Three men have been sentenced in the biggest cross-border drug bust of methamphetamine in New Zealand history, coming after more than 713 kilograms of the drug was found hidden inside maple syrup bottles shipped from Vancouver.
The High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, sentenced Wenfu Zhang, 31, to 10 years and 10 months for importing the meth, along with handing seven year sentences to Tayzel Tini and Liam Prasad for acting as “catchers” whose job was to unpack the drug shipment on arrival in New Zealand.
Police records show that two of the men sentenced were born in New Zealand and one was born in China, according to an Oct. 3 email from a New Zealand Police spokesperson to The Epoch Times.
The bust was made in January 2023 by New Zealand customs officials had a street value of CA$203.4 million, according to New Zealand authorities.
“In January, the shipment of maple syrup from Canada was intercepted and found to be concealing nearly three quarters of a tonne of methamphetamine,” New Zealand police stated in a June 2023 press release about the bust. “It was part of a wider shipment of methamphetamine bound for the Australasian market, which saw law enforcement in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada working together and co-ordinating their respective investigations.”
The shipment was distributed among 18 pallets and packed into four-litre maple syrup jugs, according to police, who say the drugs were part of a broader multi-million dollar international drug trafficking operation. The January interception of the methamphetamines was aided by the work of Australian and Canadian authorities.
