Australian police mentioned Wednesday they’d seized medication value $170 million and weapons in a raid on a gaggle seemingly linked to an tried organized crime hit close to a Sydney daycare facility final week.
New South Wales police final week mentioned they’d foiled an tried homicide by a so-called “kill group” and arrested three males concerned.
And on Wednesday, police mentioned they’d taken possession of some 880 kilos of medication in a significant bust concentrating on a transnational legal syndicate they mentioned was seemingly linked to that foiled hit.
Detectives discovered vacuum-sealed bricks of methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and heroin stuffed inside duffel baggage and stashed at Sydney secure homes. An extra 20 kilograms of precursor chemical compounds was additionally seized, police mentioned. They estimated the haul had a avenue worth of Aus$260 million ($170 million).
Police mentioned the raids have been a part of a broader operation to dismantle a “transnational community believed to be run out of Southeast Asia.”
Organized Crime Squad Commander Peter Fake informed native media the syndicate was “extremely seemingly” linked to final week’s tried killing.
“We consider extremely seemingly there are some hyperlinks between sure entities round that incident that occurred final week,” he mentioned.
Fake additionally mentioned there have been “probably some hyperlinks” to the kidnapping and killing in April of a Sydney mom over her husband’s alleged connections to a Vietnamese-linked organized crime community.
Police launched a video displaying officers sporting oxygen masks and pictures of the purported medication being seized. The video additionally confirmed no less than one suspect being detained and led away by police.
Different police pictures confirmed a squad of armed officers looking out one of many hideouts.
Sealed drug packages littered the ground, emblazoned with an image of a cartoon bear made well-known within the 2012 Mark Wahlberg comedy “Ted.”
One other bag featured purple Chinese language characters studying “clean crusing.”
New South Wales Police
Additionally they seized three pistols and greater than 300 rounds of ammo.
Three males aged between 19 and 26 have been arrested and charged with a raft of drug provide offences.
Rich Australians are keen to pay a number of the highest costs on the earth for medication comparable to cocaine and methamphetamine.
This profitable black market has more and more drawn the eye of refined legal networks spanning the Triads of Southeast Asia to the cartels of South America.
Final month, authorities mentioned three Sydney dockworkers have been charged over a large cargo of cocaine in a regulation enforcement investigation into trusted insiders importing illicit medication into Australia. In 2024, Australian police busted a drug trafficking ring dubbed “The Fee” that introduced greater than a ton of cocaine into the nation in only a few months.
