Car Full Of Contraband KFC Gets Two New Zealand Men Arrested
Level 4 lockdown measures are keeping COVID-19—and KFC's irresistible fried chicken—out of Auckland.
New Zealand may very well be the most enviable country on earth for its jaw-dropping natural beauty and competent (and delicious!) governmental leadership. It's also a country with some of the most restrictive COVID-19 policies, but since the pandemic began almost [check notes and silently cries] two years ago, New Zealand has only had 4,800 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 27 deaths. Compare that to here in America, where... well, you know.
So that they may continue living in the normalcy of the Before Times, New Zealanders have had to make some sacrifices. Last month, the city of Auckland re-instituted the strict Alert Level 4 lockdown measures from the earliest days of the pandemic, all but shutting down the city of over 1.6 million after about 30 people tested positive for the ultra-contagious Delta variant.
Since then Aucklanders have been forced to stay home, no outsiders are permitted to enter the city, and outside of essential services, everything else that requires any sort of human interaction is closed. This means no restaurants, no takeout, no delivery; if anyone wants fried chicken, they either need to make it themselves or try to score some on the black market.
KFC has effectively become contraband, and CNN reports that two men are facing serious consequences after New Zealand police found them with a trunk full of Kentucky Fried Chicken. On Sunday, a patrol unit driving near the outskirts of Auckland noticed a suspicious-looking vehicle, and when that suspicious-looking vehicle noticed them, it cut a U-turn and sped the hell off.
Eventually the cops were able to stop and search the car, finding it filled to the gills with illicit KFC from Hamilton, a city about 75 miles south of Auckland. Police photos of the car's trunk show at least three buckets of fried chicken, about 10 cups of coleslaw, a large package of fries, and four large bags containing other unspecified KFC items. (Sporks?)
The two chicken smugglers will be quickly brought to court to face charges of breaching New Zealand's Health Order, which is punishable by fines up to NZ$4,000 ($2,800) and up to six months of prison time. In a statement, police said that further charges against the men are likely, as the car was also filled with more than NZ$100,000 ($70,000) in cash and a shitton of "empty ounce bags." Authorities are assuming these bags were for packaging drugs, but who's to say they weren't meant for dispensing all that coleslaw?