{"id":327212,"date":"2026-03-13T05:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/327212\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T05:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:51:09","slug":"human-remains-found-on-coppermine-island-confirmed-as-missing-fisherman-ferzil-babu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/327212\/","title":{"rendered":"Human remains found on Coppermine Island confirmed as missing fisherman Ferzil Babu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BrodieBrodie Stone<\/a><\/p>\n

Multimedia Journalist\u00b7Northern Advocate\u00b7<\/p>\n

12 Mar, 2026 11:32 PMQuick Read<\/p>\n

Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now<\/p>\n

\u200c<\/p>\n

Save<\/a>Share this articleCopy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n

Human remains found on an island off the East Coast of Northland have been confirmed as missing fisherman Ferzil Babu. <\/p>\n

Babu, 34, went missing after a fishing trip at The Gap, Taiharuru, in May 2024. <\/p>\n

\n The body of his friend, Sarath Kumar<\/a>, 37, was
\n located by the police dive squad<\/a> two days after the pair went missing.\n <\/p>\n

A police spokeswoman said a member of the Department of Conservation contacted police after finding the remains on Coppermine Island<\/a>, in the Hen and Chicken Islands group, east of Bream Bay, on December 20 last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe remains have since been examined by a pathologist, anthropologist, and ESR scientists as we worked to identify who the person was.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brodie Stone Multimedia Journalist\u00b7Northern Advocate\u00b7 12 Mar, 2026 11:32 PMQuick Read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,176227,1558,11586,2223,119976,3806,176226,19630,1874,305,16420,2514,6501,111,43,139,1067,69,90,10715],"class_list":["post-327212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-babu","tag-been","tag-coast","tag-confirmed","tag-coppermine","tag-east","tag-ferzil","tag-fisherman","tag-found","tag-have","tag-human","tag-island","tag-missing","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-remains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327212","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=327212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}