After a tiring day at his job, Aiden Sagala decided to unwind with a cold beer, not realizing the tragic consequences that awaited him. Unbeknownst to the 21-year-old, the can he opened was filled with liquid methamphetamine, leading to his untimely death after just one sip.
The tragic incident occurred on March 2, 2023, when Aiden selected a can from a batch of beer gifted to him by his employer and brought it home. At the time, he was residing in Auckland, New Zealand, with his sister Angela and brother-in-law Billy. Reports from Cp24 indicate that Aiden and Billy, along with a friend, were relaxing at home and decided to sample tall cans labeled as ‘Honey Bear Beer’ from Canada.
Upon taking his first drink, Aiden remarked to Billy that the beer tasted ‘salty.’ Billy, however, found no issue with his own beer. Curious, Aiden asked Billy to try his drink, leading Billy to describe the taste as resembling sea salt mixed with chemicals, prompting him to spit it out immediately.
According to Billy, Aiden then contacted his mother, after which he began experiencing alarming symptoms. Aiden emerged from his room shortly after and expressed to his brother-in-law that he believed he was dying, growing increasingly agitated and physically combative in the process.
In a state of panic, Billy reached out to his wife Angela, who hurried home to assist her brother. Observing Aiden’s worsening condition, Angela called for an ambulance as she, a doctor herself, performed CPR in an attempt to save him. Unfortunately, Aiden slipped into a coma and passed away five days later, with the cause of death attributed to multiple organ failure due to a fatal dose of methamphetamine.
Tragically, Aiden’s demise led authorities to uncover a significant drug smuggling operation stretching across India, the United States, and Canada. Following an investigation into Aiden’s death, New Zealand police zeroed in on a storage unit in Auckland, where they seized approximately 700 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine in what became the country’s largest methamphetamine confiscation to date.
Authorities revealed that Baltej Singh, a local supermarket owner, had been importing substantial quantities of meth disguised as various beverages into New Zealand, including shipments of kombucha from the US, coconut water from India, and nearly 29,000 cans of Honey Bear beer from Toronto.
Subsequent findings implicated Aiden’s boss, identified as Himatjit ‘Jimmy’ Kahlon, who was caught on surveillance footage removing beer cases from the storage unit. Kahlon faced allegations of aiding in the conversion of liquid methamphetamine into crystal meth, as well as inadvertently distributing cans still containing the illegal substance alongside regular beer, leading to Aiden’s tragic death.
In addition to Kahlon, authorities also charged Singh, a respected businessman in Auckland hailing from a prominent Indian family, for orchestrating the smuggling operation.
