'Corrupt' baggage handlers, gang members arrested amid massive drugs probe

Police and Customs have arrested eight members of the 28 Brotherhood MC gang, including their president, as part of an operation into “corrupt baggage handlers” helping import drugs through Auckland Airport.

This morning, Detective Inspector Tom Gollan provided an update on Operation Matata, which was launched earlier this year following a police and Customs joint investigation into drug smuggling at Auckland Airport.

Previous phases had seen dozens of arrests, including current and former workers employed by baggage handling agencies at the airport, accused of organising and carrying out the smuggling of class A drugs – meth and cocaine – through unattended baggage.

This week he said the fifth phase of the operation was carried out, resulting in arrests of eight gang members from the 28 Brotherhood MC gang, including their president.

“They have all been arrested and charged with facilitating large amount of drugs and are facing significant charges, these relate to importation of class, a conspiracy to import and position for supply offences.”

Drugs seize as part of Operation Matata earlier this year. (Source: Supplied)

He said other local gangs were alleged to have been involved, including Head Hunters and Comancheros.

“The unfortunate thing is, these gangs need what’s known as a door into the country, and that’s why they target and entice these baggage handlers and different other areas in the supply chain to try and get their drugs through into the country,” he said.

To date, he said more than 631kg of methamphetamine and 112kg of cocaine has been seized.

The meth had a retail value of $220 million, he said.

“Twenty of those arrests were baggage handlers that were employed by baggage handling companies at the Auckland Airport.”

Gollan said that had the drugs been distributed around the country, they would have caused “significant misery” to vulnerable communities.

Dominic Adams, manager of investigations for New Zealand Customs. (Source: 1News)

Investigations Manager for New Zealand Customs, Dominic Adams, said Customs had worked in close partnership with police and international law enforcement agencies to “successfully dismantle a key arm of a major transnational organised crime syndicate”.

“Intelligence revealed that these criminal groups were actively exploiting trusted border workers with access to the airport supply chain.”

He said the gangs used a “rip on, rip off method”, a tactic commonly used internationally by placing unaccompanied baggage on inbound flights for compromised workers to retrieve.

“This technique was deployed across multiple global supply routes, including flights from Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Santiago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York,” he said.

Adams said the issue was not within Customs or the Government agencies, but people being employed into companies and organisations working in the supply chain.

He said earlier this year Customs was given an extra $35 million over four years to combat this specific type of problem.

“Specifically, we’ve been focused mostly on creating teams that focus on educating our commercial partners around what to look for around these trusted insiders, these poor, exploited workers. We’ve also been putting more enforcement teams into the front line nationally, not just airports.”

Both Gollan and Adams said investigations to disrupt the syndicate was ongoing.