WELLINGTON: Australian police seized a record 2.3 tonnes of cocaine and arrested 13 people in raids after the suspects\u2019 boat broke down off the coast of Queensland, authorities said Monday.
\nThe drugs had a sale value of 760 million Australian dollars ($494 million) and equaled as many as 11.7 million street deals if they had reached the country of 28 million people, federal police said in a statement.
\nInvestigators told reporters in Brisbane that the drugs were transported from an unidentified South American country.
\nThe arrests on Saturday and Sunday followed a monthlong investigation after a tipoff that the Comancheros motorcycle gang was planning a multi-ton smuggling operation, Australian Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay said.
\nThe smugglers made two attempts to transport the drugs to Australia by sea from a mothership floating hundreds of kilometers (miles) offshore, Jay said. Their first boat broke down, and the second vessel foundered on Saturday, leaving the suspects stranded at sea for several hours until police raided the fishing boat and seized the drugs, he said.
\nThe mothership was in international waters and was not apprehended, Jay said.
\nAuthorities have seized more than one ton of cocaine before, Jay said, but the weekend\u2019s haul was the biggest ever recorded in Australia.
\nThose charged are accused of conspiring to import the drug into Australia by sea and were due to appear in various courts on Monday. The maximum penalty under the charge is life in prison.
\nSome were arrested on the boat while others were waiting on shore to collect the cocaine, police said. Two were under age 18 and all were Australian citizens, they said.
\n\u201cAustralia is a very attractive market for organized criminal groups to send drugs such as cocaine,\u201d Jay said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WELLINGTON: Australian police seized a record 2.3 tonnes of cocaine and arrested 13 people in raids after the suspects\u2019 boat broke down off the coast of Queensland, authorities said Monday. The drugs had a sale value of 760 million Australian dollars ($494 million) and equaled as many as 11.7 million street deals if they had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n