An intelligent educational leader generated millions of dollars running the biggest drug importation and distribution operation a judge has ever seen - and he wrote about it in his autobiography.
Jamie Mannion was imprisoned for a dozen years at the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday for meticulously managing a highly sophisticated dark web enterprise that spanned New Zealand.
Mannion oversaw the importation of about 42kg of MDMA, 10kg of ketamine - which was baked into t-shirts - and 2kg of cocaine, plus lesser amounts of various other drugs. He kept a spreadsheet which recorded 1200 sales, and recruited four young men to help run the business.
The total value of the drugs amounted to about $15m and was the equivalent of more than 650,000 doses.
The father, of Tauranga, described himself as an entrepreneurial educational leader on LinkedIn, but acknowledged his criminal life in an autobiography titled “The Dark Net Drug Lord”, which did not help him in court.
