Far North

Description

June 2016, Far North, New Zealand.

The job seemed simple: leave Auckland, pick up 500kg of meth from Ninety-Mile Beach and drive it back south, while keeping a low profile. How hard could that be?

This is the true story of one of New Zealand’s biggest ever drug busts, and how those responsible almost got away with half a tonne of crystal meth. Oh, and half a billion dollars.

But thanks to the sleuthing skills of Ahipara’s good-hearted locals — and a series of unbelievable faux-pas by the drug-smugglers — police managed to catch the crims.

They say fact is stranger than fiction, and in this case it is. Stranger, and funnier. It’s a story like no other. This is Far North.

Now Three and ThreeNow in NZ and Paramount+ in Australia are going to air David White’s TV series, starring Temuera Morrison and Robyn Malcolm, in the second half of 2023.

About the Author/Writer:

David White studied producing at England’s National Film and TV School. By then he’d already co-produced documentary Shihad: Beautiful Machine (2012). His own documentary Meat — which introduces audiences to three farmers and a hunter — had a successful cinema release in 2017. It is one of a number of projects in which White chronicles people who kill animals, so that others may eat them. After acting in one of his own films, White went on to write, direct and co-star in 2020 romantic comedy This Town.

Angus Gillies is the author of the so-called Ruatoria Killings series of non-fiction investigations. He has worked as a journalist and producer at TV3 for 20 years, and has written biographies of Matthew Ridge, Adam Parore, Justin Marshall and John Rowles.