Multimillion-dollar methamphetamine drug bust at Auckland Airport – Customs
The methamphetamine was concealed in falsely marked boxes, duffel bags and, finally, Prince Durian food packets. Photo / Customs
Forty-seven kilograms of methamphetamine with a street value of $16.45 million has been seized at the border, Customs says.
The drugs were discovered at Auckland Airport in four unaccompanied boxes sent from the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur, said Customs’ manager Auckland Airport Paul Williams.
Upon their arrival in the middle of this month, the yellow boxes were detained by Customs for further inspection after routine enforcement activity, Williams said.
They’d been declared “paper ream” and marked as “IK Yellow”, but Customs officers instead found black duffel bags hidden inside.
The bags held 46 packages of Prince Durian food packets, which in turn concealed about 47kg of methamphetamine, he said.
“This amount of methamphetamine would have been worth up to $16.45 million in street value, and the Customs seizure has prevented up to $52.1m in social harm and cost to New Zealand.”
No arrests had been made as a result of the seizure but investigations were ongoing.
“This seizure has the hallmarks of what is referred to as a ‘rip-on and rip off’ scenario, a common trend at border checkpoints internationally, which we’re increasingly seeing here in New Zealand.
“Customs works closely with partner agencies and industry colleagues such as airport and air freight companies to educate our stakeholders on what to look out for.”
Customs had a simple message to those being exploited by transnational organised crime groups, Williams said.
“These money-greedy criminals don’t care about you or your families – they’ll treat you like scum and you’ll end up bearing the brunt of the law.”
The bust comes after Hells Angels member Brandon Cole pleaded guilty last week to drug trafficking and to laundering more than $950,000, including the cash purchase of a Harley-Davidson Softail Low Rider motorbike, in relation to a huge – and successful – importation of an estimated 450kg of drugs into New Zealand.
Cole’s downfall started with a tip from the Australian Border Force in August 2021, the Herald reported last week.
A massive shipment – 556kg of high-quality methamphetamine – had recently been discovered hidden inside a rotary separator air freighted from the Philippines. Had New Zealand authorities seen anything similar?
A quick review by Customs discovered that an almost identical shipment from the same exporter had been cleared to enter New Zealand two months earlier.
It was too late to confiscate the estimated 450kg of drugs that were successfully smuggled into New Zealand – a haul that would have been worth tens of millions of dollars. But authorities were able to gather enough circumstantial evidence to arrest Cole a year later, after a lengthy investigation dubbed Operation Samson.
The latest drug bust also comes after police arrested every patched member of the Christchurch chapter of the Comancheros gang this week and said they’d seized millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs, including methamphetamine.
The arrests followed an eight-month investigation, dubbed Operation Avon.
* Anyone with concerns about possible smuggling can contact Customs confidentially on 0800 WE PROTECT (0800 937 768) or Crime Stoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.