{"id":95742,"date":"2025-10-23T04:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T04:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/95742\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T04:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T04:51:09","slug":"over-a-tonne-of-illegal-tobacco-seized-four-arrested-in-auckland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/95742\/","title":{"rendered":"Over a tonne of illegal tobacco seized, four arrested in Auckland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four Chinese Nationals have been arrested after Customs found more than a tonne of loose tobacco, a cannabis grow house, illegal cigarettes, and small bags of meth at various properties across Auckland.<\/p>\n

Customs officers found an estimated 1.2 tonne of loose tobacco in a storage unit during a raid yesterday. <\/p>\n

They also located a “commercial quantity” of cigarettes<\/a> and small bags of methamphetamine at a residential address. <\/p>\n

A cannabis grow-house was discovered during the search of another house. The set-up was dismantled by police with the assistance of Customs. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A cannabis cultivation and growing set-up discovered in Auckland by a Customs investigation. (Source: NZ Customs Service)<\/p>\n

The busts were part of an operation linked to the seizure<\/a> of 927,000 cigarettes in August that led to the arrest of a man. <\/p>\n

Chief Customs Officer fraud and prohibition, Nigel Barnes, said law enforcement had identified the four suspects after the August bust. <\/p>\n

They were believed to be involved in receiving previous air cargo consignments from China containing illicit tobacco.<\/p>\n

“What we\u2019re seeing is an example of the current scale of organised tobacco smuggling happening in New Zealand,\u201d Barnes said. <\/p>\n

\u201cTobacco smuggling doesn\u2019t happen in isolation \u2013 it\u2019s often linked to other serious crimes involving drugs and various illicit commodities. <\/p>\n

“People who think that illicit tobacco isn’t a problem should be aware that it’s part of the wider criminal ecosystem, which is why we\u2019re using all available information sources to target and disrupt the flow of illicit tobacco into New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four arrested men were due to appear in the Manukau District Court today on a variety of illicit tobacco and drug-related charges. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four Chinese Nationals have been arrested after Customs found more than a tonne of loose tobacco, a cannabis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-95742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95742","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=95742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}