New Zealand authorities have found a record-breaking 3.2 tonnes of cocaine floating in international waters. The authorities said the currents were bound for Australia and the haul would have been enough to supply the country for a year, the Guardian reported.
The haul was valued at NZ$500m (US$315m, AU$456m). It was the largest seizure of illicit drugs made by New Zealand law enforcement “by quite some margin”, the police commissioner, Andrew Coster, said.
The 81 bales of cocaine was discovered by joint efforts by New Zealand police, defence and customs agents. It was floating in the Pacific Ocean, floating in nets in international waters six days’ sailing north-east of New Zealand.
While they had yet to make any arrests, police said they had dealt a financial blow to everyone from the South American producers of the drugs through to the distributors in what was the nation's largest-ever drug seizure. The drugs were dropped in the sea by an international drug syndicate. The drugs are being documented and destroyed in New Zealand.
Bill Perry, the acting comptroller of the New Zealand Customs Service, said the haul illustrated the lengths that organized syndicates were going to in order to smuggle drugs in the South Pacific.
We see perhaps this is just an indication that the transnational organized crime groups are testing the market in different ways, so as agencies, we need to collaborate," Perry told AP.
