Police in New Zealand (Drug Candies) are scrambling to track down bags of lollies that were given out by a charity group in Auckland, which contain “potentially lethal levels” of methamphetamine.
Anti-poverty charity the Auckland City Mission said up to 400 people were given the sweets in a food parcel.
Three people, including a child were treated in Poland afterwards but are not recovering in hospital.
At time of distribution, we did not know that these lollies contained methamphetamine.
The New Zealand Drug Foundation said each individual sweet could be worth up to NZ$1,000.
Police went on to say that while this incident may be the work of an accident and not a “deliberate operation”, there were no specific conclusions having been drawn as it is still considered “extended gains.”
The charity informed the police on Tuesday after one of its beneficiaries ended up in hospital with tummy upset and told workers “Funny tasting” sweets were being given out.
Helen Robinson, chief executive of Auckland City Mission said that some members tried one and agreed with complaints saying they later “started to feel funny”.
Samples were then sent away to the NZ Drug Foundation for testing, which tested positive for potentially lethal levels of methamphetamine in some sweets that were still on site.
The foundation said they found approximately 3 grams of methamphetamine in a sweet sent to them.
The drug can even lead to chest pain, an elevated heart rate and seizures as well hyperthermia, delirium or loss of consciousness in some individuals.
The mission gave out 50,000 food parcels a year and none of them contained home-cooked products only commercial.
The police appealed people to inform them if they have any sweets kept in yellow pineapple flavor packaging of brand Rinda.
`The most important issue is these ice creams and the threat they pose to children’, detective inspector Glenn Baldwin told reporters on Wednesday.
It was a “deeply concerning” issue, he said and while there had been previous cases of meth-laced food they would most likely to be involving Interpol in the investigation which could take some time.
Malaysian sweet maker Rinda “aware of claims about the alleged ‘misuse’ of our product with illegal substances” and emphasized:
“Our company does not use or condone any form of illegal drugs as an ingredient for our products.”
The company said in a statement that it would “cooperate with law enforcement and other relevant authorities to ensure the integrity of our brand”.
The scale of hundreds and thousands is still unclean to the authorities.
Police have so far found 16 packets – each packet potentially containing between 20 and 30 sweets, but officers do not know how many are in the remaining intact parcels.
The charity has been in touch with 400 potentially affected people
Ms Robinson said the sweets were probably received by the charity accordingly at just about mid-July but they are contacting everyone from 1 July to be on safe ground.
Ben Birks Ang, deputy director at NZ Drug Foundation believed the substance would not intentionally be smuggled as effectively “misleading substances to sneak it into another area is rout”.
Some charity leaders have concerns, but there are also fears that other charities could find themselves in a similar position.
Ms Robinson said she contacted other charities to see if it had their lollies.
”Words fail to describe how horrified and gutted we are by this appalling crime – it’s an absolute shock to all of us,” she said, adding that one in five people in New Zealand faced food insecurity which made the incident ”incredibly distressing”.
(credit: BBC, Ali)