Police have refunded $1900 to a drug courier after his travelling money disappeared.
Czech national Zdenek Minuk was arrested at Auckland Airport in June last year carrying 1.1kg of amphetamine (speed) worth $800,000, hidden in his sports shoes.
Minuk, aged 40, a builder from outside Prague, who admitted importing the drug fromFrankfurt, was jailed for four years by Justice Paterson when he appeared in the High Court at Auckland yesterday.
Defence lawyer Peter Winter told the judge that $1900 Minuk brought into the country disappeared after his arrest. There was an inquiry, said Mr Winter, and the police later refunded the money.
"I have never come across money going missing before. It was surprising and unsettling," Mr Winter said outside court.
Later Senior Sergeant Kevin Belz, who conducted an inquiry for the Police Complaints Authority, said that Minuk had been held at Auckland central police station before being taken with his property to Mt Eden Prison.
"It is shown as having left the police station but it was never officially logged into the prison, although the two temporary jailers [employed by the police to take prisoners to jail] say the money was given to the prison, but it was never receipted to them."
Senior Sergeant Belz said he was satisfied the two police employees had nothing to do with the money's disappearance.
"However, we did not have a receipt for the money from the prison. That was overlooked. So the buck stopped with the police and we have reimbursed the money.
"We had to reimburse him [Minuk] because we did not have a receipt to prove that it was received at the prison."
The court heard that Minuk was to be paid $15,000 by a drug-smuggling syndicate which recruited couriers for one-off drug runs to New Zealand.
Other people are facing trial.
The crown counsel Kieran Raftery said that while Minuk "stuck out like a sore thumb" in the airport customs hall, the authorities had already mounted an operation and were expecting more couriers from that part of the world.
Mr Winter told the judge that prison would be hard on Minuk because of his lack of English and isolation from his partner and children.
But the judge said personal circumstances carried little weight when it came to deterrent sentences.
