A huge shipment of cocaine, with an estimated street value of nearly $16 million, has been seized at the Port of Tauranga.
Customs officers found 35kg of the drug inside the engine compartment of a refrigerated shipping container loaded with bananas. The ship arrived from Panama last Thursday, November 9.
The shipment was estimated to have a street value of $15.7 million and could have produced 350,000 doses of the drug, causing $10.5 million in social harm.
“Customs is extremely proud of the work both frontline officers and our support teams do every day to intercept the smuggling efforts of transnational organised crime groups who aim to exploit our communities and profit from the harm they inflict through their trafficking,” Customs group manager maritime, Paul Campbell said.
It comes just two weeks after 140kg of cocaine was seized from a container at the Ports of Auckland.
Four were arrested following that seizure with an investigation exposing a “sophisticated organised crime smuggling operation”.
Campbell said smuggling can cause significant disruption to the ports’ operations, slowing the country’s economy.
“While Customs risk assesses all incoming shipments and vessels, the time involved for physical searches is significant.
“Like the Customs’ operation in Auckland recently, where 140 kilograms of cocaine was seized, clearance of other legitimate shipments becomes inevitably slower while we undertake inspections for suspect containers."
Port of Tauranga chief executive Leonard Sampson said the port was “keen to support Customs’ operations in any way possible, even at the risk of causing delays to legitimate cargo”.
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