French national Antoine Richard was last seen in Cromwell at 11.45pm on March 21. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n
A large search operation has involved police, Land Search and Rescue members from the Otago and Southland area, Coastguard and members of the community.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Richard\u2019s family said they had been \u201cdevastated with worry\u201d since hearing of his disappearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are writing on behalf of his entire family, his friends, his colleagues in France and New Zealand, and all the people he loves, in the hope of finding him as soon as possible,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Searchers recovered the body from Cornish Point near Cromwell this afternoon. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Police had appealed for Cromwell residents to check their properties and review CCTV footage from the time Richard was last seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also wanting to hear from anybody who may have seen anyone matching Antoine\u2019s description, either hitchhiking or walking in Cromwell in the early hours of Sunday, March 22,\u201d Hamlin said.<\/p>\n
Police have been involved in the search for Antoine Richard. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Richard was wearing a black T-shirt, light denim shorts and Crocs.<\/p>\n
Search teams previously found a grey rubber Croc-branded sandal at the shore of Lake Dunstan and sought information from anyone who may have seen similar footwear.<\/p>\n
Richard\u2019s family said he went missing after playing a rugby match with the Cromwell rugby team, and thanked those involved in the search effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn enormous amount of work has already been carried out by the police, the Search and Rescue team, Carrick winery where he worked, his friends, the Cromwell rugby team, local residents, and everyone who has taken part in the search. We are infinitely grateful to them.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe community support and search efforts have been extremely appreciated. Our thoughts are with his loved ones at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[188810,1975,1558,7800,1853,189049,188811,2837,2082,1874,52228,42,13207,6501,43,9629,423,15160,1870,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-358096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-antoine","tag-at","tag-been","tag-body","tag-central","tag-cornish","tag-cromwell","tag-during","tag-for","tag-found","tag-frenchman","tag-headlines","tag-lake","tag-missing","tag-news","tag-otago","tag-point","tag-richard","tag-search","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358096","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=358096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}