By Juliet Speedy
The Corrections Department says its cellphone jamming technology will foil any fresh attempts to run a drug ring from jail.
The comment follows the five year prison sentence handed down to a convicted murderer, who ran a p-ring from inside Christchurch men's prison.
By the time Dean Nathan was eight years into his life sentence for a gangland murder, he was running a major methamphetamine operation and earning up to 120 thousand dollars a fortnight.
Christchurch District Court Judge Philip Moran told Nathan he was the ringleader of an elaborate drug ring.
“You were the ringleader, you were conducting this methamphetamine operation by cellphone from prison,” he says.
Through this phone, Nathan was organising someone on the outside to go and buy methamphetamine from a supplier in Auckland.
Recordings obtained by police of these conversations show he was ordering up to eight ounces a fortnight, with a profit of around $120'000.
The recordings hear Nathan instructing one potential dealer:
(Nathan:) "Ok, well I just wanted a tad anyway. I need, I need about eight every two weeks bud."
(Other:) "Brother, I’ll do my very best."
This was after another single order of $130,000 of meth through his original dealer.
(Nathan:) "I've got a hundred there now, I’m just thirty short. But I don't want to come and tick it up; I want to be able to pay for it all. I want to stick with you; every time I see you it's going to be more."
But his original dealer, now in jail, knew the police were onto him.
(Other:) "Would you feel ok to finish this one off and then we take a break? Or did you....
(Nathan) "Well do you want to carry on or what? I want to carry on I thought that's what you wanted."
But soon after he was arrested.
Police say they're concerned about the large amounts of P heading to Christchurch
Christchurch Police spokesman David Long says the drug will bring a lot of misery to the community.
“It is tied up with a lot of crime and a lot of misery for a lot of people in the community and we hope that the sentence that was handed down today does act as a deterrent and sends a clear message,” he says.
Nathan was convicted in 2001 for a drive by shooting that killed rival gang member Max Shannon, shot in the street after rugby league training.
But it will be a long time till Nathan sees any streets now.
He's now not eligible for parole until at least 2019.
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