SYDNEY: Australian police have seized drugs worth 170 million US dollars and guns in a raid on a group likely linked to an attempted organised crime hit near a Sydney daycare facility last week.
New South Wales police last week said they had foiled an attempted murder by a so-called kill team and arrested three men involved.
Police have now taken possession of some 400 kilograms of drugs in a major bust targeting a transnational criminal syndicate they said was likely linked to that foiled hit.
Detectives found vacuum-sealed bricks of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin stuffed inside duffel bags and stashed at Sydney safe houses.
They estimated the haul had a street value of 260 million Australian dollars.
Police said the raids were part of a broader operation to dismantle a transnational network believed to be run out of Southeast Asia.
Organised Crime Squad Commander Peter Faux told local media the syndicate was highly likely linked to last week’s attempted killing.
He said they believe highly likely there are some links between certain entities around that incident that occurred last week.
Faux also said there were potentially some links to the abduction and killing in April of a Sydney mother over her husband’s alleged connections to a Vietnamese-linked organised crime network.
Supplied police images showed a squad of armed officers searching one of the hideouts.
Sealed drug packages littered the floor, emblazoned with a picture of a cartoon bear made famous in the 2012 Mark Wahlberg comedy Ted.
Another bag featured red Chinese characters reading smooth sailing.
They also seized three pistols and more than 300 rounds of ammunition.
Three men aged between 19 and 26 were arrested and charged with a raft of drug supply offences.
Cashed-up Australians are willing to pay some of the highest prices in the world for drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
This lucrative black market has increasingly drawn the attention of sophisticated criminal networks spanning the Triads of Southeast Asia to the cartels of South America. – AFP
