Captions by Lena Erakovich. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Tonight on Sunday ` haunted by a fatal disease, but were they even infected? - It's like a paranoia that kind of sits over the top of you. - It was in the back of your mind all the time. - What seemed like a medical marvel... - We felt we were doing wonders. - ...carried a dark and deadly risk. - It was unbelievable. What worse situation could occur? - Do you feel guilt for...? - (CHUCKLES SHAKILY) Course I do. - I wish they hadn't have told me. - I'm not in any way frightened of dying, but I would be annoyed. Scary. - And Sam Neill's shock diagnosis. - What we found was the cancer ` a particularly rare kind of lymphoma. - I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. - I was in, really, a fight for my life. - Plus ` outsmarting the smugglers. - We've had hundreds of kilos of narcotics found. We're really in a sort of an arms race here, and we have to keep up. - The drug trade's dangerous new tactics... - These are the risks people are willing to take? - Yeah, absolutely. - ..and their chilling effects. - The devastation, the aftermath. Nobody sees that. - Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. Imagine ` you're 15 years old and the doctor tells you a botched treatment could have infected you with a disease that will kill you. Imagine knowing that disease could sit inside your brain for up to 50 years before leading to a rapid and brutal death. And then imagine how the rest of your life would play out. Mark Crysell meets the families wrestling with the possibility of a deadly disease in waiting. Now, just a warning ` this story deals with sensitive issues. - MARK CRYSELL: For over half his life, Dane Evans has carried around a dark burden. - You have no idea what happens when you're told something of that magnitude as a child. - A time bomb of a disease doctors told him could be tick, tick, ticking in his brain. - Fear. It's` It's like a... paranoia that kind of sits over the top of you. - A disease that's killed six young Kiwis injected with a contaminated medical treatment. - We're told to trust our doctors and nurses, but you don't expect anybody to put you at risk of something like that. - Growing up, Dane Evans was never going to make tall timber. So how tall are you? - I'm about 5'7. - So, 167cm? - Yeah. - About average height? - Yeah, just below average height. - He was born short. Take a look at a school photo, and you get the picture. - Cameraman would always make me stand at the end of the front row, because I'd be the same height as everyone sitting down. - Dane was small because he was born without a pituitary, the gland which produces hormones that regulate growth. - He really wasn't going to grow very much. He was always going to be very tiny. - Joan Evans is Dane's mum. - I didn't want him to go through life being a tiny person ` you know, if there was something that could be done about it. (TAPE REWINDS) - Back then, there was. Since the 1960s, around 150 New Zealand children have been treated with human growth hormone. - It worked very well, Mark, and we were delighted with the results. Now, the first thing we're going to do is to measure you. You remember... - Professor Eric Espiner was the endocrinologist who examined Dane as a toddler. - Typically, within a year, the child had returned to their normal trajectory of growth. - That's all you want, is to` for your kid to be a normal height. - Do you remember Dane back then? - Absolutely, yes. - From the age of 3, Dane embarked on a programme of regular growth hormone injections. - So these are my injection record cards. You know, having to go to the doctor's three times a week, getting, like, a big injection. - Did it hurt? - Yeah. You would pretty much be screaming every time. - All up, Dane received 150 injections between 1984 and 1985. In all these medical records, do any of them say where your human growth hormone was sourced from? - No. Absolutely not. - I didn't know at all. It was just produced and given out. I mean, I thought I was lucky to get on the programme, I suppose, to help Dane. - The source wasn't a secret, but back then, doctors only told patients and parents if they asked. The reality was the growth hormone was being harvested from dead bodies. - When an autopsy was being done and the brain was exposed, the skull was opened, the pituitary gland at the base of the brain would be taken out and sent off to a particular unit in the US of A. - The US lab blended the pituitaries and then sent them back, but each cadaver yielded just enough growth hormone to treat one patient for one day, which meant the demand for pituitaries was huge. In New Zealand, morgues kept a running count. In Australia, mortuary assistants got 50 cents for each one. Was consent gained? - I wouldn't think so. It was a given that an autopsy could be done and tissue could be taken if it was to have a useful purpose that might be life-saving. It was just the culture at the time. We felt we were doing wonders, and we could see physically the improvements in children who were failing to thrive and suddenly were doing exactly what they should be. - Dane shot up by 9cm in the first 10 months of treatment. - Every time we went to the hospital, there'd be an improvement in his height. - So you must have been feeling pretty good. - Yeah. Yeah, it was working. - Like this was a miracle cure. - It was great. Absolutely. (SIRENS WAIL, WHOOP) - MAN: All right. - But no one could ever have imagined what lay ahead. In 1985, out of nowhere, human growth hormone treatment was stopped worldwide. Four young Americans had died from an horrific and rare brain disease ` Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD. They'd all received doses of growth hormone sourced from CJD-contaminated cadavers. - It was unbelievable. What worse situation could occur? - So this is a microscope slide of a brain of a person who had CJD. It's like a sponge with holes in the brain. - These are holes in the brain? - These are holes in the brain. Yes. - Neurologist Nick Cutfield heads up our national CJD registry. He says CJD occurs deep inside the brain when a protein called a prion starts abnormally folding, causing rapid-onset dementia. - CJD, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is a rapidly progressive brain disease and it can present with changes in behaviour, thinking and memory, impaired balance or visual problems. And unfortunately, people only survive on average between 4 and 6 months. There aren't any effective treatments. - What did you know about CJD at the time? - Nothing. - Nothing at all? - I don't think I knew anything. - Oh, well, I thought it was probably AIDS, but that's all I knew about at the time, but... And that was still a worry. - Dane was too young to be told of his CJD risk. - I was a really happy young kid. Life was normal. It was... It was great. Lots of good memories. - Dane just got on with being a kid growing up in 1980s Christchurch. - He was very caring, and... always happy to do what I asked him. I never had to tell him off. I can't actually remember ever reprimanding him for anything. - The threat of CJD doesn't go away. The disease can incubate for decades before it attacks the brain, and there is no test for it. In 1987, 32-year-old Debbie McKenzie from New Plymouth died with CJD, 15 years after she'd received contaminated growth hormone injections at Auckland Hospital. - It was in the back of your mind all the time, but you've got to just carry on. But it was something that you sort of went to bed thinking about every night. - ARCHIVE: The disturbing effects of mad cow disease. - By the 1990s, everyone knew what CJD was. It was all over the TV. - When humans eat infected meat, they can catch its variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. - Britain's mad cow disease epidemic ` essentially CJD in cattle ` was in full flow and starting to infect and kill people who'd eaten contaminated beef. - Cattle were being euthanased, and all burnt. Nobody was allowed to give blood over there because of eating infected meat. Oh, this is going to be everywhere. - Dane's doctors decided it was finally time to tell him that the growth hormone injections he'd had as a child may have infected him with CJD. - Well, they sat me down and they said, um... (CLEARS THROAT) 'Oh, look, we've got some bad news.' - He was just 15 years old. - They were like, 'Well, we've basically put you at risk of developing CJD. 'It is a terminal, brain wasting disease that starts with rapid-onset dementia, and then you become bedridden and die. And, uh, yeah, they were like, you know, 'We're sorry about that.' - What did you say? - Just that I loved him, and hopefully that this was a very small chance and it wasn't going to happen, and he had to be positive. - I think I was on a trajectory of living quite a normal adult life. I mean, um... I wish they hadn't have told me. - But as you'll learn, Dane's not the only one living under the shadow of CJD. - It was bigger than us, so it was difficult to, um... to even comprehend. - The stakes are high to avoid transmitting a serious brain condition. - That's next. (POIGNANT PIANO MUSIC) - ARCHIVE: The latest CJD victim died in Nelson Hospital last Thursday. - By the time the new millennium dawned, CJD had killed five New Zealanders who had been injected with contaminated growth hormones as kids. Was that time bomb still ticking in Dane Evans? - I just felt petrified that that was going to happen to me. You know, CJD is not one of those diseases that takes you nicely while you sleep. It's one of those diseases that pretty much ruins everything about you. - In 2006, yet another New Zealander died with CJD, 30 years after receiving growth hormones. - Six children that had CJD disease out of 146 ` so that's a high percentage ` higher than the US and higher than in Australia. (TAPE REWINDS) - Back then, as far as doctors knew, all the contaminated hormones had come from the USA. It's likely Dane's injections were made at the National Hormone Laboratory at Auckland University. - To my knowledge, there hasn't been a case of CJD in New Zealand from the Auckland-based method, but I could be proven wrong because cases could still be developing and incubating. - To Dane, any chance of CJD was too much. He saw small ailments and shifts in his emotions as signs it was coming on. - I would get upset about something and then it would snowball. The depression and anxiety would just get so bad. I felt like I was at war constantly with something inside of me. - Dane struggled to hold down a job or a relationship. He started drinking ` heavily. - Alcohol has been the evil mistress. It's been there to... hold me, keep me warm, But then it's also been the thing that's, on multiple occasions, tried to destroy my life. - Three-day benders that climaxed with episodes of self-harming. - I've ended up in hospital a couple of times. Broken leg, broken feet, broken hands, broken collarbone. - At his darkest, he contemplated suicide. - I just couldn't do it because of Mum, you know? I just can't, um... I just wouldn't want to put her through that. - How can... (SIGHS) such a nice person have their life sort of turn around completely on them, you know? - You know, my mum is the most important person to me, and... the fact that she... sometimes feels responsible, and... Yeah, it's not her fault, you know ` she was just doing the best that she could. - Do you feel guilt for...? - (CHUCKLES SHAKILY) Course I do. - Still? - Mm-hm. - Dane's not alone in living with the fear of CJD. - They rung and said about the CJD, that she'd been exposed. - In 2007, Monique Lambermon was told her daughter Danielle was at risk of contracting CJD following a brain tumour operation at Auckland Hospital. - I had to tell her the next day cos it was going to go into the media, so I... It was really difficult. Really difficult, cos she was struggling. - Danielle was one of 43 patients who had been operated on with medical instruments used on a woman who later died with CJD. - Normal sterilisation procedures don't work for the prion protein because it's so sticky, so it can resist normal sterilisation and chemical treatments. The stakes are high to avoid transmitting a serious brain condition. - Danielle was devastated when she found out she'd been put at risk. - It was beyond us, like... It was bigger than us, so it was difficult to, um... to even comprehend... (VOICE BREAKS) I think. - Danielle didn't want to be interviewed ` Monique says she wants to put her CJD ordeal behind her as much as she can. - And it pretty much spiralled her into a massive depression, for years. - Danielle's brain tumour continued to grow, but she refused another operation for nine years. - She was terrified, and she had lost all her trust in the hospital. And to be honest... and it sounds terrible, I'd rather her have` it be the tumour than the CJD. The onset of CJD is horrific, and it's... I` Yeah. You just wouldn't want to think about it. - It still worries me every day. - Dane can't not think about it. Last year, he tracked down 89-year-old Professor Espiner to tell him how his life had turned out. - He did lay out to me a lot of the mental health issues he'd been through, and they were remarkable. - I believe he was just doing his job, and doing the best that he could for me. He was always an amazing doctor. He was always a lovely man. Look, I'm not angry at the doctors, I... I'm kind of... more angry at the big picture. - The big picture is accountability. - I just want someone to kind of stand up and actually give me the answers to the questions that I've got. - Australia has held two separate inquiries after five people died from CJD-contaminated hormone treatments. - Australia has done a lot for its recipients ` set up support groups, you know, there's been compensation payments, there's been help. Nothing in New Zealand. - Six young New Zealanders out of 150 died because they were injected with a contaminated substance ` no official inquiry, no apology. - There's no comparison. The Australian approach has been excellent. The New Zealand, by comparison, is much weaker. I think in retrospect, we should have done better. And in fact, this sort of case we're talking about is testimony to that. - As for compensation, Dane has been turned down three times by ACC, despite the support of his GP and a counsellor. Do you believe Dane should be compensated for what he's been through? - Knowing he has a chance of a devastating disorder ` in the end, you have to say this is a case that merits a response from the government that compensates. - I couldn't imagine having to go through what he's gone through and feel the way he has, and... You know? Need a wee bit more water. - Dane's now living back with his mum on a lifestyle block north of Christchurch. The two spend most days together working on their sustainable vegetable garden. 'We've got to plant all these seeds, Mum, and get all this... gardens planted.' I'm kind of like, 'Settle down, Dane.' (CHUCKLES) We can tell each other anything, and I just love him so much. I mean, he's.... He's just... He'd do anything for you. For anybody. - Dane still has shots of a synthetic growth hormone on his doctor's recommendation, but these days, he does it himself. It's almost 40 years now since his injections were sourced from dead bodies. - You still believe there's a chance you could develop this disease? - I still believe I am at risk. - In Dane's mind, that time bomb could still be ticking. (HEARTBEAT THUDS) - Well, the Health Ministry told us medical advances make it almost certain that this won't happen again, but it says that doesn't change the situation for those affected, like Dane, and acknowledge the distress it's caused. E whai ake nei ` Sam Neill on his own remarkable health battle... - There were times where I'd had to look at myself in the mirror, and I wasn't a pretty sight. I didn't know, really, how long I had to live. - ...and equally remarkable recovery. - Being alive is infinitely preferable to the alternative. (CHUCKLES) Where to from here, New Zealand? To amazing places, places of opportunity, technology, possibility, sustainability, every ability, places that are for all to enjoy ` yeah, everyone. Let's enjoy the path forged by those that came before us but also find new ones, maybe better ones. Life is our journey. Aotearoa ` our magnificent waka. - Hoki mai ano. Acclaimed actor Sam Neill was at the top of his game when a sore neck prompted a trip to the doctor. This led to a shock diagnosis and he was rushed into treatment for an aggressive blood cancer. Speaking earlier this year before the Hollywood actors' strike, Sam Neill reveals how the experience forced him to confront death and ultimately get on with life. (CHATTER) (SOARING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) - SAM NEILL: Hey. - Hello. - One of the things I've learnt, which I probably knew already, is how important it is to live in the moment. - How does it work? Do you go on first? - No. - We don't ruminate on mortality. The pair of us ` we're 76. You know, I don't think he's ever gone, 'Bryan, we've had a wonderful life, haven't we?' No. But he's had to deal with something big. - After you've done that, I'll thank them all for coming. - You'll thank what? - I'll thank them for coming. - Who? - WOMAN: The audience. - The audience! - Oh, right, OK. It must be a terrible weight, you know. 'Is this the end?' - Let me ask a question ` if I hadn't sent you one, would you have bought it? - Oh, mate, I'd have bought 10. 'It didn't stop him, you know, being Sam.' - LAUGHS: Such a liar. - Course you're gonna poke fun at each other. You certainly are not gonna be sacred about each other or anything. - Can you switch it on? I mean... - Well, it had better be on. (EXCITED CHATTER) - Scary. - MAN: Please welcome the incredible Mr Sam Neill. (RAPTUROUS APPLAUSE, CHEERING) (WHISTLING) - I'm not in any way frightened of dying. That... That doesn't worry` So it's never worried me from the beginning. But I would be annoyed. I'd be annoyed, because there are things I've` I still want to do. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) Very irritating, dying, but I'm not afraid of it. (APPLAUSE, CHEERING) (WHISTLING) - A memoir. Why, and why now? - I'm not an introspective person. I don't... look back with any great eagerness, but I was forced to look back and take a valuation of my life, and it's an accidental memoir, I suppose you'd call it. I thought, there's no way (CHUCKLES) he'll get an audience. (LAUGHTER) - And I'm right. There's a couple of seats empty up there. - (LAUGHS) (APPLAUSE) (INDISTINCT CHATTER) - I would have never imagined that I'd still be working, but I don't seem to be stopping. There are few things more enjoyable than actually rocking up on a set. - John, don't move. - Don't move. - Bigger. Why do they always have to go bigger? (LOW GROWL) - I've made three Jurassic films now, and in 2020 we were filming Jurassic World Dominion, so I was reunited with my old friends Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. Sort of peak COVID year ` we were locked up in a hotel, we saw nobody else for four or five months. We just had each other for company, really, so we made a point of entertaining each other as best we could, and it was good fun. # These precious days - TOGETHER: # I'll spend # with - # you. # - # you. # - (LAUGHS) LAUGHS: # With you. # It took two years for the movie to come out, and I was sent over to LA in 2022 to do a weekend's publicity, and while I was there, my glands were up on my neck. Back in Sydney, I was given one of those scans where they sort of do this` you know, like when you're pregnant, they wave it over your tummy. (CHUCKLES) And... the nurse dropped her piece of equipment and ran out of the room. - He comes back to New Zealand ` it was wonderful to have him back for the first time in two years. Within an hour, we got the phone call from his doctor, and I hear him say, 'Well, when's the` 'Do I need to start the treatment? Do I need to come back to Sydney?' - It's always a difficult conversation, particularly if you're not face-to-face with someone. What we found was the cancer is a particularly rare kind of lymphoma, which is a non-Hodgkin's type of lymphoma, but it is quite rare, and it's quite an aggressive tumour that, if not treated, can cause major problems very quickly. - When he hung the phone up and we sat down and we had a little bit of a cry together... It was supposed to be a happy day. He didn't get to stay. - I was in, really, a fight for my life, and yeah, everything was a... Everything was a new world, and a... a rather alarming world, I'd have to say. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. (GENTLE MUSIC) I had three or four months of reasonably conventional chemotherapies, which are` which are brutal. - Yeah. That was the first night when I arrived in Sydney. I ended up going out in a few months to go visit him, and I was shocked, and I broke down. I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. And then he was giving me a hard time for being upset about it and saying I was stressing him out, but I was going, 'What are you talking about, Dad?' 'Like, you know, I'm just` I care, I can't not care.' (GENTLE MUSIC) - There were times in the last year where I'd had to look at myself in the mirror, and I wasn't a pretty sight. I was stripped of any kind of dignity. - He was in the middle of his first stage of the chemo, and he was supposed to have heard from his doctors. And I kept saying, 'Dad, you know, no news is good news. No news is good news. 'They'll call you, they'll let you know.' And he started getting happy. He was dancing around the kitchen a bit, and then suddenly he got a call, and he came back and said, 'Oh, Timbo, it's not just back ` it's back and it's worse.' So that was pretty` That was harsh, man. That was pretty brutal. - I was surprised. I was obviously concerned, as he was, that his disease was behaving in such an aggressive way. The tumour started to outsmart the drugs before we even got through the first regimen. - I didn't know, really, how long I had to live. And I thought, 'Yeah, I should probably write something down for my children, my grandchildren, 'because I may not be here in a couple of months, and it would be good for them to... have a sense of... of me, you know, and` and some of the things that I've done. - Well, as you'll see, he keeps doing those things despite the diagnosis. - It's not interesting to me. I'm not interested in cancer. I've got other things on my mind. - Including a very special honour. - 'I've got cancer. (BLEEP) it, I'm gonna be Sir Sam.' (LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) - Hey, Toyota. Got something that's not... new? - Yeah! Have you seen what's on Toyota.co.nz? - What are the chances you actually have what I'm looking for? - Pretty good! - Will it have any quirks? - Only if that's what you're into. - Uh, how do I know if it's any good? - Well, you are buying from Toyota, so there's that. - But I need something that comes with a warranty. - Well, Signature Class and Toyota Certified vehicles do. - That's a relief. (POIGNANT GUITAR MUSIC) - My... news seems to be all over the news (CHUCKLES) at the moment, and it's sort of 'Cancer! Cancer! Cancer!' Which is slightly tiresome, because, as you see, I am alive and well, and let's not worry too much about all that, because... I'm fine. OK? - He doesn't like to talk about his illness at all. I mean, it took me until I read the news articles to find out exactly what sort of cancer he had. (POIGNANT MUSIC) - It` It's not interesting to me. I'm not interested in cancer. I've got other things on my mind, and it's not cancer. - He shared with me, sort of during that treatment, that he had this idea of writing a book. At the time, as part of his treatment, he was on a lot of steroid medication, which gave him a lot of energy and stopped him from sleeping particularly well, and he burned the midnight oil by writing chapters and chapters of this book at an incredible pace. I thought I should probably reduce the steroids at some point. (LAUGHS) - I would go to bed thinking, 'What'll I write about tomorrow? And I'd go, 'Oh! Oh, remember that?' 'That was a funny thing that happened, and I'll write about that tomorrow.' So, going to bed thinking, 'I've got something to look forward to tomorrow because I know what I'm going to write.' - So you talk about your identity ` READS: There are, if I'm honest, two selves in me, but inside, somewhere very deep, there lives a small, shy boy who sounds quite different, and his name is not Sam. It is Nigel. And every time my siblings use that name, that little boy squirms. Do you think Nigel, now, who was pretty insecure` - Mm. - ...not sure of himself... - Mm. Do you think that now he's Sir Nigel, he feels better? - (LAUGHS) (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) I knew you were going to brutalise me on this. (UPBEAT, GENTLE MUSIC) Look, as an old leftie, I'm very dubious about honorifics, but last year, when I got the cancer thing, all those scruples I had all those years, they just flew out the window. I thought, 'I'll take it!' (LAUGHTER) 'I've got cancer. (BLEEP) it, I'm gonna be Sir Sam.' (LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) - Some people choose not to have further treatment if they've found the upfront treatment quite rigorous, but he was keen to push on and try something new. We had to think of what the next step would be in order to try and salvage things. So for Sam's second line of treatment, I chose more novel agents ` a drug which Sam responded brilliantly to, very quickly. - To everybody's surprise, it started to work. And that was a year ago now, and I have been in remission ever since then, and I'm immensely grateful for that. It's not something I can finish. I will be on this for the rest of my life. - So, because he's still in remission, I think we can just do a blood test, just a cannulation for each cycle. - Every two weeks, I go in and get beaten up again. (CHUCKLES) It's like going 10 rounds with a boxer. But it's keeping me alive, and... and being alive is infinitely preferable to the alternative. (CHUCKLES) - It's really encouraging to see how good he's looking. - And he's now able to get up and go to work, you know, 90% of the time. And that's` that's a huge deal for a man like him. - I'm doing my first sort of substantial work for a year. The idea of retirement fills me with horror, actually. (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) To not be able to do the things that you love would be heartbreaking. But I've also got to be realistic in that I'm in a very uncertain world at the moment. Very uncertain. Nothing` nothing is assured. It's out of my control. But I've done some good things. I've done some good things. Not all of them have been good. There's` We all have regrets, but... I think I can live with myself, and I can die by myself OK. (CHUCKLES) Gee, how did it get to that? (CHUCKLES) - Well, in typical humble fashion, Sam Neill took to Instagram recently to apologise for worrying anyone with the news. He reassured friends, family and fans, saying, 'I am firmly in remission 'and plan to remain so for years to come.' And of course, we hope so too. E haere ake nei ` the dangerous new front line in the war on drug smuggling... - What really worries us today is what's under the waterline there. That's where we're seeing increasingly large quantities of drugs being hidden. - ...a war the good guys are losing. - 80% of drugs are still making their way through to the streets of this country. - Roughly. Roughly. - Kia ora mai ano. The cocaine trade is booming ` the white powder costs more than gold, but it's a price that consumers are happy to pay. Happier still are the drug cartels who are raking in the cash, despite law enforcement doing all it can to stop them. Tonight, Sarah Abo is inside the scheme to outwit the criminals, and discovers their new MO ` parasite smuggling. (TENSE ELECTRONIC MUSIC) - SARAH ABO: Sydney's bustling Port Botany is one of the largest container facilities in the country. Ships stream in and out of here 24 hours a day. Today, there's a VIP on the water ` the commissioner of Australian Border Force. - In recent times, we've had hundreds of kilos of narcotics found. - Michael Outram has come here on a mission to send a message to his greatest enemies ` the bosses of the drug cartels. So, Commissioner, we're looking at a pretty big ship with literally thousands of containers on it, but what we can see is only half of the problem. - Indeed, yeah, the containers are a big problem, but what really worries us today is what's under the waterline there. (OMINOUS MUSIC) - The commissioner wants to be clear ` he and his officers are well aware of the latest devious way drugs are being trafficked into Australia. There are lots of cavities in these ships ` they're called sea chests and other things, and that's where we're seeing increasingly large quantities of drugs being hidden. - It's called parasite smuggling ` concealing tons of cocaine and other illegal substances in underwater compartments on the hulls of ships. - We can search in a container quite easily ` we've been geared up to do that for years. - Mm. - We haven't been geared up to go under the waterline and examine the bottom of a ship, and it's huge` - Yeah. - ...so we need to be able to do it in a very expedient way. - The rise of parasite smuggling has meant law enforcement has been playing a kind of catch-up to drug importers ` but not any more. And Michael Outram wants to show off the reason why ` the latest weapon in Border Force's armoury ` a fleet of underwater drones. So how long has that drone been in operation for? - Just under 12 months. - And how many discoveries has it made in that time? - We won't go into exactly how many, but in very recent times, it's made a major discovery of more than 100 kilos of narcotics under the waterline on a vessel. - Wow. That's significant. - It's huge. - So it's already worth its weight in gold. - Absolutely. You took the words out of my mouth. - There's an obvious element of nefarious ingenuity, but parasite smuggling can also be a dangerous game. (TENSE MUSIC) In May last year, a grim discovery at the Port of Newcastle, when the body of 31-year-old Brazilian diver Bruno Borges was found floating in the water. Alongside him was 50 kilos of cocaine worth $20 million. - A failed drug drop has left a scuba diver dead and uncovered a mammoth cocaine haul. - Borges had been trying to recover the drugs, which were hidden under a ship, when he drowned. (FOREBODING MUSIC) You've been doing this for a long time. - I have, yeah. Straight out of school. Actually joined the Navy as a clearance diver. - Yeah. - Did that for about eight years, and then been a commercial diver for the last five years. - Professional diver Jared Darcey says the area where Bruno Borges was diving under the ship was particularly dangerous. - On the sea chest, you can get sucked against the sea chest; you can get blown off it. - Wow. - And when you're pinned against the sea chest, the force ` there's no way to get off, and you will drown. - And that's it ` game over. - That's it. - OVER RT: I'm in position. - To make the already complicated dive even more perilous, Borges was using a detection-avoiding rebreather, which stops air bubbles being emitted. Jared believes the device is a likely contributing factor to his death. - So, a rebreather is a very technical piece of equipment ` depending on the type of rebreather he was using, if he was using a 100% oxygen rebreather, that does have a depth limitation of about 10 metres. so if he was diving to collect a large quantity of drugs, that would make him a lot heavier in the water` - Mm-hm. ...and he could have easily surpassed the 10m mark` - Mm-hm. - ...which then the diver will go into a blackout, and once you black out underwater, the chance of drowning is quite high. (TENSE MUSIC) (RESPIRATOR HISSES) - These are the risks people are willing to take. - Yeah, absolutely. The drug trade ` people die, and they've got an immense budget. So whether it's buying, you know, diving equipment with rebreathers, flying divers around the world to go and do certain jobs, employing technologies now to detect our surveillance, encryption of communications ` incredible sophistication. You know, we're really in a sort of an arms race here, and it's constant, and we have to keep up with them. We're currently only getting about 20% to 25% of the narcotics getting into our country. - So some 80% of drugs are still making their way through to the streets of this country? - Roughly. Roughly. (SIREN WAILS) - ARCHIVE: Slumped in the seat of his luxury car ` executed in an ambush. - The cartels might be losing up to a quarter of their product to police operations, but it's a sacrifice they're willing to make. Australia's obsession with cocaine and other illicit drugs guarantees it's still a lucrative trade. It also means there's little likelihood of a truce in Sydney's deadly gang wars. - It's the heartache that is left behind that they don't think about. You know, a lot of these funerals that we've done, every time I'm at the cemetery, I always see the... (VOICE BREAKS) ...always see the mother there, you know? - Ahmed Hraichie is an undertaker at the Lakemba Mosque in Western Sydney. In July, the killing of 25-year-old Ahmed Al-Azzam was particularly devastating for him. - His father came into the washroom and the father helped wash his son. Think for a second ` this is the kid you raised all your life to` to be a young man. Now you're washing him. He's lifeless. You're bathing him like a baby again. But he's not coming back. He's not a baby. He's dead. - Ahmed Al-Azzam was shot multiple times as he sat in a car in a suburban street. His family maintained he was an innocent victim of Sydney's drug wars. - But a lot of collateral damage. His dreams will never be reached. He'll never be married, he'll never have offsprings, he'll never be a grandfather. His father will never be a grandfather to his son's kids. - The investigation into the murder of Ahmed Al-Azzam is ongoing, just like the cycle of violence he became a victim of. - You know, the people who are actually behind these drug trades are ruthless, violent criminals, and they're running really evil sort of empires, and people are really suffering and some people are dying as a result of it. - 'And that's not the only challenge Michael Outram faces. 'He concedes drug cartels have now compromised every part of the supply chain, 'from the shipping companies to the port authorities.' How widespread is the infiltration, is the corruption? - It's a big problem. We've identified in the last two years, looking into this problem, about 100 organisations and 1000 people that operate at the border that really worry us. - Really? - And that's what we can see. So` - I mean, that's very disconcerting. - It is disconcerting. - But it gets worse. The commissioner's most alarming admission is that he has concerns about some of his own officers. - There is no organisation that can lay claim to being corruption-free or corruption-proof, cos organised crime need our information. They want our information ` they want to know where we are, when we're going to be there, what we're not looking at, what we are looking at ` it's gold for them, and we realise the value of that. - It is an uncomfortable truth to learn as a member of the public, to hear that from you, Commissioner, that there's likely corruption within your ranks. - 99%-plus of the workforce are absolutely committed to the mission. I've got 5700 officers. If just one of those officers, just one, is in the pocket of organised crime, and they're in a job where they can access certain sensitive information, that's a big problem for us. - But ultimately, Michael Outram is an optimist. He's sure the war on drugs will eventually be won ` by the good guys. Ahmed Hraichie hopes the commissioner is right. Over the past 20 years, he's buried too many victims. His simple wish is for the violence to stop. What impact is the current crime wave having on the community? - Honestly? People are moving out. People are selling their houses in these areas and moving out. - Why? - Because they can't handle it any more. The devastation, the aftermath. The collateral damage all left behind ` nobody sees that. The stories on the media ` once, twice, and that's it. No one sees what is left ` that the family has to pick up the pieces and deal with. We have our wives and our sisters and our siblings all walking in the street. We don't want a stray bullet to hit one of them. And we've seen` we've heard on the news some of these bullets have gone into childcare centres and stuff like that. Well, imagine it hit a child, an innocent child. - Well, cocaine divers have also surfaced here ` last year, a Portuguese and Australian diver were arrested for allegedly trying to retrieve 91 kilos of cocaine from the hull of a ship at Port Chalmers. Well, that is our show for tonight ` we'd love to hear from you on our social media, and if you have a story you think we should investigate, our email is sunday@tvnz.co.nz And remember, you can find our stories and entire shows on TVNZ+ ` just head to the Sunday page.