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25-06-2026
SYDNEY: Australian police have seized 2.7 tons of cocaine, the country’s largest ever such bust from an underground bunker system in western Sydney.
The drugs, with an estimated street value of AU$816m (£433m, €500m), were found on Friday in compartments concealed beneath false floors in three shipping containers at a property in Londonderry.
Two men aged 21 and 25, who allegedly attempted to flee from police, were arrested at the scene and charged with possessing a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border-controlled drug.
Police say the cocaine was smuggled into Australia via the small town of Midge Point in North Queensland on the orders of an organized crime group.
The two men, who were remanded in custody after appearing in court on Saturday, face life in prison if convicted.
Police said the raid on the Londonderry property was part of “Operation Minjiang” which was launched in May after 40kg of cocaine was found floating in the water off a boat ramp at Midge Point.
Another six people in Queensland and New South Wales were arrested and charged as part of investigations sparked by the find, police said last week.
An alleged “mother vessel” suspected of being part of the smuggling operation has also been detained in Solomon Islands.
Despite its remoteness, Australia is a lucrative market for the drugs trade, with cocaine typically fetching around AU$300 per gram, according to an illegal drugs monitoring system run by the University of New South Wales.
Australians and New Zealanders also have the highest cocaine use rates in the world, according to last year’s UN World Drug Report.
Australian Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay said the alleged plot showed “how highly organized and determined these criminal networks are, and the extreme lengths they are willing to go to in pursuit of profit.
“Investigations into the origin of the drugs remain ongoing, and we will work with our international and domestic law enforcement partners to identify the criminal syndicates and anyone else involved in facilitating this alleged attempted drug import.”
In December, Australian authorities had confiscated 2.3 tons of cocaine from a disabled boat near the Queensland coast, officials announced on Monday.
Thirteen individuals, including eleven men and two juveniles, were detained. Among them were the boat’s crew and those awaiting the illicit cargo onshore? The drugs, with an estimated street value of AU$760 million ($490 million), could be divided into 11.7 million separate street deals, marking it as the largest cocaine seizure in Australia’s history. According to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), one of the arrested men was the vice-president of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle club’s Brisbane chapter. Biker gangs in Australia are infamously linked to drug-related violence, with over 1,000 shootings recorded since the 1980s.
This cocaine seizure was part of a broader investigation into the Comanchero gang, named Operation Tyrrendor, initiated last month. Authorities reported receiving intelligence that a criminal network associated with the gang intended to smuggle illegal drugs into Australia.
This follows last week’s report of the Colombian navy intercepting a semi-submersible transporting cocaine to Australia. Investigators in Brisbane revealed the record-breaking cocaine shipment originated from an undisclosed South American nation. The AFP collaborated with the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and the Australian Border Force (ABF) to monitor a fishing boat recently bought by a 35-year-old man. (Int’l News Desk)
