A New Zealand charity is looking for people who have recently received its food parcels. Some of the parcels may contain drugs hidden in candy wrappers, local authorities have reported. Three people have already been hospitalized as a result of eating the “sweets.”
Auckland City Mission, a New Zealand charity that helps the homeless, said Wednesday it has begun contacting 400 people who may have received its aid packages. The packages turned out to contain methamphetamine tablets wrapped in candy wrappers. Three people have already been taken to hospital after eating the “sweets,” New Zealand authorities said.
Drugs in candy
The hospitalised people have since been discharged. Helen Robinson of the Auckland City Mission was quoted as saying that at least one child had taken a drug tablet disguised as candy. She said the “disgusting” taste caused most of those affected to spit it out immediately.
According to the New Zealand Drug Foundation, a drug policy group that first tested the candies, the amount of methamphetamine in each one was up to 300 times greater than the concentration normally taken by humans and could prove fatal.
“To say we are devastated is an understatement. We are reliant on the generosity of the public to help support those in need and we are grateful to everyone who supports us,” Auckland City Mission said in a statement. The foundation said it would launch an internal investigation.
Methamphetamine in candy wrappersThe Level/Facebook
Candy worth thousands
Auckland City Mission said in a statement on its website that the sweets that were distributed arrived at the charity in a sealed package. The charity alerted authorities after receiving a message from one of the recipients who said the sweets “tasted strange.”
According to initial findings by authorities, the meth ended up in packages for the homeless as a result of a mistake by smugglers – the nature and scale of their operation remains unknown. Police officers also did not determine how many candies with the drug were in circulation. The market value of one candy with meth was estimated at around 1,000 New Zealand dollars, or the equivalent of over 2,300 złoty.
Foundation spokesman Ben Birks Ang was quoted as saying that disguising drugs as harmless goods was a common cross-border smuggling technique and more of the candy could be being distributed across New Zealand.
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