29 August 2024

The New Zealand Customs Service and Environmental Science and Research (ESR) are marking ten years of success in identifying drugs at the border.

The Customs ESR Screening Laboratory (CESL) is responsible for screening and identifying suspected drug samples and other unknown material seized by Customs at the border and through the international mail centre.

During its ten years of operation, more than 17,000 samples have been analysed at CESL, with an average of 1 in 3 resulting in the detection of an illicit drug, medicine or precursor chemical.

This year (to 31 July 2024), Customs referred 1,523 samples to ESR for testing, which resulted in 474 positive cases of illicit drugs, medicines or precursor chemicals being identified.

Customs Group Manager Border Operations, Dana McDonald, says CESL is a crucial capability for assessing incoming risks.

“Our partnership with ESR has been hugely beneficial in staying on top of new and emerging drugs and chemically concealed compounds. The cutting-edge technology in the CESL with real-time testing capabilities enables Customs to identify drugs quickly and speed up investigations against drug smugglers. Longer-term, it has helped us build a picture of drug trends and keep ahead of potential threats.

“The scale of what Customs has seized over the last 10 years has increased significantly. Intelligence built up though our partnerships with ESR and other agencies is helping us prevent transnational criminal groups from further exploiting our market for profit and causing untold damage to our communities,” said Mr McDonald.

Manager of the CESL laboratory, Matthew Russell, said “For ESR, being at the border and working shoulder to shoulder with our Customs colleagues has brought science closer to the action enabling us to get to those novel psychoactive substances (NPS) and drug precursors, much quicker, to confirm their identity.

“Detection of new and concealed drugs has become more challenging over the last 10 years and to navigate around this, ESR has collaborated with Customs to assess, develop and introduce new capability to the lab at the airport to rapidly identify new and evolving drugs,” said Mr Russell.

The CESL was officially opened by former Prime Minister the Right Honourable Sir John Key in August 2014 at the Customs Air Cargo Inspection Facility at Auckland Airport.

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