Even cocaine-smuggling Australian biker gangs have fishing boats. Unfortunately for them, upkeep and maintenance aren’t a top priority when they’re using them for activities other than fishing, even when transporting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs. Authorities reported Dec. 2 that Australian police made an astonishing record cocaine seizure of 2.3 tons when they raided a fishing boat that broke down off the coast of Queensland.
Thirteen people were arrested when the drugs were seized, which ave an estimated street value of $494 million on the Australian black market — that’s nearly a half BILLION dollars in cocaine, according to news reports.
Authorities say the drugs were transported from an unidentified location in South America and that the fishing boat was bringing the illicit cargo to shore from a mothership hundreds of miles offshore in international waters.
While the broken-down boat gave investigators an easy in, they had been investigating the smuggling operation for months after being tipped off that the Comancheros motorcycle gang was planning something big, according to Australian Federal Police Commander Stepehn Jay.
After the raid, police released photos showing the cabin of the boat stuffed with huge packages allegedly containing cocaine.
If At First You Don’t Succeed
The fishing boat biker smugglers were actually arrested on their second attempt to get the drugs to Australia from the mothership. The first boat they used also broke down. They gave it another go on Saturday, but that boat broke down too and the suspects were stranded at sea for hours until police arrived.
Because the mothership was in international waters, authorities left it be.
While authorities have made single cocaine seizures in excess of a ton, this bust by far breaks the country’s record. The largest cocaine seizure in history occurred on June 18, 2019, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the Packer Marine Terminal. Authorities seized 39,235 pounds — almost 22 tons — of cocaine with an estimated street value of $1.3 billion.
The 13 individuals who were arrested face a bevy of charges, including conspiring to import cocaine by sea, a crime that carries the maximum penalty of life in prison. Some were onshore awaiting the shipment and others were on the boat — all were Australian citizens.
There have been a string of huge drug busts around the world recently. Last week, the Colombian navy and authorities from dozens of countries seized 225 metric tons of cocain over a six week period targeting a new Pacific trafficking route from South America to Australia, according to news reports. Belgian authorities seized nearly 5 tons of cocaine from shipping containers at the Antwerp port last week, and days before that police in Spain seized 13 tons of cocaine, which was a record-breaking seizure for the nation.
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