{"id":14024,"date":"2025-06-23T17:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T05:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14024"},"modified":"2025-06-23T17:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T05:41:16","slug":"meth-worth-8-million-seized-after-drug-smuggling-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14024","title":{"rendered":"Meth worth $8 million seized after drug smuggling operation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Police have arrested four men accused of being in a Wellington-based drug syndicate, seizing 23 kilograms of methamphetamine with a street value of more than $8 million.<\/p>\n<p>Police said over the past month a joint operation with Customs &#8211; Operation Armani &#8211; identified a group they said were smuggling significant amounts of drugs into New Zealand over a number of months.<\/p>\n<p>More than 1000 MDMA pills, with a street value of $50,000, was also seized.<\/p>\n<p>Police also located a loaded pistol and ammunition.<\/p>\n<p>Last week the National Organised Crime Group, Customs, district investigators and specialist support groups carried out a number of search warrants across the Wellington district.<\/p>\n<p>Four men, aged 26 to 30 faced charges for the import and supply of methamphetamine, and possession for supply of cocaine, MDMA and cannabis.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--8kZWmVhh--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1750643911\/4K5CVUI_DRUG_BUST_MDMA_METH_3_png?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"More than 1000 MDMA pills were seized.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"787\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">More than 1000 MDMA pills were seized.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Supplied \/ NZ Police<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>They have appeared in the Lower Hutt and Wellington District Courts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an enormous amount of serious harm being peddled into our communities &#8211; with these suppliers giving no conscious thought to the impact on those they are supplying to,&#8221; Detective Inspector Darrin Thomson said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This investigation demonstrates how the excellent work of frontline Customs officers combined with the collaborative efforts of our Police partners is protecting our communities from the scourge of illicit drugs,&#8221;Acting Customs investigations manager Matt Green said.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>~VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Police have arrested four men accused of being in a Wellington-based drug syndicate, seizing 23 kilograms of methamphetamine with a street value of more than $8 million. Police said over the past month a joint operation with Customs &#8211; Operation Armani &#8211; identified a group they said were smuggling significant amounts of drugs into New [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14026,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14024\/revisions\/14026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}