A New Zealand-based Cook Islander, a 45-year-old disc jockey, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for bringing cocaine and cannabis into the Cook Islands.[1] He had been arrested the previous year for bringing the drugs into the country.[1][2][3] The case was described as the first significant one of its kind.[1][3]
The sentence covered both cocaine and cannabis brought into the Cook Islands.[1] A court in the Cook Islands gave him 20 months in prison.[1][4][3]
The Cook Islands News headline report on the sentencing gives the same account of 20 months for bringing cocaine and cannabis into the country.[5] A report at his guilty plea hearing said he had been arrested on 6 September the previous year for bringing cocaine and cannabis to Rarotonga.[2]
The drugs were hidden in a large container of protein powder he had brought for someone else, and the four packages of cannabis, stored in glad wrap with layers of coffee powder, weighed 836.5 grams together with that powder.[4] Justice Colin Doherty, sentencing at the High Court in Avarua, also ordered the destruction of the seized cocaine and cannabis.[4]
