Police have arrested a teenager in Invercargill as part of an investigation into bomb threats sent to educational and public sites across New Zealand.
Public and educational facilities around Auckland, including Unitec and the Auckland Art Gallery, were recently evacuated after a wave of threatening emails.
Acting on information gathered by Auckland-based detectives, Southland police searched an Invercargill residential address yesterday afternoon.
Southland area commander Mike Bowman said a teenage boy was taken into custody without incident.
He was charged with two counts of threatening to kill/do grievous bodily harm and will appear in the Invercargill Youth Court today.
Bowman said further charges may be considered.
Bowman said he wanted to reassure the community that no items of concern or explosive materials were found.
“Initial indications suggest the young person had no capability to follow through on the threats.
“Regardless, threats of this nature are taken extremely seriously, and yesterday’s swift action by police reflects this,” Bowman said.
An alert sent to University of Auckland students.
Spate of recent threats
Police said Operation Irena was an ongoing investigation into recent email threats made to institutions – initially in Auckland and then to organisations across the country.
Yesterday, University of Auckland business school students were evacuated due to a “suspicious object”.
An alert sent to students across the campus asked people to evacuate the building, and to avoid the area, after a suspicious package was found on level one.
On Friday, Unitec students and staff were issued a warning over an “urgent incident”.
A Unitec spokesperson said a bomb threat was received relating to the Mt Albert campus.
Auckland Art Gallery was evacuated on Thursday morning after receiving a threatening email, which gallery director Dr Zara Stanhope later described to the Herald as a “hoax threat”.
Earlier last week, two other educational facilities in the city received bomb threats.
Staff and students at Kiwi College in Albany self-evacuated after an employee received an email with a bomb threat last Tuesday morning, with police attending and clearing the address.
That email said explosives were planted inside the building, and threatened “you are all going to be blown into bloody chunks”.
Finance manager Jay Cheng told the Herald the threat claimed the Kiwi College facility was “rigged with 22 pounds of C4 explosives”.
The University of Auckland also had a bomb scare in one of its buildings on Wednesday, Stuff reported. Police carried out a thorough sweep of the building and carpark before deciding the threat was not credible.
Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you
Get the iHeart App
Get more of the radio, music and podcasts you love with the FREE iHeart app. Scan the QR code to download now.
Download from the app stores
Stream unlimited music, thousands of radio stations and podcasts all in one app. iHeart is easy to use and all FREE
