Mexican Navy inspectors have intercepted 11,520 tequila bottles bound for export that actually contained nearly 10 tons of concentrated liquid meth, the Navy said on Monday.

The discovery was made on Sunday at the Pacific coast seaport of Manzanillo, the Navy said. It said the bottles contained approximately 8640kg of meth.

Photos of the seizure show a sniffer dog alerting inspectors to cardboard boxes of glass bottles full of a brownish liquid, consistent with the colour of “añejo” or aged tequila. The labels on the bottles were not visible.

Mexico is the world’s only producer of authentic tequila. While there have not been any reported instances of such bottles reaching consumers, ingesting the mixture would be immensely dangerous.

Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council, a trade and certification group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether anything similar had occurred before.

Mexico has become a major producer of meth, and drug smugglers frequently are stopped at the border with liquid meth in their windshield washer fluid or other containers in their cars.

The liquid meth is usually recovered by the smugglers and taken to specialised facilities where the water is extracted and then returned to its usual crystal form.

‘I feel like I’m dying’

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, sisters of the man whose death has prompted a large-scale investigation into the importation of meth in beer cans have described the moment he began shaking and acting possessed before uttering, “I feel like I’m dying”.

Aiden Sagala died on March 7 in Auckland City Hospital after police said he “innocently sat down for a beer after work” that was laced with methamphetamine.

Police said Sagala was not involved in importing or distributing the contaminated beer “in any way”.

As part of the investigation sparked by Sagala’s death, pallets of drug-laced beer cans were seized by police in a raid where officers have so far identified 328kg of methamphetamine.

More than a dozen armed police officers swarmed a warehouse on Ryan Place in Manukau on March 16.

They located and seized multiple pallets of Honey Bear House Beer cans potentially laced with methamphetamine.

The more than a quarter tonne of meth has been recovered in crystalised form from the industrial address, police said.