Cocaine worth $14 million found in diamante-encrusted horse head
Police have made the country's largest ever cocaine bust, finding $14 million worth of the drug inside a diamante-encrusted horse sculpture.
Two men have been arrested following the Customs seizure of 35 high-grade bricks of the drug inside a 400-kilogram statue being brought in from Mexico in May.
Police said the men, a 44-year-old from Mexico and a 56-year-old American, had both been charged with importing a class A drug and would appear in Manukau District Court on Saturday morning.
A search warrant was due to be carried out at an address in Te Atatu. Police are not ruling out further arrests.
Officers in Christchurch were also due to execute search warrants in Linwood and two men and a woman are talking with police.
“This is obviously an extremely large amount of cocaine, and in the past we’ve only found very small amounts of this drug," Detective Senior Sergeant Colin Parmenter, Officer in Charge, Organised Crime Auckland, said.
"Prior to this, the average amount of cocaine seized by Police each year was around 250 grams. What this find tells us though is that there is obviously a demand for it.
"While it’s possible that this statue may have been sent on to another country, but there’s every possibility that the cocaine was destined for the New Zealand market and we would be naïve to think otherwise.”
