How organised crime gangs are exploiting a simple loophole to flood Sydney with drugs
Security checkpoints at our borders are easily sidestepped and legitimate importers preyed upon by organised crime networks desperate to fill Sydney’s thirst for drugs.
Security checkpoints at our borders are easily sidestepped and legitimate importers preyed upon by organised crime networks desperate to fill Sydney’s thirst for drugs.
A businessman has told of twice being approached and offered $100,000 to allow criminals to use his shipping containers and look the other way as they import drugs and illegal cigarettes. At the same time, an insider working at Port Botany has revealed the easy steps drug cartels take to significantly boost their chances of ensuring major importations avoid detection.
A The Sunday Telegraph investigation has revealed what is really going on at our borders, with drugs continuing to flood in and violence escalating among the underworld.
“There is corruption inside the customs and with workers inside the ports,” a major importer of steel from China said.
On two occasions the man said he has been approached because of his company’s unblemished record as a legitimate business.
Another reason he has likely been targeted by crime gangs is because steel, the commodity he imports, has a limit of just over 20 tonnes per shipping container – meaning there is plenty of space to fill the freight with drugs, a technique known as “piggybacking”.
“First-time importers are often scrutinised more often but by us having a clean profile and because we have been a legitimate business for so long, our containers are very unlikely to be checked by customs,” he said.
“There is a lot of space which can be used with other lighter goods, such as concealed drugs and tobacco. The crime gangs realise this. When you are making orders of 200 containers-plus it also lessens the chance of being checked.”
The businessman said he had alerted the Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police to the names of other companies he believed may have been infiltrated by organised crime but nothing came of it.
An underworld source contacted for this investigation estimated the breakdown of drug importations into Australia is 80 per cent through ports and airports, 15 per cent through mid-ocean collections and five per cent walked off ships or planes by corrupt workers.
More than 2.5 million shipping containers enter Australia every year, a small percentage of which are searched.
Last year 740 consignments containing illicit drugs were detected by the ABF, which stopped more than 45 tonnes of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.
But authorities have estimated Australians spend $9.3 billion on consuming 15 tonnes of drugs every year.
An experienced ports worker revealed crime gangs regularly try to sidestep border checks by increasing the weight of their containers, either legitimately or fictitiously through an insider.
By listing the containers as legally too heavy to be taken onto the roads by trucks, they are taken to a separate rail freight yard.
This avoids an X-ray machine for trucks at the exit to Port Botany, meaning only the rare use of a portable X-ray machine, or a tip-off, will lead to detection.
“In Australia, shipping containers can’t hit the road if they’re too heavy, because of a load capacity,” they said.
“All you need is someone (an insider) to punch in the numbers as being something over 30 tonnes so as a result it can’t go out on trucks. That way, unless it’s been flagged as having something suspicious in it by customs, it won’t get caught.”
If that fails they can always rely on old-school methods, such as having cargo ship workers walk it off the ships.
“Blokes can walk off the ship and nobody searches them, security just checks their passports, so you can have 5kg of anything in your backpack. Easy as that,” the worker said.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Scott Cook has spent years fighting organised crime and now leads the State Crime Command, home to the force’s top investigative squads.
It is his officers who have the unenviable task of dealing with the flow-on effect of the drugs that get past the border.
He knows there are many methods of drugs entering the country but said people on the inside helping crime gangs are a crucial focus.
“The sheer volume of drugs entering Australia continues to fuel organised crime and drive violence across our communities,” Mr Cook said.
“Nearly all of the extreme incidents we are seeing on the streets of NSW today can be traced back to transnational criminal networks. That’s why we’re working hand-in-hand with state, federal and international law enforcement partners to target these criminals. One of the ways we’re doing that is through the Multi Agency Strike Team.”
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