Families pay investigators top dollar to spy on teenagers and force them into rehab WEALTHY PARENTS are paying private investigators up to $100,000 to spy on their P-smoking teens.
Some then get the investigator to threaten to call in the police unless the teenager enters rehab.
Pete O'Shea, operations manager at Auckland Investigations Limited, says his firm does 30 to 40 drug surveillance investigations a year on the children of some of the country's wealthiest and most prominent families.
The jobs involved tailing the teenagers around parks and nightclubs, photographing their vehicles, compiling dossiers on their friends and dealers, and obtaining text message records.
The move is part of a growing trend towards surveillance of young people in an effort to curb drug use.
An Auckland intermediate school called in sniffer dogs this year, and last month, Morrinsville College's principal urged parents to drug-test their children's urine at a local laboratory for $30.
O'Shea said investigators also warned the teenagers' drug-using friends to stop associating with them, or they would hand information to police.
They frequently gave information to police on drug dealers.
"You have to break the connection between that kid and the source of the drugs," he said. "Obviously a good way to do that is to get the supplier locked up."
O'Shea said that once investigators gathered enough evidence, they would confront the teen and issue an ultimatum: "You either go into rehab or somewhere you can't get any drugs, or the whole lot goes to the police."
Tom Claunch, clinical director of Auckland's Capri Trust where some of O'Shea's clients sent their children, said treatment was just as successful when clients were forced to attend as when they attended voluntarily.
"It's a complete myth that an addict has to want help for us to help," he said.
His clinic had an 80% success rate for adults, but the rate for teenagers was much lower.
Claunch said young people in rehab and their families had received threats from associates who had found out they had been tailed.
O'Shea said every teenager the firm had investigated since it started taking such jobs 18 months ago had been taking P pure methamphetamine.
Parents generally grew suspicious after electronic goods or jewellery went missing, or their children became withdrawn, lethargic and unclean.
The subjects were mostly "spoilt kids" from the affluent North Shore and Howick areas of Auckland.
"Their parents are the people that can tend to afford us. I know there's a big drug problem out west (in Auckland) and out south, but we don't do much there because people generally can't afford to hire PIs."
O'Shea said the strategy was high-risk, and staff wore stab- vests when confronting the teens.
"They go berserk - I've had guys threaten to stab me in the throat, to kill my kids."
In one North Shore home, investigators found a baseball bat with nails in it, and a metal baton.
Basic investigations cost $5000 to $10,000 and lasted a week, but the firm had done several for between $80,000 and $100,000.
The jobs were time-consuming and often had to be repeated if the teen dropped out of rehab and began using again, O'Shea said.
But parents who could afford it felt it was preferable to watching their children succumb to drugs.
Drug Foundation chief executive Ross Bell said talking to teens and contacting community drug counsellors was more effective.
"I can understand parents get hysterical, but spying on your kids is not a good approach," he said.
"That judgmental attitude is probably going to provoke their teen to put up barriers and see them as a police state."
O'Shea believed his firm was the only one in the country undertaking such work.
Christchurch investigator Mike Kyne said he was approached about once a week by parents for similar jobs, but did not take them as they were "too much hassle". "We suggest they talk to their kids and have a frank discussion."
Police spokesman Jon Neilson said police welcomed any information that might help lead them to drug dealers or manufacturers, but preferred the public dealt with police directly.
