Authorities in New Zealand have intercepted a huge floating area of cocaine bricks in the Pacific Ocean. According to a press release from the New Zealand Defense Force, “Eighty-one bales of the product have since made the six-day journey back to New Zealand aboard the Royal New Zealand Navy vessel HMNZS Manawanui, where they will now be destroyed.”
In what is called, “Operation Hydros”, military, police, and customs agents worked with partner agencies to prevent the cocaine from reaching what they assume would have been Australia. While details of how the cocaine ended up in the ocean and what each agency had to do with it, it’s clear that removing about $300 million (US) worth of cocaine is making some kingpin somewhere very, very unhappy.
New Zealand’s police commissioner Andrew Coster said of the discovery, “This is the largest find of illicit drugs by New Zealand agencies, by some margin,” and “It is more than New Zealand would use in 30 years”.
Image courtesy of New Zealand Defence Force