Prison staff's suspicions lead to arrest

A visitor at Mt Eden and Auckland Central Remand Prison was arrested after prison staff became suspicious about items he had in his car.

Nine staff, including two drug dog handlers with their dogs, searched 89 vehicles and 128 visitors during an operation last week. Few contraband items were found, but one man's boot contained unusual items which led to police being called.

"Staff had the first hunch of something not being quite right when they found a brass pipe on the passenger seat, along with a knife and a bag full of keys that clearly didn't belong to him," said assistant regional manager Grace Smit.

"When they opened the boot to continue the search, they found around twenty computer hard drives. While hard drives themselves aren't contraband items or prohibited from being brought onto prison property, and many people have legitimate reason for having one in the boot of their car, staff had more sinister suspicions.

Ms Smit said the keys were clearly labelled as belonging to a local business, so a staff member rang the firm to enquire about the man having the items in his vehicle. "

The manager informed the staff member that the keys had been stolen from their premises," she said.

Police were called and took the man into custody.