How an ex-Lotto presenter from Rotorua teamed with a Comancheros ‘commander’ in Turkey to flood NZ with meth, cocaine

Craig KapitanSenior Multimedia Journalist·NZ Herald·14 Aug, 2026 11:06 PM11 mins to read‌New Zealand Police say they have dealt a "huge blow" to organised crime after a major trans-national sting resulted in 35 arrests and $3.7 million in assets seized.By the time former Lotto presenter Russell Harrison showed up for a clandestine meeting in an Auckland cemetery in July 2019 – collecting $420,000 in illegal drug profits bound for an international gang kingpin – the organised crime group that recruited him had already been under surveillance for years.