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New Zealand has become a “prime destination” for meth from Canadian “super drug labs”, a damning cross-border investigation has found.

CTV managing editor Avery Haines told Herald NOW she travelled the length of the North Island to uncover how Canada became a surprising source of NZ meth.

Haines said the new “golden triangle” for producing meth is Mexico, the United States and Canada.

“What’s happening is the drugs are coming from Mexico through the United States into Canada, and it’s the launching-off point.

“In the Canadian super labs where they’re creating drugs for export, New Zealand and Australia being their prime destination, along with where they’re producing meth, they’re also producing fentanyl. And so the concern is cross-contamination.”

Haines said meth is exported to New Zealand from Canada because it’s the most lucrative market.

Canadian investigative journalist Avery Haines says Canada is one of the biggest drug exporters of methamphetamine to New Zealand and Australia in the world.

“The reason why they want to get meth to New Zealand is because there’s almost nowhere else on Earth where they can make more money.

“It’s just so profitable, even though it seems like such a far distance to go, you know, 10,000 kilometres away to make that shipment feels like a very long way.”

This year, authorities seized 713kg of methamphetamine concealed in maple syrup containers shipped from Canada.

“We know that the two largest meth busts in New Zealand’s history both came from Canada, hidden in the food supply, which is terrifying, beer and maple syrup.”

In 2023, 21-year-old Aiden Sagala died in hospital after drinking a can of meth-laced Honey Bear House Beer.

This year’s maple syrup meth import was thought to contain roughly a year’s supply for every addict in New Zealand, which could have sold for hundreds of millions of dollars on the streets.

“My question to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our federal police service, was ‘what did you do once New Zealand police shared all of that documentation of those two massive busts?’

Per capita meth consumption by region for Q2 (April, June, July) this year. Source: Police wastewater testing

“And the answer is ‘nothing, it wasn’t our investigation’. So I reached back out to Greg Williams, who is the superintendent in charge of National Organised Crime in New Zealand, who said, ‘no, we shared all of this information with the RCMP’.

“And I would imagine there should be a lot of outrage and frustration in New Zealand for the way that Canada is not investigating, reverse engineering, the people who are shipping it.”

Haines also spoke about the difference between Canada’s and New Zealand’s drug issues, and she said Canada’s crisis with fentanyl and opioid addiction has taken over the streets.

“I had read all about your wastewater testing doubling in a one-year period, about how every community is impacted by meth. And in my travels, I couldn’t see the crisis the way that I see Canada’s drug crisis so in my face.

“And in New Zealand, what I found is that it was so hidden. And I think because it has been so normalised and people are able to survive doing meth for much longer than they are fentanyl or a toxic drug supply, which is what we have.

“But I saw just this extraordinary community, this lovely, vibrant neighbourhood. It’s not the same kind of drug crisis that we have in Canada.”

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.