Operation Girder: Construction and oil industry pair granted bail after steel beam meth bust

Two men accused of helping smuggle more than 500kg of methamphetamine into the country hidden in steel beams have been granted bail. The men, who work in the construction and oil industries, retained interim name suppression when they appeared in the Auckland District Court before Judge Stephen Bonnar, KC, on Monday morning. Six people have now been arrested as part of Operation Girder, a joint police and Customs investigation launched after Customs found meth inside a few of 42 steel beams imported from the United States in a shipping container.

The consignment was tracked to a rural Waikato property, raided on Friday, October 4. Among those arrested were two men who had flown in from Australia and were allegedly in the process of deconstructing the steel beams when police arrived..