Earlier this month, $20 million of methamphetamine, commonly known as 'P', came into New Zealand hidden in spatulas - not quite the kind of cooking they were intended for.
It's just one of the many creative ways criminals have tried to smuggle drugs.
In May, a diamante-encrusted horse hit headlines for containing New Zealand's largest ever cocaine seizure. The smugglers weren't horsing around, hiding 35 bricks of the stuff inside the 400kg sculpture.
In January, a 1.5 kg haul of meth was intercepted at Wellington airport inside an "unusually heavy" neck-pillow.
Recently, 4000 handbags hid 30kg of P inside small silica gel sachets worth an estimated $30 million.
On a smaller scale, nearly $10 million worth of the Class B drug ephedrine a medication that can be used to make P - was stuffed inside thousands of tiny plastic toys, discovered in 2015 inside a shipping container from China.
Over the years, New Zealand customs has also intercepted:
- a drug used to make P found disguised as mints
- a 3.5 kg bag of P hidden inside a tin of porridge oats.
- A Mr Potatohead toy stuffed with ecstasy was seized at a mail centre in Sydney.
- Eight hundred kilograms of marijuana valued at $2 million was hidden inside donkey-shaped statues in the US.
- Eight hundred kilograms of marijuana valued at $2 million was hidden inside donkey-shaped statues in the US.
- A woman tried to get into Colombia with 1.5 kg of cocaine inside her breast implants.
- Customs thought there was something fishy about clams intercepted at Washington airport - they were stuffed with 15 small bags of cocaine
This criminal creativity is global. It's a constant challenge for customs officers around the world to keep up with these imaginative offenders.
via Newshub.
