{"id":558635,"date":"2026-08-04T10:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T10:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558635\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T10:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T10:34:19","slug":"us-woman-jailed-for-trying-to-smuggle-18kg-of-meth-into-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558635\/","title":{"rendered":"US woman jailed for trying to smuggle 18kg of meth into NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

A United States national has been jailed for nearly five years after she was caught trying to smuggle 18kg of methamphetamine into New Zealand. <\/p>\n

The 32-year-old woman had her bags searched after coming off a flight from San Francisco at Auckland Airport on November 10 last year.<\/p>\n

She told Customs officers she knew the contents of her bag and was not carrying any illegal or controlled substances. <\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the packages seized by Customs officers. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

But a search of her bags uncovered 36 vacuum-sealed packages of methamphetamine. The haul, hidden in two suitcases, weighed a total of 18.28kg. <\/p>\n

A “small quantity” of cocaine was also found in her handbag. <\/p>\n

At the Manukau District Court on Friday, July 31, the woman was imprisoned for four years and 10 months. <\/p>\n

Chief Customs office for compliance and enforcement Ben Wells said the sentence showed people would be held accountable for attempting to smuggle drugs into New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\u201cMethamphetamine causes significant harm to individuals, families and communities across New Zealand, and Customs remains committed to stopping those who seek to bring illicit drugs into our country. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s a traveller’s first visit to New Zealand or they have been here multiple times, Customs will take action whenever criminal activity is detected.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A United States national has been jailed for nearly five years after she was caught trying to smuggle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-558635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558635","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=558635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}