A 40-year-old man has been arrested and charged with the manslaughter of Aiden Sagala who died after unknowingly drinking pure liquid methamphetamine from a beer can.
Sagala's death on March 7 sparked a massive police investigation, called Operation Lavender, into the importation of meth brought into the country inside cans of beer.
Twenty-one-year-old Sagala died in Auckland City Hospital after he had innocently drunk from a beer can, which contained high-purity liquid methamphetamine.
- For more coverage please check out Newshub's in-depth article here
In an update on Thursday morning, police said the investigation into Sagala's death has continued and have announced further pathology and toxicology testing has now been completed.
"His tragic death initiated Operation Lavender which has seen numerous serious drugs charges already laid, and a large quantity of methamphetamine and other drugs recovered at an address in Manukau," Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin from the Auckland City CIB said.
Police don't yet know how much liquid methamphetamine was smuggled in, but they have previously seized from the Manukau address a whopping 328 kilograms of meth in crystal form.
Police confirmed they have arrested and charged a 40-year-old man with manslaughter on Thursday.
The 40-year-old man, who is already before the Court as part of Operation Lavender, is expected to appear in the Auckland District Court later on Thursday.
"The investigation team has informed Aiden's family of this development and we are continuing to support them through this process," Baldwin said.
Police said they will not be commenting further as the matter is before the court.
"Police enquiries into the wider importation investigation remain ongoing and we cannot rule out further charges being laid," Baldwin said.
Baldwin said they've uncovered a significant drug importation, in which drugs in liquid form were allegedly being imported into concealed beer cans.
"Whilst the final calculations are not yet complete, Police estimate the value of the drug seizure to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars," Baldwin said.
Previously, police arrested a 30-year-old man charged with supplying methamphetamine and a 40-year-old on serious charges of possession of methamphetamine for supply and supplying methamphetamine.
Newshub previously spoke to Aiden's sister Angela in an exclusive interview in April, where she revealed the struggle she went through to get an ambulance when the 21-year-old collapsed.
She told Newshub the sports-mad 21-year-old Christian collapsed at home after drinking what he thought was beer, given to him by a work colleague.
On the evening of March 2, Angela received a call from her partner saying Aiden had collapsed and was screaming.
Angela arrived at home just after 8pm and called an ambulance.
"I was frustrated because all I got from them was, 'There's no one available. Sorry we can't give you an ETA on when an ambulance can get here'. I was so frustrated that night."
Aiden's condition deteriorated rapidly, but still, no ambulance.
"When someone is in a cardiac arrest, that's priority number one. You're supposed to come," she said.
"I was performing CPR on my baby brother because he went from being okay to blue in an instant."
And so another call was made.
"I was screaming at my partner, 'Call the ambulance again'. I think it was the sixth call that they finally stayed on the line and I really didn't want to talk to them because I was like, 'I'm doing CPR and this was like the sixth time I called you', because they kept hanging up the phone on me."
In a statement to Newshub, St John's General Manager of Clinical Effectiveness, Jon Moores said the "workload at the time of the calls was significantly high".
But that "the calls were appropriately triaged" or assessed and "the correct ambulance response priority assigned".
ST John's said the first 111 call was received at 8:09pm, and 26 minutes later at 8:35pm the incident was "retriaged" or reassessed.
At 8:43pm a critical care paramedic arrived.
Aiden died in hospital five days later and is being investigated by the Coroner.
Aiden's sisters said their baby brother was "a man of God" who's completely innocent and that he's a "hero" who's ultimately saved the lives of many others.
For Angela Sagala and Rachel Raeli, Aiden was their humorous, healthy, cheeky baby brother.
"He was a man of God, the most loving, gentle giant," Angela told Newshub.
"He lights up the room, he really does light up the room."
Rachel said: "He was a very talented boy, he was loved. He was the prince of our family."
