A Croydon Hills man has been sentenced to 10 years and eight months' jail over his role in a plot to import 98kg of methamphetamine into Australia.
The Victorian Joint Organised Crime Taskforce (JOCTF), comprising the AFP, Victoria Police and Australian Border Force (ABF), started an investigation in October, 2023, following a referral from the Dubai Police Anti-Narcotics Unit about a shipping container carrying wheat threshers with methamphetamine stashed inside their drive shafts.
The consignment was intercepted by ABF officers when a ship arrived in Melbourne in late November, 2023, with the illicit drugs concealed inside. The drugs were removed from the wheat threshers by law enforcement and substituted with an inert substance.
JOCTF investigators delivered the substituted consignment to an address in Oakleigh South, where the farming equipment was unloaded on the side of a road, and then moved to a semi-rural property in Dewhurst.
Police arrested a Tullamarine man, now aged 32, on 20 December, 2023, and the Croydon Hills man, now aged 36, the following day as part of the investigation.
The court heard the Croydon Hills man had directed the movement of the wheat thresher machines after they arrived onshore and coordinated the extraction of the substituted drugs.
He was sentenced to 10 years and eight months' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of six years and eight months, after pleading guilty to attempting to possess a commercial quantity of unlawfully imported border controlled drugs.
His Tullamarine co-offender was earlier sentenced to seven years and nine months' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of four years and six months, after pleading guilty to attempting to possess a commercial quantity of unlawfully imported border controlled drugs.
AFP Detective Inspector Chris Salmon said methamphetamine was a highly addictive substance known to destroy lives in the community.
"The AFP, as well as our domestic and international partners, are steadfast in our mission to protect the community by disrupting and dismantling organised crime and their efforts to profit off the misery caused in our community," Det Insp Salmon said.
ABF Acting Superintendent Peter Alderson said this seizure and subsequent investigation demonstrated the power of trusted international partnerships helping to protect Australia's border.
"Like-minded nations around the world are able to alert us to incoming shipments of illicit drugs and we will not hesitate to work with our partners here in Australia to intercept them on arrival and bring these criminals before the courts," A/g Superintendent Alderson said.
Victoria Police Detective Inspector Matt Kroenert said drug use, particularly methylamphetamine use, contributed to high levels of harm in our community through drug driving, drug-fuelled assaults, drug-fuelled family violence and heightened risk-taking - the effects of which were often devastating and tragic.
"Our message to those involved in the manufacture and trafficking of illicit drugs is clear: we will continue to work closely with our law enforcement and intelligence partners to target you, and to dismantle your operations."
