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National | Kaitaia

Northland Police find $438m worth of meth in Kaitaia

A 31-year-old man and a 26-year-old man from Auckland have been arrested after a record amount of methamphetamine was found on an abandoned boat in Kaitaia.

A total of 448kgs was found, said to have a street value of around $448 million dollars.

Police came across the boat which housed a number of mesh bags on 90 Mile Beach.

Police began searching for a Toyota Prado and a rental campervan, as information had been received that the occupants of these vehicles had been seen in the area in the past fortnight acting suspiciously and trying to launch boats off the West Coast.

Members of the public had also contacted Police saying the men driving the vehicles had been offering large amounts of cash to locals, in exchange for assistance to launch boats off the beach.

While Police were at 90 Mile Beach retrieving the boat, the Toyota Prado drove past. The driver failed to stop for Police and a pursuit began.

The vehicle stopped a short distance later at the Ahipara Golf Course.

Several hours later, Police saw the campervan driving at Totara North and stopped the vehicle.

Officers then found multiple bags of methamphetamine in the back of the campervan.

The 19-year-old driver and the campervan were taken back to the Kaitaia Police Station, where a further search of the campervan found multiple suitcases and bags.

Inside the suitcases and bags were dozens of plastic zip-lock bags, containing methamphetamine.

“This is without a doubt, the largest ever seizure of methamphetamine in New Zealand, and what is so great about this is that it’s not only the result of hard work by the Northland Police, but it’s the result of information we got from the community.

We received notification of several cases of suspicious behaviour in the past few weeks, and that has allowed us to get to this point” says

“Wherever this methamphetamine was headed, it was going to cause harm, and it’s thanks to the Kaitaia community, who were not going to tolerate this, that we’ve managed to stop the harm from this massive haul of meth” he says.

Investigations are now underway into where the methamphetamine had come from.

Police and Customs believe the drugs had been retrieved from the waters just off 90 Mile Beach.