ALLEGED COLOMBIAN DRUG CARTEL BUSTED
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police have dismantled an alleged drug ring with ties to an international Colombian cartel and Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Ten people were arrested in Queensland, the Northern Territory and NSW on Thursday night as part of the multi-jurisdiction operation.
Nine were been charged with a variety of serious drug and money laundering offences that carried maximum penalties of life imprisonment. The AFP also alleged that they discovered an “industrial sized”, “purpose built” and “about 600 square-metre” cocaine laboratory on a property in Durong, about 300km northwest of Brisbane.
Police alleged the facility was run by two men, a 48-year-old dual Spanish-colombian national and a 38year-old Colombian-born Sydney man. It is alleged they were chemical specialists responsible for extracting cocaine from the substance it was hidden in.
The laboratory was allegedly capable of producing 700kg of cocaine, which police believe would have been distributed across Australia.
The two men allegedly travelled to the Gold Coast in late May to organise the building of the Durong facility.
A multi-state AFP operation tracked the syndicate as they allegedly couriered cocaine, which was suspended in another substance inside plastic buckets, from Sydney to the lab over the past two months.
A 38-year-old western Sydney man was arrested north of Newcastle on Thursday night as he drove back to Sydney from Queensland.
Police also arrested five men and one woman in Queensland, including two men at the Durong property where they were allegedly extracting and manufacturing commercial quantities of cocaine.
A woman, 32, was arrested at her Brisbane home where police seized more than $1m in cash that was allegedly the proceeds of crime.
Two men, aged 35 and 30, were arrested on the Gold Coast.
AFP investigations are continuing.