People looking for love online are increasingly becoming targets for international drug cartels, a Tauranga lawyer says.

Craig Tuck, known for his work on high-profile drug trafficking cases such as the Antony De Malmanche trial, says in his experience, such cases were just the 'tip of a vast and emerging iceberg”.

Tauranga lawyer Craig Tuck is warning internet users not to be duped by online love. Photo: File.

People searching for romance online, as well as international travellers, are falling victim to 'new and frightening” drug supply chain exploitation, he says.

'Evidence is mounting of increasing numbers of internet romantics and international travellers risking their lives after being deceived, coerced and ultimately exploited by sophisticated international drug cartels.

'The cartels willingly sacrifice, for profit, drug carriers (often referred to as mules) in countries where execution is a potential sentence for those caught transporting.

'Drug scams can embroil all manner of deception. Often they involve a suggested rendezvous with an Internet lover, but not before sourcing documents, clothing or equipment in a secondary country, en route, for the loved one.

'This is when drugs are often secreted into the exploited person's possessions.”

Mules were treated as a renewable resource in the drug supply chain, where they were quickly and easily replaced, says Craig.

One person who agrees with Craig's assessment is NetSafe executive director Martin Cocker.

'They are entirely disposable,” admits Martin. 'They don't care if you get caught. They don't care if you go down.

'From a criminal point of view, it's a good way to work, using other people to do their work.”

Martin says NetSafe – a not-for-profit organisation promoting safe use of online technologies – had seen an increase in this type of criminal activity over the past year.

'I suspect there has been a number of attempts to recruit people,” he adds, 'but how many they have recruited we don't know.

'We only know of a handful, but there is bound to be lots of them.”

The warning flag is usually waved if a person's online 'lover” asks them to pick up something from one country and take it to another country, he says.

'If you've only ever dealt with someone online, you never know if they are who they say they are,” adds Martin.

Last month, De Malmanche, of Whanganui, received a 15-year prison term for trafficking 1.7kg of crystal methamphetamine into Bali.

His defence team argued that he was the victim of human trafficking and provided detailed information about the drug cartel that exploited him at trial.