Australian Border Force officer caught flushing drugs down toilet

An Australian Border Force officer was caught tipping drugs down the toilet during a raid - and his explanation was astounding.

An Australian Border Force officer’s remarkable actions during a raid have been found to be not-corrupt.

Usually it’s the crooks panicking and flushing bags of drugs down the toilet when cops bust down the door in a raid.

But this time it was someone else with their finger on the cistern in what turned out to be an extraordinary incident.

An Australian Border Force (ABF) officer was caught red handed emptying two “deal bags” of white powder, suspected to be drugs, down the lavatory during a search warrant in which he was taking part.

And the reason why the officer known only as Officer FX disposed of the drugs sparked a corruption inquiry and left authorities shaking their heads.

An Australian Border Force officer flushed white powder down the toilet. Picture: Getty Images.

Officer FX not only flushed the contents of the zip lock bags down the toilet, he then washed all traces of the white powder out of the bags.

Astonishingly, when caught in the act, Officer FX explained he thought it was the best way to “neutralise” the situation was to get rid of the drugs.

Officer FX was part of an ABF investigation team that had launched a raid on a home in Sydney looking for illegal goods when he abandoned his official duties to tamper with evidence that had been found.

His actions come after it was revealed last year that teams of ABF officers had been secretly given federal police powers — allowing them to execute search warrants — in a hugely controversial move.

The move sparked a behind-the-scenes stoush with the Australian Federal Police amid claims ABF recruits would lack experience and training and it was unnecessary operational creep on AFP operations.

Officer FX had started off doing the right thing that day, informing local NSW Police that ABF was conducting a raid at the home.

But the ABF does not have the power to seize illegal goods related to a state offence and not the subject of its warrant, though it can hand them over to the local police.

Officer FX, who was in charge of logging all evidence found, decided the local police were “too busy” to help.

An ABF officer said the police had been too busy to deal with the suspected drugs found during a raid. Picture: Supplied.

“ … when I reported our warrant activity – [they] informed me [they] had just arrived at work and hadn’t logged on because they were ‘flat out’,” Officer FX later told corruption officers attached to the watchdog Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI).

“My decision to flush the items was because I was of the view that local police were “flat out” busy, and this was a minor quantity. In my view, the easiest way to neutralise the situation was to dispose of the powder (white) in zip lock bag,” Officer FX said.

He denied his actions were for nefarious reasons, malicious intent or for personal gain.

“This is me solely making an idiotic, silly decision that has resulted in me essentially, you know, damaging my investigative career and removing myself from that.”

“In hindsight I would’ve appreciated some of the colleagues just to have perhaps voicing their concern. I can’t give you a reason why I did what I did. What a dumb thing I did…”

ACLEI found that the Officer FX Officer should have alerted police but didn’t. It also found his behaviour raised significant questions about his judgment but was not corrupt.

Officer FX was suspended but not charged. The CDPP found that based on the available evidence, there were no reasonable prospects of securing a conviction for any offence.

The ABF said in a statement it would not comment on the personal circumstances of the suspended officer.