The navy of New Zealand is credited with making what is being called the country’s most significant drug seizure to date after seizing a floating cargo of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean.
The stockpile was discovered hundreds of kilometres to the northwest of New Zealand. It had a total weight of 3.2 tonnes (3,200 lb) and was valued at NZ$500 million (£263 million; $316 million).
According to the police, they assumed it was going to Australia, where one shipment would have been sufficient to supply that market for an entire year.
The packages were tied together with buoys, and some of them included labels bearing a symbol of Batman.
Pictures that were supplied by the New Zealand police and authorities from the defence department showed that some of the cocaine packages had a black four-leaf clover emblem printed on them.
Officials in New Zealand stated that these images were the “trademark emblems” for the drug manufacturers, who they believe to be located in South America.
“This is the largest find of illicit drug seizure by New Zealand agencies, by some margin,” said Andrew Coster, New Zealand’s police commissioner, on Wednesday. “This is the largest find of illicit drugs by some measure,”
He continued by saying, “It is more than New Zealand would use in the span of thirty years.”
The large consignment, which consisted of 81 bales of cocaine, was recovered by the New Zealand navy last week after they sent out a warship to retrieve it.
They were transported to Auckland, which is located on the North Island of New Zealand, on Tuesday, and then carried to a secure location, where officials claimed they would be documented and then destroyed.
According to what Mr. Coster had to say, “We believe that we have given a severe blow to the operation of a worldwide criminal gang.”
The authorities did not reveal any information regarding the operation or how they were able to locate the drug seizure . However, they stated that their colleagues in the Five Eyes intelligence organisation had supplied assistance. This group is comprised of the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
