GREEN NOMADS
Syndicates recruit older motorists for highway drug runs
SOPHISTICATED drug syndicates are using older, less suspicious people, who police have dubbed, ‘green nomads’ to run their illicit substances to the Gold Coast.
As security has tightened across airports, syndicates and gangs are running their large quantities of drugs up highways.
SOPHISTICATED drug syndicates are using older, less suspicious people, who police have dubbed, “green nomads” to run their illicit substances to the Gold Coast.
Historically the trend would see drug mules run cannabis across Australia’s vast highway networks in crafty hiding places in their cars, so much so, that police dubbed the older drug runners, “green nomads”, a play on the elder traveller nickname of “grey nomad”.
Now, as security has tightened across airports due to terrorism threats, syndicates and gangs are running their large quantities of drugs up highways to meet the market.
“The security at airports made flying things very hard, everything is searched now,” a police source said.
“We used to get a lot of jobs like this, the green nomads, running drugs up highways, looking less suspicious because of their age.
“It’s not always older people though, desperate people, will do desperate things.”
The source said it was difficult to police, with thousands, upon thousands of cars driving along those same highways every day. Picking the right car, without prior investigations, was like finding a needle in a haystack.
The revelations come as police pull off a massive meth bust, finding 12kg of ice hidden in a car, allegedly driven by a 67-year-old Varsity Lakes man, on April 11.
It will be alleged he was driving to the Coast from Sydney, when he was pulled over in Reedy Creek.
They followed it up with a raid on April 14, of a Burleigh Heads address, allegedly linked to the man, where they found more drugs, a number of firearms and even a distraction grenade.
Apart from two speeding fines, dealt with in court in 2002, the accused is a cleanskin.
While not speaking about the recent bust, detective acting Superintendent Bruno Asnicar said generally police were pulling over and flagging more cars than ever before, as they became more in tune with what the gangs and drug syndicates were up to.
“We’re looking at a range of things, certainly road transport is a high priority for us,” Supt Asnicar said.
“There’s thousands and thousands of cars going up and down the highway and the vast majority of them we don’t touch and don’t interact with police in any way, whether it’s a ticket or just getting pulled up.
“On the flip side of that, we are more tuned into criminal organisations than we’ve ever been and I think we are being a bit smarter too, we use technology as much as the crooks do.
“If you look at the percentage of things we are looking at, cars that we stop, vehicles that we flag, it’s probably a lot higher now, than it ever was.”
Supt Asnicar said the end goal of these types of operations was to plug the borders by finding who was importing the drugs and tracking down those bringing them to our shores.
“It would be reasonable to say, in all likelihood, there is large importations coming into the country that are being split up into various syndicates.
“The ultimate objective is to plug our borders … some of it’s coming out of China, Columbia, Mexico, Chile, we are seeing it come from a number of places. It’s not one particular spot on the globe.”
The 67-year-old is due back in court on April 24.