Anonymous tip leads to billion-dollar meth seizure

An anonymous tip-off has led authorities to nearly $1 billion worth of methamphetamine hidden in industrial machinery and destined for the Australian market.

Almost one tonne of the drug, commonly known as ice, was recovered from two large machines in a shipping container at Sydney’s Port Botany in July after being delivered from the United States.

Authorities removed the drugs and delivered the machines to a premises at Warwick Farm, in the city’s west, on Wednesday, leading to the arrest of two men.

One of the men was released, but the other man, aged 31, was charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border-controlled drug.

The operation was prompted by an anonymous tip-off to Crime Stoppers and intelligence from US agency Homeland Security Investigations.

Australian Federal Police Detective Superintendent Peter Fogarty said the 896kg drug shipment, with an estimated street value of $828 million, would likely have been distributed on the nation’s east coast.

“This is a large shipment which would have made a lot of money and I think this will have a huge impact on this particular syndicate,” he said.

“(It) is really a massive amount of drugs, so I think there is very much an organized crime syndicate behind this, a much bigger syndicate that has access to large sums of money.”

The smugglers, from a “transnational syndicate”, tried to piggyback their illegal shipment by sending the delivery to a furniture shop with an import history, Det Supt Fogarty said.

“Criminal syndicates go to great lengths to conceal their activities, but that will never deter the AFP and its domestic and international partners,” he said.

The Australian Border Force said it was a complex concealment and officers needed to deconstruct the machines to get to the drugs.

The 31-year-old man was refused bail at Downing Center Local Court on Thursday and will return to court in October.