Police find $500k of cocaine in capital
Police have arrested three foreign nationals in a cocaine bust in Wellington that netted about 1 kilogram of the drug, worth an estimated $500,000.
The police’s national organised crime group concluded an operation in the capital on Wednesday, targeting the supply of the illegal stimulant in the region.
Three men, two Colombians in their 20s and 30s, and a Malaysian man in his 50s, were arrested in Lower Hutt. Police believe they had imported cocaine for distribution.
The trio face charges that include supplying cocaine and possession of cocaine for supply. They were to appear in Wellington District Court yesterday.
Police searched a number of Hutt Valley addresses during Wednesday’s raid, and seized another 350 grams of cocaine.
Detective Inspector Stu Graham said the drug busts and arrests were an example of the police’s ‘‘commitment to disrupt these trans-national organised crime groups who are attempting to profit from a drug that would cause significant harm in our communities’’.
The seizure had a street value of about $500,000.
Police could not comment on whether those arrested were linked to South American drug cartels.