Christchurch, New Zealand · a sourced record
P/CITYThe meth files
Twelve chapters of laboratories, syndicates and courtrooms — built only from what the judgments, police releases and reporting actually say. No reconstructions. No invented dialogue. No character played for effect.
This is a court record dressed as a case file, not a drama. Every number and quotation on these pages traces to a cited source; nine terms are checked against the primary judgments themselves. Where a person was acquitted, that acquittal is printed. Where a sentence was never recovered, the page says so.
78 case records are not 78 unique people. Two entries share the name Andrew Michael Smith without a proven cross-case match, and one disputed pair of courier terms is flagged rather than resolved by preference.
The chapters
12 episodes · chronologicalEach chapter is one investigation or one cluster of laboratory cases, in the order the record begins.
The Airport Job
A medical detailer lands at Christchurch Airport charged with importing LSD and methamphetamine. Six months later a jury clears her on both counts.
Norwich Street
The archive’s first laboratory. Three men admit attempted manufacture and are remanded for sentence — the record of what followed has not been found.
Diablo
A manufacture and supply network running Christchurch to Dunedin ends in the High Court. Five convictions, and individual terms that surface years later in fragments.
Tsunami
One conspiracy charge, seven defendants, two acquittals. An eight-year term is later upheld on appeal.
Granite
Police announce three clandestine laboratories and a Hornby raid. The cases split: conspiracy acquittals, a conviction entered late, and terms spread across two years.
Larch Place
One address, three defendants, three different endings: a prison term, a withdrawal, and a charge the public record never resolves.
Maddale
An Auckland arm, a Christchurch arm and cash moved through Avonside. Three terms are reported, two of them under appeal when the reporting stops.
The 2020 Ring
A meth ring, four recorded terms, and a sentencing that waits on six months of rehabilitation.
Italian Sky
Eleven sentences from two linked national supply lines, reported together — from ten months’ home detention to nine years and three months.
Avon
The largest cluster in this record: equipment charges, guilty pleas, a judge-alone trial and a mixed verdict that acquitted a commander on twenty-five charges.
Whoosh
A darknet storefront, dozens of confirmed imports and a twelve-year sentence. Two courier terms depend on which report you read.
The Streets
Bower Avenue, Redwood, Waltham, Hillsborough, Wordsworth Street. Charges and remands — and in most of them the public record stops before a finding.
The tally
computed from the registerCleared includes people whose charges were withdrawn or not proceeded with — a charging decision ending, not a trial victory. Unresolved includes people convicted with no recovered term.
Go deeper
the working partsThe sentence shift
Every sourced term plotted against the chapter it belongs to — where the ceiling rose, where it did not, and how much of the record is simply missing.
The labs, in the judgments
Each address the High Court named, with the sentencing paragraphs quoted: what was in the room, what could be proved, and what it was worth.
Every name
All 78 case records with legal position, outcome, role and source. Searchable by operation, status or person.
The timeline
From a 1982 airport charge to the 2026 Avon sentencings, in the order the courts dealt with them.
The lab archive
All 40 carried-forward case files, including regional comparisons and suspected sites — kept separate from proven city laboratories.
How this was built
The rules: what counts as an outcome, how identity traps were handled, and what remains open.