Officials in New Zealand announced this week that they have completed a massive seizure of cocaine at sea, calling it a “major financial blow” to producers and traffickers of the drug. 

Authorities there said on Wednesday that the seizure was a part of “Operation Hyrdros,” with New Zealand Police working in partnership with both New Zealand Customs Service and the New Zealand Defence Force.

The announcement said that “no arrests have been made at this stage,” but that “enquiries will continue into the shipment including liaison with our international partners.”

Members of those units intercepted “3.2 tonnes of cocaine afloat” in the Pacific Ocean. NZ Customs Service Acting Comptroller Bill Perry said that the “sheer scale of this seizure is estimated to have taken more than half a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine out of circulation.”

(The news agency United Press International described the seizure as a “3.5 ton haul of cocaine with a street value of $317 million in a major anti-drugs operation carried out in the middle of the Pacific.”)

“Customs is pleased to have helped prevent such a large amount of cocaine causing harm in communities here in New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere in the wider Pacific region,” Perry said. “It is a huge illustration of what lengths organised crime will go to with their global drug trafficking operations and shows that we are not exempt from major organised criminal drug smuggling efforts in this part of the world.” 

NZ Police Commissioner Andrew Coster called it “one of the single biggest seizures of illegal drugs by authorities in this country.”

“There is no doubt this discovery lands a major financial blow right from the South American producers through to the distributors of this product,” Coster said.

Coster added, “While this disrupts the syndicate’s operations, we remain vigilant given the lengths we know these groups will go to circumvent coming to law enforcement’s attention.”

The authorities said in the announcement on Wednesday that “eighty-one bales of the product have since made the six-day journey back to New Zealand aboard the Royal New Zealand Navy vessel HMNZS Manawanui, where they will now be destroyed.”

It is believed that “given the large size of the shipment it will have likely been destined for the Australian market,” according to the announcement. 

Coster said that Operation Hyrdos “was initiated in December 2022, as part of our ongoing close working relationship with international partner agencies to identify and monitor suspicious vessels’ movements.”

“I am incredibly proud of what our National Organised Crime Group has achieved in working with other New Zealand agencies, including New Zealand Customs Service and the New Zealand Defence Force. The significance of this recovery and its impact cannot be underestimated,” Coster said.

“We know the distribution of any illicit drug causes a great amount of social harm as well as negative health and financial implications for communities, especially drug users and their families,” Coster added.

The announcement said that Coster noted that the “operation continues already successful work New Zealand authorities are achieving in working together and continues to lessen the impacts of transnational crime worldwide.”

New Zealand Defence Force Joint Forces commander Rear Admiral Jim Gilmour said that his unit “had the right people and the right capabilities to provide the support required and it was great to work alongside the New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Customs Service.”

“We were very pleased with the result and are happy to be a part of this successful operation and proud to play our part in protecting New Zealand,” Gilmour said.

The post New Zealand Officials Seize Half a Billion Dollars Worth of Cocaine appeared first on High Times.

Newly released documents show U.S. immigration authorities have used a secretive cell phone snooping technology hundreds of times across the U.S. in the past three years.

The documents, obtained through a public records lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and seen by TechCrunch, show that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployed cell site simulators — known as stingrays — at least 466 times between 2017 and 2019, which led to dozens of arrests and apprehensions. Previously obtained figures showed ICE used stingrays more than 1,885 times over a four-year period between 2013 and 2017.

The documents say that stingrays were not deployed for civil immigration investigations, like removals or deportations.

Although the numbers offer a rare insight into how often ICE uses this secretive and controversial technology, the documents don’t say how many Americans also had their phones inadvertently ensnared by these surveillance devices.

“We are all harmed by government practices that violate the Constitution and undermine civil liberties,” said Alexia Ramirez, a fellow with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “ICE’s use of cell site simulators affects all people, regardless of their immigration status.”

“When cell site simulators search for an individual, they necessarily also sweep in sensitive, private information about innocent bystanders,” said Ramirez. “This is part of the reason courts have said there are serious Fourth Amendment concerns with this technology.”

Stingrays impersonate cell towers and capture the calls, messages, location and in some cases data of every cell phone in their range. Developed by Harris Corp., stingrays are sold exclusively to law enforcement. But their purchase and use are covered under strict non-disclosure agreements that prevent police from discussing how the technology works. These agreements are notoriously prohibitive; prosecutors have dropped court cases rather than disclose details about the stingrays.

The newly released documents are heavily redacted and offer little more about what we know of how stingrays work. One document did, however, reveal for the first time the existence of Harris’ most recent stingray, Crossbow. An email from 2012 refers to Crossbow as the “latest, most technologically up-to-date version of a Stingray system.”

But the civil liberties group said its public records lawsuit is not over. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which was also named in the suit, has not yet turned over any documents sought by the ACLU, despite spending $2.5 million on buying at least 33 stingrays, according to a 2016 congressional oversight report.

“We are deeply skeptical of CBP’s assertion that they do not possess records about cell site simulators,” said Ramirez. “Given public information, the agency’s claim just doesn’t pass the sniff test.”

CBP has until June 12 to respond to the ACLU’s latest motion.

When reached, a spokesperson for CBP was unable to comment by our deadline. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

ICE used ‘stingray’ cell phone snooping tech hundreds of times since 2017 by Zack Whittaker originally published on TechCrunch