Pacific / French Polynesia

21 sentenced in record Tahitian meth case

18:07 pm on 15 June 2018

A total of 21 people in French Polynesia have been sentenced in the territory's biggest methamphetamine smuggling case.

The main person in the so-called Kikilove affair Andre Tiniraurii and his associate Rautahi Voiron were each given an eight year prison sentence.

They were also fined $US23 million.

The main convict worked as a guide and used travellers from the United States to unwittingly import the banned drug.

Voiron was a former airport security officer.

30 kilograms of methamphetamine was imported from the US, using a complex system which allowed the methamphematine crystals to remain undected when bags were x-rayed.