{"id":578527,"date":"2026-08-24T05:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T05:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578527\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T05:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T05:58:09","slug":"extra-33-charges-over-alleged-prison-bribery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578527\/","title":{"rendered":"Extra 33 charges over alleged prison bribery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">Police have laid an additional 33 corruption-related charges following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2026\/05\/21\/prison-guards-allegedly-took-cash-to-smuggle-drugs-phones-to-inmates\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a police investigation<\/a> into prison guards allegedly taking cash to smuggle drugs and mobile phones to inmates inside corrections facilities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Twenty people \u2013 including nine Corrections Officers from the Mt Eden Corrections Facility, one from Spring Hill Corrections Facility, five Reintegration Officers from the Auckland South Corrections Facility, and five members of the public \u2013 were charged in May following a police investigation, dubbed Operation Jasper, into alleged criminal activity at the Auckland prison in July last year, Detective Inspector Colin Parmenter said at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The police probe found mobile phones smuggled into corrections facilities were allegedly used to run drug importation and contraband trafficking operations from behind bars, police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Police today confirmed a further 33 corruption-related charges against people charged when the operation ended in late May 2026. It brings the total number of charges being faced by the group to 141.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Police note these charges require the Attorney-General\u2019s consent to prosecute.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Operation Jasper<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The probe initially focused on activities of sentenced and remand prisoners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;We will allege that some of those prisoners were coordinating drug importations and drug-related transactions from within prison.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">He said &#8220;concerningly&#8221;, corrections officers were identified as being involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Several staff working in Mt Eden were allegedly involved in smuggling mobile phones, drugs, tobacco and other contraband into prison in exchange for cash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Police believe the phones were used by prisoners to continue drug importation and distribution activities from within the Mt Eden facility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Operation Jasper then expanded to examine the Auckland South Correctional Facility (ASCF), based in Wiri.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Parmenter said evidence was identified that implicated several reintegration officers employed by Serco allegedly engaging in similar practices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;It will be alleged this involved smuggling controlled drugs and tobacco for financial gain.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have laid an additional 33 corruption-related charges following a police investigation into prison guards allegedly taking cash&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-578527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578527","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=578527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}