Baggage handlers jailed after attempt to smuggle in meth
Two former airport baggage handlers have been jailed after almost 5kg of methamphetamine was found hidden in a backpack at Auckland Airport.
New Zealand Customs found about 4.6kg of methamphetamine stashed in the backpack after it arrived on Air New Zealand flight NZ5 from Los Angeles in November 2022.
The two men, aged 23 and 19 at the time, were both employed as baggage handlers and were noticed acting suspiciously around a collection of unclaimed luggage.
Following an X-ray and search, the meth, estimated to have a street value of up to $874,000 at the time, was located hidden inside the backpack.
The seizure was estimated to have prevented up to $5.1 million in social harm and economic cost to New Zealand.
Both men, now aged 24 and 20, were jointly convicted for attempting to possess methamphetamine for supply. They were sentenced yesterday in the Manukau District Court to three years and three months’ and two years and nine months’ imprisonment respectively.
Customs investigations manager Dominic Adams said the case was a clear warning about the risks people face when they are willing to abuse the trust and access they are given to work at the border.
“There are many eyes watching,” Adams said. “Customs and our border and industry partners are always on the lookout for the signs of suspicious behaviour from travellers and those trusted to work in secure areas.”
The sentences come after an Auckland Airport baggage handler admitted his participation in an organised crime syndicate that was suspected by police of attempting to smuggle nearly 500kg of meth into New Zealand via overseas commercial flights.
Māngere Bridge resident Kimela Kolo Piukana, 24, entered the guilty plea in June in the High Court at Auckland, two-and-a-half years after he was arrested at the end of a lengthy undercover police and Customs investigation dubbed Operation Selena. Piukana was alleged to be part of a group of airport workers who on several occasions in 2021 were tasked with secretly removing illicit drug shipments stowed aboard Malaysian
Airlines flights from Kuala Lumpur and Air New Zealand flights from Los Angeles.
Another Air New Zealand baggage handler who pleaded guilty to helping unload a secret stash of meth from an arriving Malaysian Airlines flight was caught on camera in the act.
The 16-minute clip of Auckland Airport CCTV footage was played for jurors in the Auckland High Court in June as they continued to hear evidence in the trial of Nigel Iuvale and Tungane Manuel, the last of nearly a dozen co-defendants in Operation Selena to maintain their innocence.