The alleged bribes relate to introducing an \u201cunauthorised item\u201d into prison in the staff members\u2019 official capacities.<\/p>\n
At least one person listed on charge sheets provided to the Herald has been arrested for allegedly offering to give a bribe to an official.<\/p>\n
Multiple officials are also charged with conspiring to supply a Class A drug, namely methamphetamine, to unknown prisoners.<\/p>\n
This carries a maximum penalty of 14 years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The Kohuora Auckland South Corrections Facility is operated by Serco.<\/p>\n
One official was charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice \u201cby counselling and confirming their constructed versions of events if questioned\u201d about the illegal smuggling, as well as deleting material from their phones.<\/p>\n
Police allege the offending occurred across various dates this year and in 2025.<\/p>\n
The men were scheduled to appear in the Auckland District Court today.<\/p>\n
Police said further and fuller comments would be released in due course.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs our terminations are still active, we aren\u2019t currently able to release further details,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Corrections told the Herald it was \u201cextremely limited\u201d in what information it could provide because of ongoing investigations and court proceedings.<\/p>\n
In an earlier statement, the deputy commissioner of men\u2019s prisons, Dave Pattinson, said criminal activity in prisons would not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny prisoners or staff taking part in this sort of activity will be found out and held to account.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrections employs approximately 11,000 staff and the overwhelming majority act with integrity, professionalism and honesty in what is an extremely demanding and often dangerous job working with New Zealand\u2019s most dangerous offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n
He confirmed the nine Mt Eden staff were arrested today, and included Corrections officers and senior Corrections officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrections has assisted police throughout their operation and will continue to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five Kohuora Auckland South Corrections Facility reintegration officers were also arrested today.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Serco, the private company which runs Auckland South Corrections Facility, confirmed they were arrested as part of a police investigation across Corrections sites in Auckland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are confident that the overwhelming majority of our staff have integrity, professionalism and a strong commitment to safety every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSerco takes all forms of criminal activity extremely seriously. We have assisted the police with their inquiries throughout this investigation and will continue to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The alleged bribes relate to introducing an \u201cunauthorised item\u201d into prison in the staff members\u2019 official capacities. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30687,1117,193093,1975,51,126848,3021,13239,164680,223322,42,296,19474,1334,1868,13240,43,1118,10711,8442,27344,544,19862,3374,61,40,38,41,39,131927,23849,102],"class_list":["post-436522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accept","tag-accused","tag-agreeing","tag-at","tag-auckland","tag-bribes","tag-bring","tag-charged","tag-conspiring","tag-corruptly","tag-headlines","tag-into","tag-items","tag-jail","tag-meth","tag-methamphetamine","tag-news","tag-of","tag-officials","tag-prison","tag-prisoners","tag-some","tag-supply","tag-supplying","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-twelve","tag-unauthorised","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436522","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=436522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}