The seizure of 50kg of heroin and 210kg of methamphetamine in the Middle East has brought the combined value of narcotics seized by an international naval task force to almost half a billion dollars since New Zealand took command in January.
It is the third drug bust this year for Combined Maritime Task Force 150 — an operational task force aimed at disrupting drug smuggling operations in the Middle East currently being led by the Royal New Zealand Navy’s captain Dave Barr.
After observing some “suspicious activity” by a trading dhow around 400 nautical miles southeast of the Oman coast, crew of the United States Coast Guard Cutter Emlen Tunnell boarded the vessel and discovered 260kg of narcotics on board, which were seized and later destroyed.
The latest seizure was worth an estimated NZ$87.8 million, bringing the combined total of seized illicit narcotics to an estimated NZ$480 million.
Barr said the bust was a testament to the crew of the USCGC Emlen Tunnell.
“Together with the professionalism of the multinational CTF 150 team and their ability to integrate and work with the many other nations that make up the Combined Maritime Forces here in Bahrain, this work strives to accurately identify vessels of interest, take action to interdict, and ultimately remove these killer substances from the illicit global narcotics market.”
He said it might seem like the amount of intercepted drugs were a “drop in the pond”.
“But so far we’ve removed almost half a billion New Zealand dollars-worth of product from doing harm. Will there be more smuggled? Of course there will. We can’t stop it all, but in a nod to our key partners from India, as Mahatma Gandhi is famous for saying, ‘You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results’. So we’ll keep trying, and we’ll stop what we can.”
Royal New Zealand Navy frigate HMNZS Te Kaha will join CTF-150 this week.
