Gangsters sure gave it a luxury ride — inside a vintage Bentley, a fine collector's car
traveling almost 8,000 miles from Canada to Australia. In this case though the regal ride
wasn't meant to impress, but rather to distract. It was just expensive, beautiful wrapping to hide this:
a nasty gangland load. The Mob Reporter here with news of narcos going crazy to feed Australia's
craving, including an astounding triple threat that was stopped at the border and revealed this week
It came in threes: This Bentley business, the country's largest fentanyl seizure
and the country's largest stash of ice — more than a billion dollars worth
That's billion with a B. B as in Bentley. Let me tell you about it
I'll start with the graceful lines of the 1960 Bentley S2, a vintage ride of luxury and style
To see one used like this brings a tear to my eye. Someone butchered this beauty to stuff
its innards with illicit cargo, placed it in a shipping container, and sent it by sea from Canada
likely from Vancouver. It arrived in Port Botany in Sydney earlier this month
and X-rayed by Australian border agents who spotted something suspicious. They had a closer
look at the car, found plastic bags hidden behind the headlights and called in the cops
New South Wales police partially dismantled the car searching it. They found 161 kilos of meth
sealed in plastic bags and 30 kilos of coke tightly packed into bricks. The cops removed
the dope, reassembled the car, and sent it on its way to be collected by whomever was expecting it
The Bentley, as you see, was moved into the driveway of a pleasant family house and parked in an open
carport in a Sydney suburb called Rooty Hill. Police waited until two young men started
working on the car before swooping in. Look, you see the headlight is dangling, a tire is off and
tools are scattered about. Two men were arrested then, aged 20 and 23. You see them here in cuffs
Police say they were caught cutting into the side panels of the Bentley
likely with a growing sense of abject panic
The strangest thing in all of this may be that this was at the family home of
one of those arrested. He was unloading 155 million dollars worth of ice and coke from
an eye-catching collectible car right in the open outside of his parents' house
Allegedly. How high does this rank on the stupidity scale? A third man and a woman were arrested, both
25 years old, after a traffic stop on a highway 460 miles north up the coast, close to Brisbane
Cops found another 2.2 kilos of meth and a million bucks in cash hidden in a Toyota SUV
All in all police estimated it was a haul worth about 108 million U.S. dollars
This is a colorful catch to be sure, but it's nowhere close to being the most significant
revealed this week down under. Australia's largest ever seizure of fentanyl, also shipped from Canada
was found inside metal ammunition boxes that were hidden inside an industrial lathe. The three-ton
lathe was sent by sea from Vancouver to Melbourne. Police there freaked out at finding 11 kilos of
pure fentanyl. The terrible toll of the stuff hasn't had the same impact there as it has in
many countries. Until this was found, the largest fentanyl seizure was — wait for it — just 30 grams
It took two weeks for authorities to plan and execute its removal from the machine
done outdoors in full biohazard outfits with a decontamination zone, ambulances
and naloxone — which counteracts overdoses — was at the ready. No arrests have been made in that case
and police are asking for the public's help in providing information. But if that isn't enough
to rattle the good people of Australia, the container terminals of Port Botany were also
the destination of nearly a billion dollars worth of meth, arriving from the Middle East
It came in two parts, in sea cargo containers arriving at the busy port last month from
the United Arab Emirates. There were 24 containers of heavy marble stone slabs
and inside four of them border agents found 748 kilos of meth, also called ice
By the looks of it, the secrets were inside the slabs, not just inside the containers
On Aug. 17, 2022, police launched 11 early morning raids in half a dozen suburbs around Sydney
"Police search warrant! Police search warrant! Police search warrant!"
Two men were charged, one 24 and the other 26. A few hours later police stopped a red Mazda 3
as it left a Sydney hotel. One of two men inside was arrested and charged. He was 34.. At least one
of those arrested police allege was a boss. Investigators said the load was the work of
a highly resourced and well-equipped criminal group. No kidding, but the case soon got a whole
lot bigger. As more containers were searched, more marble was found with the same shipping manifest
heading to the same destination. And inside the slabs was more meth — another one thousand and
sixty kilos of it. Police said that's a total of one thousand eight hundred and eight kilos
Authorities say that makes it the largest ever seizure of meth in their country — and this is a
country with a seemingly bottomless hunger for ice. Police estimated the combined haul at 1.6 billion
Australian dollars, which is more than 1.1 billion U.S. dollars. Imagine the capabilities and resources
of the group that can pull that together. And police say this wasn't their first importation
The factory where the cargo was supposed to be delivered was also found and searched. Police
said it was prepared to quickly break into the marble and retrieve the secrets inside
Rubble found in the factory shows they've done it before, police allege
The probe is now looking overseas for answers
That shifts the spotlight away from Australia and onto the Arabian Peninsula and Canada
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