The navy of New Zealand has allegedly made its biggest-ever drug bust by intercepting a floating shipment of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean.
The cache, which weighs 3.2 tonnes (3,200 kg) in total and is worth $500 million NZD (£263 million; $316 million), was discovered drifting hundreds of kilometers northwest of New Zealand.
Police were of the opinion that it was going to Australia, where it would have been sufficient to supply that market for a year.
Some of the packages’ labels featured a Batman symbol and were buoyantly strung together.
Coke packets labeled with a clover leaf symbol were also visible in images released by New Zealand police and defense officials.
“This is the largest find of illicit drugs by New Zealand agencies, by some margin,” said New Zealand’s police commissioner Andrew Coster on Wednesday.
“It is more than New Zealand would use in 30 years,” he added.
New Zealand’s navy deployed a vessel to retrieve the massive shipment last week, which comprised 81 bales of cocaine.
They were brought to Auckland in New Zealand’s North Island on Tuesday and taken to a security facility to be documented and destroyed, officials said.
“We believe we have dealt a significant blow to an international criminal syndicate’s operation,” Mr Coster said.