James Kinch, Petrus Dekker and Ronald Haklander brought bad batch of ecstasy smuggled into Australia

THE ecstasy allegedly imported by Briton James Kinch into the country may have been responsible for reported overdoses with evidence he was behind a ‘bad batch’ import.

An undated supplied photo released August 8, 2008 of a Australian Federal Police officer logging bags containing MDMA - ecst...

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EXCLUSIVE

THE ecstasy allegedly imported by Briton James Kinch into the country over the years may have been responsible for reported overdoses with evidence he was behind at least one possible “bad batch” import.

Dutch police tapes of interrogations with suspects and telephone intercepts read by News Corp Australia showed there was discussion between Kinch and Petrus ‘Thin Pete’ Dekker, one of the principals of the drugs cartel, and others about one particular batch of drugs smuggled into the Australia.

Several drug dealers in Australia had been complaining about the batch that they said was of poor quality, well below that set by previous shipments from the same source in Holland.

There had been some discussion about what went wrong with the particular batch and how to rectify the issue to keep concerned wholesale dealers on side although it was not clear whether the batch was hazardous.

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Australian Federal Police now suspect the bad batch between 2002 and 2005 may have been toxic, although there was insufficient proof now to link the problem import with any hospitalisation of MDMA takers at the time.

The evidence of the batch was only known in 2007.

Police surveillance photo of Ronald Haklander, Petrus Dekker and James Kinch. Picture: Supplied

Police suspect the pills branded with a “clog” shoe was probably one bad batch but can’t be sure there weren’t others over the years.

“We only got Kinch for 250kg so there was at least another 750kg we didn’t find before it went out and there was evidence one batch was poor quality but how hazardous we will never know,” one agent familiar with the case said.

Police in Australia now know they had only ever seized one quarter of what Kinch and his cartel bought into the country and those involved in the case suspect on that balance and given the drug quantities involved, measured in tonnes, a link was possible.

It is alleged some of the pills moved by Kinch’s Haklander Cartel in Holland were stamped with a logo of a clover and the Superman sign, beige kangaroo logo pills as well as others with ‘Bacardi’ and “safe sex’ logos. There were also pink kangaroo pills and barrels of white powder speed.

Among the buyers who questioned the quality of pills in about 2002 was a known Lebanese-born Australian gangster supplying the gay and party scenes who would collect kilos of the drugs openly at a restaurant in Sydney and a Dutch-Australian pensioner from South Australia.

The latter was a bespeckled plump gent aged in his mid 60s, prone to wearing beige hats, who had lived with his wife in Adelaide for many years and whose brother in The Netherlands was also involved in the drugs trade.

The man came to Sydney to collect his drugs at a pub near Centennial Park but stuffed the drop-off by turning up with two henchmen. He latter rented a storage shed in nearby Alexandria and from there collected four sports bags with 50,000 ecstasy pills in them each. The Adelaide man later drove to a Castle Hill gardening centre to pay off another Dutch man before making his way back to Adelaide to sell his pills.

Police know the identity of the man but a prosecution now is unlikely.