WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand police have so far convicted 41 candy-wrapped pieces of methamphetamine – each containing a potentially lethal amount of the drug – that were unwittingly distributed by an Auckland food bank.
Authorities were collecting another two dozen of the contaminated sweets from citizens late Friday, police said in a statement. This brings the total number of sweets accidentally distributed in food parcels to at least 65. It is not known how many more are in circulation, said Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin.
No one was seriously harmed by the sweets.
An unknown person donated the sweets – which were packaged in wrappers from Malaysian confectionery brand Rinda and looked like candy – to the Auckland City Mission sometime in the past six weeks, the charity said on Wednesday. A day earlier, staff had begun frantically tracking down the recipients of up to 400 food parcels after a customer reported a “funny-tasting” candy and a drug test revealed the sweets were solid methamphetamine.
Three people were treated in hospital after trying the candy but were quickly discharged. The “disgusting” taste caused most of those who tried the candy to spit it out immediately, said city missionary Helen Robinson.
The amount of methamphetamine in each candy was 300 times the usual dose and could be fatal, according to the New Zealand Drug Foundation, the drug control and policy organization that first tested the candies.
Ben Birks Ang, a spokesman for the foundation, told a news conference on Wednesday that disguising drugs as harmless goods was a common method of cross-border smuggling and that more of the sweets may have been distributed across New Zealand.
Rinda Food Industries said its factory in Malaysia was inspected by the Malaysian Health Ministry on Thursday and samples were taken for laboratory testing.
“We would like to clarify that Rinda Food Industries does not export goods directly to New Zealand,” it said in a statement.
New Zealand authorities still don’t know how many contaminated candies were distributed by the Auckland City Mission or whether the sweets might turn up elsewhere, Baldwin said. Each retail bag contains about 40 Rinda pineapple candies, suggesting at least two bags were donated to the charity.
The contaminated sweets had a street value of 1,000 New Zealand dollars ($608) a piece, suggesting the donation was accidental rather than a deliberate attack, Birks Ang said on Wednesday. Authorities said they were investigating whether the incident was an import maneuver gone wrong – and there were reports someone tried to sell one of the sweets through Facebook.
The charity’s food bank only accepts donations of industrially produced foods in sealed packaging, Robinson said. The pineapple candies, which bore Rinda’s label, “appeared to be such when they were donated,” she added.
Rinda said in a statement on Wednesday that the company would cooperate with authorities.
“We would like to make it clear that Rinda Food Industries does not use or condone the use of illegal drugs in its products,” said Managing Director Steven Teh.
Methamphetamine is a powerful, highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. It is a white, odorless, bitter-tasting crystalline powder that dissolves easily in water or alcohol.
