Illegal drugs slip past customs through mail

What do a baby’s shoe, two CDS and a washcloth have in common?

On the surface, not much. But all three were used to disguise drugs being shipped into New Zealand through the mail.

The most recent statistics from New Zealand Customs Service show a slight decrease in the amount of drugs being intercepted at New Zealand’s border at Auckland’s mail centre.

From August 31, 2019, to August 30 this year, 1972 packages containing controlled or illegal drugs were intercepted at mail centres at New Zealand’s border.

That’s a downward trend from the 2373 intercepted during the same period in 2018/19 and the 2618 in 2017/18.

MDMA (or ecstasy) was the most common drug found, with agents seizing 292 kilograms of it during the 12 months to August this year, three times higher than methamphetamine, the next drug on the list, at 93kg.

But those are just the drugs customs is catching.

Roy, not his real name, who spoke to Stuff on condition of anonymity, managed to sneak 60 tabs of the hallucinogenic LSD (also known as acid) through customs. Stuff has seen both the packaging and the drugs – although some were missing from the original number.

He and his flatmate recently discovered what could be found in the deepest corners of the ‘‘dark web’’ and decided they would give mail order drugs a go.

Once they decided on acid, they had some shipped from the Netherlands to, hopefully, be delivered to their door in Auckland.

They ordered three separate

shipments containing 20 tabs each to make sure at least one got through.

But, all three parcels made it through customs.

One was disguised in a baby’s shoe, another was stuck between two CDS.

‘‘We couldn’t really believe it worked when it all showed up on the doorstep,’’ he said.

An NZ Customs spokesperson said staff used a range of techniques – including sophisticated technology, detector dogs, data and intelligence – across all import pathways to detect prohibited goods, including drugs, at the border.

‘‘This gives us assurance and confidence our targeting is working as intended,’’ they said.

‘‘Controlled drugs that are located at the border are seized by customs and may be subject to investigation.

‘‘We are confident our work at the border is successful in detecting prohibited goods and drugs, and we continually adapt and refocus our targeting to meet the challenges of the everchanging risk.’’

The spokesperson wouldn’t comment on how many parcels they thought they might be missing.

With that in mind, Roy and his flatmate said they were happy enough with their current haul and wouldn’t be shipping anything more for some time.

‘‘We couldn’t really believe it worked when it all showed up on the doorstep.’’

Roy, not his real name, who got hallucinogenic LSD through customs