New Zealand Customs seizes multi-million-dollar drugs

Methamphetamine valued at 30 million NZ dollars (21.79 million U.S. dollars) has been found in thousands on tiny silica gel sachets in a shipment of handbags, New Zealand Customs said Friday.

The shipment of 4,000 handbags, which arrived by airfreight, aroused suspicion among Customs officers, said a statement from Customs.

On inspection, the handbags appeared "ordinary inside and out" with each bag having two to five silica gel packs.

"A large team spent a day and a half opening and testing thousands of tiny meth-filled sachets," Customs investigations manager Maurice O'Brien said in the statement.

Most of the sachets were found to contain about 3.6 grams of methamphetamine, adding up to a total of 30 kilograms.

"This creative concealment shows that criminals will go to great lengths to try and smuggle drugs, but Customs is also constantly building its intelligence picture and updating its risk assessment and examination techniques to keep ahead of emerging trends," said O'Brien.

Customs would not reveal whether any arrests had been made in connection with the find, a Customs spokeswoman told Xinhua by phone.

"It's an ongoing investigation so we can't talk about it," she said.

Last month, the New Zealand Police revealed they had made their biggest ever seizure of methamphetamine.

Police suspected the drugs weighing 494 kg, with an estimated street value of 494 million NZ dollars (358.19 million U.S. dollars), were being smuggled into the country from the sea. Endit