Method & limits

How this was built

Source-backed Christchurch meth-laboratory and linked supply-case research through 9 November 2026. Retrieved primary judgments are labelled separately from media reports and Police allegations. Source-supported means checked against the retrieved text, not that every media account was independently verified in court. The supplement counts case-person rows, not unique human identities; one published name appears in separate cases without a proven identity match. National and wider-Canterbury networks are linked context, not additional city laboratory finds. Disputed sentence terms are excluded from supported-term totals. Absence from searched public sources does not establish absence of a court outcome.

The rules

A charge is not a conviction. A guilty plea is not a sentence. A scheduled hearing is not an outcome.
An acquittal is printed wherever it exists, including inside a mixed verdict.
A missing outcome is recorded as missing. It is never inferred from silence, and silence is not treated as innocence or guilt.
Every number and distinctive phrase in the written narratives was matched verbatim against the cited source file before publication. Nine terms are checked against the primary judgment text itself.
Where reports conflict — as they do for two Whoosh courier terms — both are shown and neither is preferred.

Identity traps

Shared names are the most dangerous part of a record like this. The register keeps these apart deliberately, and drops entries that could not be sourced rather than patching over them.

Granite’s official release does not support the previous Dunbier/seven-month attribution. It is signed B Archer. That attribution has been withdrawn; the malformed printed cash figure has not been silently repaired. 17

Singer’s displayed publication date is 7 April 2026 in New Zealand; the earlier 6 April date reflected UTC. Naufahu’s acquittal was on 16 July, while the cited report displays 17 July locally. 15 24

The Sili/Matakatea material in the October 2026 report must not be labelled October 2025. Dodd’s sentence is still unrecovered. 12 24

The first McCreath charge report here is December 2010. Charles Street is not part of James Lines’s name. No later same-name van Duinen conviction has been assigned to the Hillsborough case without linkage. 52 54 55

Whoosh’s Vigers/Kelly term reports conflict. Four couriers have not all been assigned a 2025 hearing date merely from the phrase last year. These two disputed terms are excluded from the supported-term total. 27 33

Provenance

Observed in cited reporting. Court outcomes below are media-reported unless attributed to Police; not independently checked against sentencing judgments.

What is still open

Norwich Street, 1990: Cavaney, Spackman and Marriott’s actual July 13 sentences unrecovered. The July 14 Press issue was not published; July 3 establishes pleas and a scheduled hearing, not outcomes.
Granite: Newton’s end sentence, Miles’s exact original sentencing date and additional defendants’ end sentences not recovered. Starting-point discussion in other judgments is not an imposed term.
Diablo: Tate, Rymer and Carruth’s individual terms and original sentencing dates remain open. The Press 17 July 2004 p.A2, Jail time for drug conspiracy, is a specific unretrieved article lead.
Tsunami: Wang, Jarden, Chin and Hurring’s terms remain open. Rong-Jun Sui’s original May hearing year is not explicit in the verdict report.
Avon: Singer’s imposed term and Dodd’s later sentencing outcome remain open despite bounded follow-up searches; absence from retrieved reporting is not evidence that no sentence exists.
Maddale: Safi/Essefehani-Bahadori reserved appeal results and other named defendants’ final outcomes remain unrecovered. No guessed identity is assigned to the unnamed importer.
Whoosh: Vigers/Kelly five-versus-six-year conflict needs a sentencing order or appeal to resolve; Harrison/Grose hearing dates remain open.
2020 ring: Howard’s outcome after the rehabilitation adjournment remains open. Andrew Michael Smith’s cross-case identity continuity remains unverified.
Local labs: McCreath, Brown, Lines, Witehira and van Duinen lack case-matched final dispositions; the later van Duinen same-name article remains quarantined.
Cobalt/Wordsworth: second arrestee, final laboratory assessment and defendants’ outcomes remain unrecovered. Bower Avenue: arrestee identity and outcome open. Redwood: drug type and outcome open.
Original archive: unclosed appeals, bail-to-verdict gaps and later outcomes outside this targeted sweep remain labelled as carried-forward archive leads, not silently resolved.

No external records request has been sent. An unretrieved outcome is a gap in this record, not a finding about any person.