Border officers found 298kg of cocaine hidden in a tractor shipped to Melbourne from Germany
Nobody has been arrested. Police are asking the public who the six taped boxes were meant for.
Australian Border Force officers found 298kg of cocaine hidden inside a tractor imported to Melbourne, and nobody has been arrested.
The shipping container was declared as carrying two tractors and machinery parts. It came from Germany via Panama.
Officers X-rayed the consignment on Monday and found anomalies, so they opened it. Inside were six large boxes wrapped in blue and black tape, packed in and around one of the tractors.
The AFP has issued a public appeal, asking anyone who knows who the drugs were meant for to contact Crime Stoppers.
That appeal is the tell. Investigators have the drugs, the container and the paperwork. They do not have the people.
The case has gone to the Victorian Joint Organised Crime Taskforce, a standing partnership between the AFP, the Border Force, Victoria Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.
Tractors are not a novel hiding place. In April the Border Force announced it had pulled more than 50kg of cocaine out of two separate consignments of heavy machinery on the east coast, under the heading "Heavy machinery, heavy drugs".
Monday’s container held roughly six times that on its own.
The route is familiar too. In July, officers found 534kg of cocaine in a container routed through Panama and bound for a Melbourne address. The AFP valued that seizure at about $400 million.
No dollar figure has been put on this one.
ABF Superintendent Dan Peters said detections like it were not luck.
"Detections such as these don’t happen out of mere coincidence — our ABF officers are highly trained and know what to look for," he said.
AFP Detective Superintendent Raymond Imbriano said criminal syndicates continued to use sophisticated methods to conceal illicit commodities.
"Every kilogram of cocaine seized represents harm prevented in our community and profits denied to organised crime," he said.
Victoria Police Detective Superintendent David Cowan aimed his remarks at the people who buy it.
"When people are buying and consuming these drugs, there is often a misconception that they are simply 'party' drugs, or they have no broader societal impacts," he said.
"We know the trafficking of illicit drugs such as cocaine are a significant revenue raiser for serious and organised crime groups, so the sale of this amount of cocaine would have generated millions that, in turn, could have funded a range of other violent crimes."
He listed murders, shootings, stabbings, aggravated burglaries and arson attacks.
Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The tractor cleared the paperwork. It did not clear the X-ray.