areas of enforcement. Senior staff would spend more time profiling travellers and dealing with complex searches.
Newshub used the Official Information Act to get copies of documents that show fewer passengers are being targeted for what's called "risk assessment", which is when passengers are taken to secondary search areas within the airport. The percentage of international arrivals and crew selected for further searches is now set between 0.6 and 1%.
Paul Campbell says the target ratio has been reduced on previous years because of the introduction of better technology at the border.
"As our intelligence tools come online, the number of people we have to interact with has reduced. Our targeting becomes more efficient."
But the Customs officer interviewed by Newshub believes there's too much focus on getting travellers through border screening quickly and conveniently. He believes more staff will improve drug detection rates and interrupt the movements of criminals.
"I definitely think Customs is overwhelmed and under-resourced. What we need is boots on the ground and what we need is more enforcement-related resources, things like drug dogs, better x-ray equipment, more staff. Those simple things make a big difference."
But Customs' Paul Campbell says he's satisfied with the current number of border control staff. He says there will be changes to the way the most skilled officers work in the future, and the focus will be on enforcement and intelligence gathering. He's also calling on members of the public to be on the lookout for suspicious activity.
"The area where we could gain the most benefit in my view is through greater support from New Zealanders who think things are amiss, talking to organisations anonymously like Crimestoppers who can actually pass information to agencies to see if they are in fact indulging in criminal activity."
Anyone with information can pass it on anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Do you have any more information about this story? Please email Michael Morrah.
Newshub.
