Three Sydney dockworkers have been charged over a cocaine shipment worth more than $100 million that was found hidden behind a false wall in a shipping container.
Officials said they had been investigating a criminal syndicate believed to be working with “trusted insiders” at Sydney ports to import commercial quantities of illegal drugs into Australia.
They said they had received intelligence that a group was planning to remove illicit drugs from an imported shipping container while it was stored on the Sydney waterfront.
On Sunday, a 25-year-old man was arrested while exiting the shipping container, whose legitimate cargo had already been unloaded. Police said they found a crowbar, an angle grinder, ear protection, portable lights and other tools inside that they alleged the man was using to cut through a false wall at the back of the shipping container.
Behind the wall were 506 blocks of cocaine weighing 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) each, for a total of more than 1,115 pounds. The shipment had a street value of more than 164 Australian dollars ($106 million), the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said Tuesday in a joint news release with the New South Wales Police Force.
The 25-year-old man, along with two others ages 38 and 42, appeared in a New South Wales court on Monday, with only the 42-year-old being released on bail.
If convicted, the three men could face life in prison. They are next expected to appear in court on Oct. 29.
Though the shipping container came from Europe, police said they were still investigating the origin of the cocaine. Searches of two of the men’s homes found 330,000 Australian dollars (about $215,000) in cash suspected of being proceeds from crime.
“To anyone lured in by the false promise of riches from drug importations — these offenses carry the potential of life in jail,” AFP Detective Superintendent Peter Fogarty said.
The investigation was carried out by the Multi Agency Strike Team, a collaboration between Australian law enforcement agencies that aims to “investigate and target trusted insiders assisting transnational serious organized crime syndicates.”
There have been a series of recent drug busts in Australia, including late last year when police seized a record 2.3 tons of cocaine and arrested 13 people in raids after the suspects’ boat broke down off the coast of Queensland.
In 2022, police also found 2 U.S. tons of methamphetamine hidden in marble tiles shipped from the Middle East to Sydney in what they said was the largest-ever seizure of the illicit drug in the country.