{"id":462377,"date":"2026-06-05T12:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462377\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:49:12","slug":"customs-officers-stop-mother-son-from-illegally-exporting-18kg-of-pounamu-pair-fined-5000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462377\/","title":{"rendered":"Customs officers stop mother, son from illegally exporting 18kg of pounamu, pair fined $5000"},"content":{"rendered":"

NZ Herald<\/p>\n

5 Jun, 2026 01:45 AM2 mins to read<\/p>\n

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

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The 18kg of pounamu intercepted at Auckland International Airport. <\/p>\n

In the first case of its kind, a mother and son have been slapped with a $5000 fine after attempting to smuggle 18kg of pounamu out of Auckland International Airport.<\/p>\n

\n The 28-year-old man and 54-year-old woman have been ordered to pay a fine of $5000 in the Manukau District Court,
\n in the first conviction by Customs of an illegal export of pounamu.\n <\/p>\n

The pair was found with 18kg of the protected stone during a baggage search on July 1, 2024. The legal export limit of the product in raw, partial or fully processed form is 5kg, unless approved by the Minister of Customs.<\/p>\n

During questioning, the man acknowledged he knew of the export limit but did not have the required consent.<\/p>\n

Customs records show the man had also previously contacted the border authority, to enquire about pounamu his father had attempted to take on a flight to China, through Auckland International Airport, in May the same year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZ Herald 5 Jun, 2026 01:45 AM2 mins to read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[134545,119900,74,2681,50327,51,1558,1121,17899,128037,6204,19631,1888,71,305,15975,1019,16099,6178,111,43,139,69,1118,23421,13792,103823,104646,14347,22639,1324,102],"class_list":["post-462377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-18kg","tag-119900","tag-after","tag-airport","tag-attempting","tag-auckland","tag-been","tag-case","tag-customs","tag-exporting","tag-fine","tag-fined","tag-first","tag-from","tag-have","tag-illegally","tag-international","tag-kind","tag-mother","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-officers","tag-pair","tag-pounamu","tag-slapped","tag-smuggle","tag-son","tag-stop","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462377","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=462377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}