HK woman jailed in New Zealand for smuggling drug

A 25-year-old China's Hong Kong woman was jailed for 10 years on Monday for smuggling drugs hidden in traditional Chinese statuettes into New Zealand.

Ka Po Ching was told at the Auckland District Court that she would serve at least four years on parole before she is deported, according to a statement from the New Zealand Customs Service.

Customs officers had found 993 grams of methamphetamine in a 30- cm high figurine of a traditional Chinese warrior in a glass case on Jan. 3, said the statement.

The methamphetamine had a street value of about 1 million NZ dollars ($854,117).

Customs manager Maurice O'Brien said an investigation linked the package to Ching, who had arrived in New Zealand on Dec. 27 last year, and she was later linked to other similar importations.

Syndicates often recruited young people from overseas and paid for them to travel to and reside in New Zealand solely to "catch" and redeliver illicit drugs, O'Brien said in the statement.