More Than 500kg Of MDMA And Cocaine Seized By Aussie Border Police

Australian Border Force cops have intercepted a massive shipment of drugs after it arrived into Sydney in boxes with shampoo bottles.

There were more than 250 boxes in the shipment from Spain but officers noticed there were a few irregularities when they chucked them through an X-ray machine.

Nearly 50 of the boxes were found to contain MDMA and cocaine.

Once all the drugs were found and weighed, police discovered the package from Barcelona contained 312kgs of coke and 236kgs of MDMA.

That has a collectively street value of more than $140 million. Not a bad seizure at all.

A statement from the ABF said: "Detectives from the NSW Police Force's Organised Crime Squad, ABF investigators and the NSW Crime Commission, with assistance from the Australian Federal Police, established Strike Force Bresnahan to investigate the import.

"Following extensive inquiries, strike force detectives executed seven search warrants at storage facilities in Cromer, Brookvale, Chatswood, Artarmon, and Macquarie Park yesterday (Monday 27 May 2019), where they seized items relevant to the investigation.

"A 33-year-old man was arrested outside a Cromer storage unit about 10am yesterday. He was taken to Manly Police Station and charged with two counts of possess prohibited drug.

"The Rutherford man has been granted conditional bail to appear at Manly Local Court on Monday 8 July 2019."

While more than half a tonne sounds like a big seizure, and it is, it's child's play compared to the biggest cocaine haul for Australian authorities.

That record goes to the cops that busted a yacht found just off the New South Wales coast in 2017 that was carrying 1.4 tonnes of the white stuff - worth around $312 million on the street.

Six people were arrested over the bust, including a 33-year-old New Zealand man, a 54-year-old Swiss-Fijian dual national, who were arrested on board the yacht.

Police swooped on the NSW south coast and nabbed three men, aged 63, 62 and 66, before catching a 32-year-old man in Sydney.

Then Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan said: "The impact we would assume it [taking the shipment out of circulation] would have is over time it will drive up the street price, which is already very high in Australia.

"The Australian drug market continues to be highly lucrative for people who pedal in the misery of drugs. We pay an enormous price, more than any equivalent market in the world."

No doubt this latest seizure will drive up the price again.

Featured Image Credit: Australian Border Force

Topics: News, Drugs, Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie