{"id":130944,"date":"2025-11-12T07:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T07:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/130944\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T07:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T07:56:14","slug":"five-meth-couriers-caught-in-just-over-a-week-at-auckland-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/130944\/","title":{"rendered":"Five meth couriers caught in just over a week at Auckland Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Customs has arrested five people in just over a week while seizing 51kg of methamphetamine at Auckland Airport.<\/p>\n

The drugs have a total street value of approximately $15.2 million.<\/p>\n

In the first incident on November 2, three United States nationals aged between 31 and 48 arrived on a flight from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

A baggage search of suitcases belonging to one of the passengers uncovered nearly 30kg of methamphetamine in 11 vacuum-sealed packages, with a street value of $8.9 million.<\/p>\n

The trio were arrested for their roles in the smuggling attempt.<\/p>\n

A week later, a 69-year-old French national travelling from South Africa was arrested after Customs searched his luggage.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Frenchman was caught attempting to smuggle meth inside a fake book at Auckland Airport on November 9. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

A wooden box disguised as a book titled “Apologize, Forgive, Forget” was found in his backpack.<\/p>\n

Inside the box was 2kg of meth, with a street value of $594,300.<\/p>\n

The next day, Monday, November 10, a 32-year-old United States national arrived in Auckland on a flight from San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Customs officers found 36 vacuum-sealed packages of meth weighing 19kg in their bags, worth $5.7 million on the street.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A United States national was caught with 19 kilograms of meth in their bags at Auckland Airport on 10 November. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

A vial on a keychain was also found in the passenger’s handbag with around 3g of cocaine worth $1050.<\/p>\n

Customs Auckland Airport manager Paul Williams said it\u2019s been a record year for Auckland Airport in drug seizures.<\/p>\n

He said frontline Customs officers have seized an estimated 670kg of methamphetamine and cocaine from passengers and unaccompanied luggage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Customs has arrested five people in just over a week while seizing 51kg of methamphetamine at Auckland Airport.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-130944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}