Australia has seized more than A$1 billion (US$771.4 million) of methamphetamine in its biggest-ever bust of the highly addictive drug, police said yesterday.
Commonly known as “ice,” the massive 1.2 tonne haul was intercepted after being offloaded from a boat, the Valkoista, which authorities believe came from China.
Australia has the world’s highest per capita consumption of crystal meth and the country has become an increasingly attractive destination for drug smugglers, with street prices soaring.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Australian Federal Police handout
Much of the ice hitting its streets comes from China and the Golden Triangle region, where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet.
Eight men, all Australian, were charged with either importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, or possessing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, and face life in jail.
The seizure capped a six-month investigation, with Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Leanne Close saying the ringleaders had been taken out.
“It equates to probably about A$1 billion of border-controlled drugs that are no longer going to be on the streets of Australia over the Christmas period,” Close said. “Police will allege in court these men intended to distribute the drugs along the east coast of Australia.”
The Valkoista arrived at the port of Geraldton in Western Australia in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The drugs were allegedly offloaded into a white rental van before tactical response officers swooped in, arresting three men inside.
Simultaneously, police boarded the boat and detained three crew members, with two others arrested at a hotel in Perth.
A then-Australian Crime Commission report in 2015 found that while US$80 bought one gram of ice in China, the estimated 270,000 users in Australia had to pay US$500 for the same amount.
The previous biggest methamphetamine bust was 903kg found in Melbourne earlier this year.
Australia has identified China and India as key sources of the precursor chemicals needed to make ice, with China and Myanmar as notable manufacturers of the final product.
Photographs of the raid released by Australian Federal Police showed the van stuffed with large sacks that were stamped with the Chinese characters for animal feed.
Over the past few years, law enforcement agencies across Asia have been making record busts, but the seizures appear to have little effect on the sheer amount of ice hitting the streets.
In September, Canberra announced a new strategy to tackle the menace, involving reinforcing information sharing arrangements with the International Criminal Police Organization, commonly known as Interpol, and the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, commonly known as Europol, to better pinpoint organized crime groups.
It is also working more closely with counterpart law enforcement agencies in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and the Mekong region of Southeast Asia to smash syndicates and follow money trails.
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