{"id":14370,"date":"2025-07-22T05:15:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14370"},"modified":"2025-07-22T05:15:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:15:30","slug":"four-kilos-of-cocaine-found-hidden-in-suitcase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14370","title":{"rendered":"Four kilos of cocaine found hidden in suitcase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Customs officers have found $1.6 million worth of cocaine &#8220;intricately&#8221; hidden in a suitcase at Auckland Airport.<\/p>\n<p>Four kilos of the drug were concealed in the panels of the bag of a passenger who had arrived on a flight from Chile yesterday, Customs said.<\/p>\n<p>The bag came to the attention of the officers when it was flagged for an inspection during baggage processing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-half photo-right four_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--C0ALbYb1--\/c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,w_576\/v1753075581\/4K3WRKI_Image_2_png?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"Four kilograms of cocaine were found hidden in a suitcase at Auckland Airport.\" width=\"576\" height=\"763\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">Four kilograms of cocaine were found hidden in a suitcase at Auckland Airport.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Supplied \/ Customs<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Auckland Airport chief customs officer Ben Wells said the officers had to do a very detailed search.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This one was quite an intricate concealment &#8211; its detection relied on our officers&#8217; training and tenacity. They kept looking until they found it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Organised crime uses a number of ways to attempt to smuggle narcotics into New Zealand. Our experienced officers use a range of techniques to detect concealments.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If it was sold, the drug would have been worth $1,552,000 and finding it has prevented a lot of social harm and cost to New Zealand, a Customs spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>A 25 year old woman has been charged with the importation and possession of a Class A controlled drug.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Customs officers have found $1.6 million worth of cocaine &#8220;intricately&#8221; hidden in a suitcase at Auckland Airport. Four kilos of the drug were concealed in the panels of the bag of a passenger who had arrived on a flight from Chile yesterday, Customs said. The bag came to the attention of the officers when it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14370","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=14370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14372,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14370\/revisions\/14372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}