Three men in the South Island have been charged after a probe into a group bringing meth into the region as well as making "commercial-scale quantities" of cannabis.
The men were due to appear in the Queenstown District Court on Wednesday after the seizure of 21 guns, hundreds of ammunition rounds and a large amount of cannabis.
In a statement, police said the trio was facing a total of 28 charges after the execution of search warrants at properties in Cromwell, Tarras and Haast on Tuesday.
"It is the result of more than a year of planning," police said of the operation.
The statement said one of the trio faces a total of 12 meth, cannabis and firearms-related charges.
"We have targeted a commercial crime group that's been causing harm by pumping drugs into central Otago and the West Coast - solely to make money for the people behind it," Det Insp Shona Low said.
The bust had dealt a "significant blow" to organised crime in the area, Low said.
"Work on the campaign, dubbed Operation Vintage, began in March 2022, following concerns around an influx of drugs and associated harm in Cromwell," the statement said.
"Small communities aren't exempt from organised crime and this shows the lengths we are willing to go to disrupt that," Low said, noting the suspects were allegedly growing cannabis "deep in the wilderness, in areas where hunters would be unlikely to stumble across them".
"Cannabis plants in one plot were found dotted over an 8km area."
Operation Vintage was still ongoing but "I'm confident these arrests will go a long way to making our communities safer", Low added.
Newshub.
