NZ landed with $500,000 bill for cleaning up after Fiji drug raid

Toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamine with 4kg of the illicit drug were brought to New Zealand by police after a drug lab in Fiji was busted.

Contaminated water used to wash equipment was also sent here for disposal.

The clean-up cost to the New Zealand Police came to just over $500,000, according to figures released under the Official Information Act.

The meth factory discovered in an old warehouse in Suva last year was thought to be one of the largest in the world.

The amount of chemicals and drugs seized in the lab could have produced 1000kg of pure methamphetamine worth $1 billion, Fijian authorities said.

New Zealand police joined law enforcement agencies from Fiji, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia to bring down the operation that had been set up by an Asian crime syndicate.

A team of six specially trained New Zealand police officers spent three weeks in Fiji working in stifling heat and dangerous conditions to dismantle the lab.

Two shipping containers were used to bring the highly toxic chemicals here for disposal.

Police also obtained a special import licence to bring 4kg of "ice", or pure methamphetamine, across the border.

According to figures supplied to the Herald, police clocked up almost 5000 hours - at an hourly rate of $70 - to Operation Outrigger.

Flights, accommodation, freight, cartage and shipping came to $72,332.

And the destruction of chemical waste, forensic examinations, telephones and stationary cost $94,734.

A police officer was sent to Malaysia to observe a lab bust before the Fiji operation.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Commissioner said the chemicals and equipment were brought here to ensure they were properly destroyed.

Fiji did not have the facilities to destroy the large amount of chemicals, she said.

Two full containers containing chemicals, water and equipment were shipped back.

Details of the clean-up operation were revealed at a time when police in some parts of New Zealand said there was an unwritten rule they were not to look for labs. Several officers said gangs and drug labs were down the list of priorities because dealing with them was too difficult and made crime statistics look bad.

The allegations were strongly denied by senior police and Police Minister George Hawkins.

Police Association vice-president Richard Middleton said the $500,000 was money well spent as drugs from the lab would have been destined for New Zealand.