CANBERRA: Almost a tonne of the drug ice has been seized in Melbourne in the largest bust in Australia’s history. Two men have been charged with drug trafficking after the record 903kg haul, valued at almost $900m, was intercepted by a joint operation involving Australian federal police and Victoria police. The AFP assistant commissioner, Neil Gaughan, said the drugs, equivalent to 9m individual hits, were discovered at a property in Nunawading in Melbourne’s east after the arrest of two Victorian men in February. “We located 70 boxes of floorboards,” he said. “In each of those floorboards was concealed, between the floorboards, 2kg of methamphetamine.” A 53-year-old Blackburn man and a 36-year-old Doncaster man have been charged with trafficking in a commercial quantity of illegal narcotics.
The Victoria police assistant commissioner, Stephen Fontana, said the record haul of ice was discovered after an investigation into a drug syndicate, which resulted in the seizure of 40kg of methamphetamine, 175,000 cigarettes and also $140,000 in cash and other contraband. He said the investigation was ongoing and police were searching for two Asian men who may have links to the syndicate and are believed to frequent the Box Hill area in Melbourne. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said the shipment was “enormous”. “Ice is a scourge,” he told reporters in Tasmania. “It destroys lives. It destroys families and communities. We will be ruthless in our efforts to stop the smuggling and the trafficking of this drug.” The federal justice minister, Michael Keenan, said the seizure had dealt a serious blow to organised crime. The operation comes less than a week after AFP and Australian Border Force officers arrested three Vietnamese nationals in Melbourne and seized 300kg of ice hidden in metal gates.
