{"id":29535,"date":"2024-04-18T12:14:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T12:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/18\/after-months-of-cocaine-washing-ashore-australian-police-make-an-arrest\/"},"modified":"2024-04-18T12:14:11","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T12:14:11","slug":"after-months-of-cocaine-washing-ashore-australian-police-make-an-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/18\/after-months-of-cocaine-washing-ashore-australian-police-make-an-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"After Months of Cocaine Washing Ashore, Australian Police Make an Arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/18\/world\/18xp-cocaine\/18xp-cocaine-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"After Months of Cocaine Washing Ashore, Australian Police Make an Arrest\" title=\"After Months of Cocaine Washing Ashore, Australian Police Make an Arrest\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It started with one package, plastic-wrapped and barnacle-encrusted, discovered on a secluded beach in New South Wales, Australia, one balmy evening in December. Inside were 39 sealed packages, each containing about two pounds of cocaine, according to the police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then, within days, nine more packages were found across eight beaches and bays spanning a 60-mile stretch of coastline between Sydney and Newcastle. And more kept washing ashore in the following weeks and months. By mid-April, the police had collected about 560 pounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some were small, individual blocks; others came in large bundles. In one instance, a lifeguard plucked a two-pound block out of the water off Bondi Beach in Sydney. In another, a fisherman found a blue barrel containing 39 two-pound blocks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The question on everyone\u2019s minds: Where had they come from?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Thursday, the police announced a breakthrough in the case. The Australian Federal Police said at a news conference that they had arrested a 36-year-old Queensland man, whom they accused of being the ringleader of an organized crime network that had tried to smuggle the cocaine into the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The police said they believed the man had coordinated a shipment of 900 kilograms, or about 1,980 pounds, of cocaine to be smuggled into the country via a ship in November last year, said Superintendent Adrian Telfer of the A.F.P.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The drugs were dropped into the ocean near Brisbane, Queensland, in northeast Australia, he said, but the smugglers then could not retrieve them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAt the time that we believe these drugs were offloaded into the ocean,\u201d Superintendent Telfer said, \u201cthere were very adverse weather conditions, and we believe that they were a significant factor in why they couldn\u2019t recover these drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The man, whom the police have not named, was also responsible for organizing the import of about 1,230 pounds of cocaine into a remote town in Western Australia last year, the police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In that case, the police said, the cocaine was dropped overboard from a bulk cargo carrier and then collected out of the ocean and brought ashore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The police say that he used the pseudonyms \u201cWanted\u201d and John Dillinger \u2014 after the Depression-era American bank robber \u2014 on encrypted platforms on which he contracted out drug pickup jobs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The man has been charged with drug importation, drug trafficking and other offenses, and was due to appear in court in Brisbane on Thursday, the police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By some metrics, Australia is the biggest consumer of cocaine worldwide. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oecd-ilibrary.org\/sites\/3f97f180-en\/index.html?itemId=\/content\/component\/3f97f180-en\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">A report<\/a> by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2023 found that more than 4 percent of Australian adults reported using the substance over the past year, while the next three countries \u2014 Britain, Spain and Austria \u2014 came in at under 3 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the police believe they have the source of the drugs, residents in Sydney may not have seen the last of the cocaine on their beaches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cObviously, doing the maths,\u201d Superintendent Telfer said, \u201cwe believe there is more out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/18\/world\/australia\/sydney-cocaine-beaches-arrest.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It started with one package, plastic-wrapped and barnacle-encrusted, discovered on a secluded beach in New South Wales, Australia, one balmy evening in December. Inside were 39 sealed packages, each containing about two pounds of cocaine, according to the police. Then, within days, nine more packages were found across eight beaches and bays spanning a 60-mile [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/18\/world\/18xp-cocaine\/18xp-cocaine-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5114,33845,755,33844,31,6273,13684],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29537,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535\/revisions\/29537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}