Concerns about guns being sold on the black market ending up in criminal hands have been reinforced after the armed offenders squad found an automatic pistol, ammunition and methamphetamine in a motel unit.
Police arrested a 29 year-old man at the Hamilton Hotel at about 1.30am this morning.
The man is a known associate of a fugitive arrested last month in Auckland who was found with two pistols - a Glock and a Beretta.
Hamilton police spokesman Andrew McAlley said police allege the pistols found in Auckland were part of a collection of 121 weapons missing from a Hot Water Beach property.
The collection includes Beretta pistols and Browning light machine guns.
He said a link between the connection and the automatic pistol found this morning could not be made because the pistol's serial number had been removed.
Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Nicholls said inquiries would continue into the origins of the pistol.
"But what Sunday's discovery does highlight is the growing and disturbing trend that those involved in the methamphetamine scene are armed with weapons of this nature," he said.
Gun collector John Noel Mabey, 43, claims 121 weapons were stolen from his house on July 28. But about a month later police charged him with making a false burglary claim.
Mabey appeared in the Thames District Court last week on a charge of making a false statement to police, and 12 charges of selling or supplying a pistol/restricted weapon to an unauthorised person, and seven charges of unlawfully carrying a restricted weapon or ammunition.
He was remanded on bail until November 2.
The Herald reported Mabey saying last week that he stood by his claims that the guns were stolen. On the advice of lawyers he had been told not to say much more: "There's been enough said already that's untrue."
