Nasty shock for jail smugglers

Drug dog handler Chris and his dog Roxy search a vehicle at Paremoremo prison. Photo / Greg Bowker

After one prison visitor helped another to jump-start her car, police discovered one car was unlicensed and the other was stolen.

The women were two of 199 people searched at a combined Department of Corrections and police checkpoint at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo on Saturday.

When the stolen car pulled up with no registration plates, officers were immediately suspicious. The driver was ordered out of her car - to be sniffed down by Northland-based drug dog Roxy.

Standing with her legs apart and arms in the air, the woman plonked her toddler on the ground between her and the prison staff.

Jeanette Burns, Prison Services assistant regional manager, said this was a common tactic to try to throw them off the scent. On this occasion, no drugs were found.

But later in the day, Corrections officers found two bags of cannabis and methamphetamine on another female visitor. Mrs Burns said staff had received "intel" that the woman - who was already known to them - would try to bring the drugs in.

"Both [bags] were found on the body of a visitor, but she handed them over. There wasn't a rubdown to find them," she said.

These finds are typical of prison contraband checkpoints, which are held regularly around the country to clamp down on people trying to smuggle in illegal material.

"Our primary purpose is to reduce reoffending and make safer communities," Mrs Burns said. "So this little bit of the picture is trying to prevent contraband getting into prisons."

She said the effect was two-fold: if prisoners had access to drugs and took them inside, they were more likely to behave violently; and many prisoners had substance-addiction problems needing to be stamped out.

Saturday's checkpoint was a joint operation with Auckland police, but Corrections staff can run them on their own.

Under the Corrections Act 2004, prison personnel have the power to detain and/or exclude visitors. They are then handed over to the police.

In previous searches, children have been used as couriers for contraband items - even hidden in babies' nappies. Corrections officers do not have the power to search children under 16, but can ask parents to remove nappies in front of them.

Roxy's trainer, Chris - who did not want to be identified further - said the 3-year-old "collective cross" once sniffed out a locked metal safe holding a hollowed-out hardcover dictionary that hid 31 tinnies of cannabis.

"She's got a good nose," he said.

Drug dogs undergo a nine-week training course and start work between the ages of 10 months and 2 years. A drug dog is usually retired at about the age of 8.

Mrs Burns said five people were arrested on Saturday - for offences that included driving a stolen vehicle, driving an unlicensed car and being in possession of drugs.

A total of 102 vehicles were searched, with eight warnings given and nine people excluded from the prison for the day.

Mrs Burns said: "Some will be longer than for the day, but that is still to be established."