It's really not strange for traffickers to hide merchandise in artifacts, but it really shocked the police when they made their biggest cocaine bust in a sculpted horse head.
New Zealand made its biggest ever cocaine bust after finding $10 million worth of the drug stashed inside a diamante-encrusted sculpture of a horse’s head.
Police officers and customs officials seized the artwork, which weighed 880 pounds, shortly after it was freighted into the country from Mexico in early May. They opened it up and were stunned to discover 35 bricks of high-grade cocaine inside.
“This is obviously an extremely large amount of cocaine, and in the past we’ve only found very small amounts of this drug,” Detective Senior Sergeant Colin Parmenter, from the Organised Crime Auckland squad, said in a statement on Saturday.
“Prior to this, the average amount of cocaine seized by police each year was around 250 grams (0.5 pounds). What this find tells us though is that there is obviously a demand for it,” he added.
Three men have been arrested in connection with the plot. A 56-year-old U.S. national and a 44-year-old Mexican national were detained at Auckland International Airport, just as they were about to catch a flight to Hawaii on Friday night.
