Huge tablet bust thwarts gangs
A HUGE shipment of 600,000 cold relief tablets, destined for criminal gangs in Australia to use for drug manufacture, has been thwarted in Bali.
The cold-relief tablets, using the trade name Codana, were shipped from South Korea to an address in South Australia and were being shipped through Indonesia when they were stopped.
The tablets contain pseudoephedrine, a precursor for making methamphetamine and MDMA and officials say there were for use by criminal gangs in Australia to manufacture drugs.
Their shipment, from overseas, is a bid to circumvent Australia’s tough restrictions on the purchase of cold and flu medications containing pseudoephedrine.
The drugs – 600 bottles of Codana tablets, each bottle containing 1000 tablets – were displayed at a joint Indonesian Customs and Australian Border Force media conference in Bali yesterday.
The drugs were detected and seized in Bali in January and an arrest in Australia has since been made. That matter is currently before the courts.
The drugs, sent through courier service EMS, were declared as health food.