Two men in court over huge cocaine haul found inside luxury buses from Singapore
Two men – one only 19 years old – have appeared in court charged over the second-largest cocaine bust in SA history – worth a potential 695,000 street deals valued at $45m.
Police & Courts
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In an extraordinary sting, police have stopped hundreds of thousands of street-deals worth of cocaine and arrested two young men after finding 139kg of the drug hidden in luxury buses on a ship bound for South Australia.
It is the state’s second-largest cocaine bust on record.
The real drugs were replaced with fake substances and police tracked the buses as they were unloaded in Adelaide and delivered to a suburban carpark.
The two men allegedly broke into the carpark to collect what they, according to police, thought was the real cocaine, and took it to a hotel where officers pounced.
On January 28, Australian Border Force officers intercepted the ship that came from Singapore at Fremantle, after receiving intelligence relating to a transnational criminal syndicate.
Inside four of the buses, Border Force maritime officers discovered a number of suspicious packages which returned a positive result for cocaine.
The packages were then switched by Australian Federal Police officers for ones with fake substances.
The luxury buses were shipped to Adelaide on February 3 and offloaded at a carpark in Mansfield Park, in Adelaide’s northwest.
Australian Border Force officers said the seizure stopped a potential 695,000 individual deals from hitting the streets, with a total estimated street value of $45m.
AFP Detective Superintendent Melinda Adam said police had not yet determined the origin of the cocaine.
“Let’s take a moment to hear that figure again … 695,000 individual street deals that we’ve prevented (causing) significant harm to our communities,” Superintendent Adam said.
Rayn Sadik, 19, and Yousif Al-Asadi, 22, appeared in Port Adelaide Magistrates Court, via video link from custody, on Monday afternoon.
Barrister David Edwardson KC, for the pair, did not apply for bail on behalf of his clients and asked a committal date to be set for just over two weeks.
“The application is they be remanded in custody. It’s too premature at this stage to apply for bail despite their youth,” he said.
The pair will next appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court.
Police allege the two men forced entry into the carpark and retrieved the packages before travelling to a hotel room in Port Adelaide, where AFP and SA Police officers swooped.
A search warrant was executed and both men were arrested.
While this was one of a few cases where drugs have been smuggled in using buses, ABF Superintendent Andrew Dawson said “criminal syndicates tend to use as many types of concealments as possible”.
“We’re looking at those that drop at sea and also through the rip-on-rip-off methodology whereby criminals will open legitimate cargo, place the drugs inside,” he said.
“Once on the wharves they will attempt to take those (drugs) before it (the legitimate cargo) is delivered to the legitimate person.”
For the 2023 financial year, Superintendent Dawson said there had been a big increase in cocaine detections, with more than 4.78 tonnes seized.
“Unfortunately we are seeing a little bit more,” he said.
“It has been (the largest amount seized on record in a financial year).” The average amount of detections at the border in the past decade is around 2.24 tonnes.
Superintendent Adam said: “This is an ongoing investigation, but let me make it clear, the AFP is a formidable and ever-present organisation and is constantly monitoring serious and organised crime and its tentacles that span the globe.”
Reports indicate cocaine use is on the rise in SA as the ABF targets “relentless” organised crime syndicates supplying the “harmful” drug market.
“Australia is a hugely attractive market for transnational serious organised criminal syndicates looking to import illegal drugs,” he said.
“Cocaine shipments are being seized at the nation’s borders at unprecedented levels as Australia confronts a global surge in trafficking.
“Organised crime syndicates are relentless in their efforts to flood our shores with cocaine and their sole motivation is greed and profit, pure and simple. We see it coming from all over the world, but largely South America and Europe.”
While AFP officers seized six tonnes of cocaine bound for Australia last year, only 23kg was intercepted in SA.
An AFP spokesman said groups use “diverse methods” to bring drugs into the country, including international mail and passengers, commercial air and sea cargo vessels.
“Commercial freight, hull attachments and mother/daughter at sea transfers continue to present the greatest threat, by volume, for illicit drug imports into Australia,” he said.
Anyone with information about suspicious activity in Port Adelaide or Mansfield Park in the early hours of February 2 should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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