💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 635.gmi captured on 2023-09-08 at 19:01:40. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
2008-08-08 05:56:30
2 hours, 52 minutes ago
Australian Customs and police said Friday they had seized 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy
tablets worth nearly 400 million dollars, describing it as the biggest haul of
the illicit drug anywhere in the world.
Police said the seizure of the drugs, which were concealed in tins of tomato
shipped to Australia from Italy, had resulted in the arrests of 21 people
across the country beginning in pre-dawn raids.
Authorities had worked for more than a year to track the syndicate behind the
drugs after Customs discovered the ecstasy hidden inside some 3,000 tins, each
weighing about 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds), in June 2007.
Customs officials replaced the ecstasy with an inert substance and monitored
the consignment but the arrests were brought closer two weeks ago when a coffee
bean shipment carrying 150 kilograms of cocaine was detected in Melbourne.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the drugs were part of
a global syndicate and the seizures would be "a major disruption to
transnational organised crime, both in this country and abroad."
The ecstasy haul, estimated to be worth at least 440 million dollars (394
million US) had been kept secret until now to allow the Australian Federal
Police (AFP) and Customs to carry out their investigations.
"There have been 185,000 telephone intercepts in this operation, there have
been 400 members of the AFP deployed to this operation, there have been 10,000
hours of surveillance deployed to this operation to find the perpetrators of
this world's largest seizure and importation into our country," Keelty said.
Keelty said Australian and European police were attempting to stop the
syndicate from trafficking and that search warrants had already been issued in
Belgium and the Netherlands.
"It is classic organised crime and we have done our best to shut down the
syndicate," he told reporters.
Keelty said the syndicate was allegedly still able to traffic drugs even though
it had lost the massive 4.4 tonne shipment, underlining the apparent demand for
illicit substances in Australia.
"There are not many boardrooms in Australia where you would write off half a
billion dollars worth of a commodity or a product and continue your business,"
he said.
"What we have to do is reach out to the youth of the country and reduce
demand."
Keelty said related searches in Europe had already uncovered large amounts of
cash and a cache of firearms.
Meanwhile, the Australian investigation had also identified a money laundering
operation worth more than nine million dollars.
So far, 13 people had been charged with a range of offences in Australia
including conspiracy to import ecstasy and precursor chemicals, an Australian
Federal Police spokeswoman said.
Customs chief executive Michael Carmody said the bust was the result of "small
snippets of information."
"This is a great result. This is what makes getting up in the morning and
coming to work worthwhile," Carmody said.