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A friend of a guest at an Auckland run seclusion hotel attempted to smuggle cannabis into the facility by attaching it to a tennis ball and throwing it over the wire.
Another returnee escaped police sanction despite receiving a courier package containing one gram of methamphetamine and a glass pipe.
They were among 29 cases of drug smuggling or use detected by officials from New Zealand’s network of quarantine and managed isolation facilities.
The hotels are used to house people arriving in New Zealand and serving their mandatory 14-day isolation period.
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Details of the failed smuggling efforts, ranging from casual to cunning, came to light following a request from the Official Information Law of Things to the police.
Nine of the 29 attempts occurred at the Ramada Suites in central Auckland, a higher security facility used to house 501 deportees from Australia sent packing due to their past criminal conduct.
The police took a light approach in all cases, destroying the items but taking no action beyond issuing a warning.
Most of the raids focused on cannabis, but two involved methamphetamine and another is believed to have focused on synthetics.
ROSE WOODS
Security at the Grand Mercure in Wellington.
The tennis ball incident took place at a Grand Mercure seclusion hotel in Auckland or Wellington; police records only specify the name of the hotel, not the location.
Defense Force personnel called the police after someone threw a tennis ball onto the smoking terrace with a small bag of cannabis attached to it, a method of drug administration sometimes attempted on the perimeter of prisons. of Kiwi.
The police made inquiries, destroyed the cannabis and took no further action.
About a month earlier, an “unknown woman” delivered a courier package addressed to a male guest to staff at the Auckland Pullman Hotel, according to a police summary of the incident.
“They called the subject and opened the package in front of him to reveal a glass pipe and approximately 1g of methamphetamine,” the police summary said.
The man denied knowing that the package contained class A illicit drugs and instead said he thought it was simply a phone.
“The woman has mysteriously returned to retrieve the package, but when told to wait, it escaped, probably into a vehicle out of range of the site’s cameras.”
Police were unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the man was going to take possession of the methamphetamine and continued to maintain his innocence, so no further action was taken other than seizing and destroying the drugs.
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In April, an occupant of a seclusion hotel in Sudima ordered cannabis online and arranged for its delivery to the facility.
He duly arrived, but police searched the package at the scene and found a small quantity of the cannabis plant and cookies. The items were destroyed and again no further action was taken.
David White / Stuff
The Ramada Suites in downtown Auckland used to house 501 deportees.
On May 8, at a Grand Mercure isolation hotel, a nurse conducting routine health checks noticed a smell of cannabis coming from one of the rooms.
Police arrived that afternoon and also noticed the lingering smell in the outside hallway and went to investigate.
“Both occupants were glassy-eyed and very slow in their reactions and responses,” their summary read.
The cops invoked their search and seizure powers and found three small ziplock bags of cannabis.
“A bong made from the hotel’s water bottles was also found.”
In July, Kiwis deported from Australia began arriving at a special isolation hotel in Auckland, the Ramada Suites on Federal Street, with a reinforced police presence.
Joseph Johnson / Stuff
New Zealand Army personnel guarding the perimeter of the Sudima Hotel at Christchurch International Airport.
The deportees are known as 501s, after the character section of the Australian Migration Act that allows for the cancellation of their visas for past criminal conduct.
While they are citizens of New Zealand, many have not lived in the country for decades.
The nine drug smuggling attempts at Ramada involved small amounts of cannabis and paraphernalia in some cases.
In three of the smuggling attempts at the Ramada, cannabis was concealed within bottles of shampoo or conditioner, while in another a gram of the plant was hidden within chocolate chip cookies left for a guest.
In September, at the Grand Millennium isolation hotel in central Auckland, an army officer reported that a man made a joke about smoking synthetic cannabis as he headed outside, apparently to smoke.
It appears that he was not joking, as a small bag of stitches containing remnants of synthetics was later found outside.
It was destroyed, but no further action was taken against the man.
