Mexican drug bust: Artist and gal pal charged over $21 million ice smuggling plot
TWO fresh-faced 25-year-olds living in a bohemian Inner West share house are allegedly at the centre of a major plot to import $21 million of methamphetamines from Mexico.
NSW
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THEY roomed in a share house in Sydney’s hipster inner west, ran a stall selling cute handmade socks — and one even had a promising career as a painter and video artist.
But police allege the two young women they charged last week were at the centre of a plot to import $21 million worth of amphetamines from Mexico, as the country’s powerful drug cartels increasingly target Australia.
Rose Thomas and Norma Zuniga Frias, both 25, were arrested on Thursday after authorities found 24kg of ice hidden in home audio speakers sent in the post to an address in Sydney.
They have not entered pleas to their charges.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the fresh-faced best friends lived an apparently carefree life in the years before their arrest — travelling to Disneyland, Berlin and Tasmania, starting a small business together and preparing for Frias’s first major art exhibition.
It is not known exactly when Frias and Thomas met, but social media accounts show they were friends for several years before Frias, a Mexican national, moved from her home in the western city of Guadalajara to Sydney in April last year.
The Mexican city of Guadalajara is home to infamous drug cartels — the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Guadalajara cartel — which has shipped drugs to the United States since the 1980s.
There is no suggestion Thomas or Frias are connected to those cartels.
The couple were among a revolving number of young people who shared a four-bedroom house in Despointes St, Marrickville, where neighbours occasionally saw them riding their bikes or heard them singing at night.
A photograph of the pair posted online by a friend in August last year shows them smiling as they stand in a backyard in front of a planter box of vegetables as Thomas waves a carrot.
“First carrot of the vege garden! #loveislove #voteyes #lezziesinlove”, the caption says.
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Other photos posted online show them in front of a ferris wheel at Disneyland and swimming together in an outdoor pool in the mountains as they travelled together in recent years.
Frias was also a prolific artist, with many of her works posted online focusing on gay rights and sexual themes.
Her eclectic portfolio included animations of bouncing breasts, and sketches of naked women, including one with a detached head and another with a shark’s head instead of a human one.
Frias also designed the apparel for the business that she and Thomas started last year. “Chicken Sox is an Australian brand with a goal to provide colourful and fun socks at the perfect length,” boasted the company’s website.
Some of her images were screen-printed onto T-shirts for a marriage equality rally held last year.
The AIRspace gallery in Marrickville was due to open an exhibition of her work last week.
However, the day before the exhibition’s opening night, police raided the Marrickville home as well as another property in Rozelle.
The raids came after the Australian Border Force intercepted 24 kilograms of ice concealed in the shipment of eight speakers.
The drugs, worth an estimated $20.7 million, were wrapped in silver foil and carbon paper in what authorities say was a sophisticated attempt to fool X-ray machines.
Frias was charged with importing and possessing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug, while Thomas is charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of ice.
They both face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Neither applied for bail when they appeared in Central Local Court last Friday.
Thomas is due to reappear on March 23, and Frias on May 9.
The catch was one of 209 from Mexico that the Australian Border Force has made in the past two years, and police are warning that Mexican cartels increasingly have Australia in their sights.
“We continue to see overseas drug networks trying to target Australia because they know there is a high demand in our country,” Australian Federal Police Commander Justine Gough said last week.