An alleged drug manufacturing laboratory has been found in a shipping container buried under a woodshed near Whangarei.
Whangarei police Detective Sergeant Grant Smith said today the alleged methamphetamine laboratory (meth-lab) was accessible from a well-hidden trapdoor inside the woodshed.
It was found during a search of a property at Hukerenui,
30km north-west of Whangarei, last Friday.
The 2.4-metre-wide, eight-metre-long container had water and power services. It had been buried and the woolshed built on top.
A semi-automatic military-style weapon was also allegedly found at the address.
A 32-year-old Hukerenui man was arrested yesterday and charged with manufacturing methamphetamine and possessing a firearm while committing a crime.
The 32-year-old was one of two people arrested yesterday on methamphetamine- related charges. The other, a 37-year-old Helena Bay man, was yesterday charged with manufacturing methamphetamine on March 9 at Helena Bay, 37km north-east of Whangarei.
Police began the Helena Bay investigation after learning the 37-year-old man had been badly burned in a March fire at a Helena Bay home.
The fire allegedly happened in a meth-lab set-up, and left the man fighting for his life in Auckland's Middlemore Hospital with burns to 50 per cent of his body.
After several operations he recovered and left hospital in May. Following forensic testing of the Helena Bay home and items recovered from the home, he was arrested yesterday.
So far this year Northland police have uncovered six alleged meth-labs. None had ever been discovered previously.
The Hukerenui shipping container operation was the most covert, Mr Smith said. "It would be fair to say it was certainly more sophisticated and substantial than anything else we have come across so far," he said.
The container and shed had been inspected by building officials, and an order for their destruction served on the owners of the Hukerenui property.
Both men arrested yesterday were to appear in the Whangarei District Court today.
- NORTHERN ADVOCATE
