‘Out of control’: The tip of Sydney’s coke problem revealed

NSW has an insatiable appetite for cocaine, with enough of the drug consumed to give every single person in the state more than two bags of the drug a year on average.

NSW has an insatiable appetite for cocaine, with enough of the drug consumed to give every single person in the state more than two bags of the drug a year on average.

The major NSW Police operation to bring down The Commission drug cartel this week has left senior law enforcement fearful our state’s drug problem could be much worse than previously thought.

Police arrested six people on Wednesday over their alleged involvement in The Commission - Sydney’s biggest drug cartel, who on their own were snowing the city’s streets with 1.2 tonne of cocaine in just four months - or more than 50,000 bags of the drug daily.

If an average of 50,000 bags of cocaine are being consumed daily, that means more than 18 million are being snorted annually. In a state of roughly 8 million people that’s two bags a year for every resident.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said she was shocked by the revelations of just how intense the demand for the drug and called for more work to be done to greater “understand” how widespread the issue is.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said she was shocked by the revelations of just how intense the demand for cocaine is. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Strike Force Barograph detectives say they have taken down The Commission, who it is alleged supplied 1.2 tonne of cocaine into NSW, in just four months. Pictured is some of the cocaine seized on Wednesday. Picture: NSW Police

“That is a massive appetite in this city and that concerns me greatly,” Commissioner Webb said.

“The market is driven by a demand and that concerns me, and what we need to have a conversation about is how do we affect demand.

“That’s a bigger question than just law enforcement, we’re at the end of the chain, we arrest those involved in supply.

“I would really like to understand the extent of drug use before we can have a conversation about what do we do about it.”

Government and law enforcement have previously relied on wastewater data from the Australian Crime Intelligence Commission (ACIC) for an indication of how much cocaine is being used.

The latest numbers from February 2024 indicated 1.1g of cocaine was consumed per 1000 people daily in NSW, which roughly equates to 3.165 tonne a year.

At the rates alleged by NSW Police, The Commission could have distributed 3.6 tonne on their own - without taking into account what any other gangs may have supplied.

Nick Bingham, the former head of the NSW Police Drug Squad, told The Daily Telegraph what makes the community’s appetite for “coke” so hard to quantify is how much of it is consumed in private.

“People so often do it behind close doors or at parties, where the cops can’t see and so you can’t judge,” Mr Bingham said.

Akrom Hamzy is is led away by Strike Force Barograph investigators on Wednesday morning. He was charged with offences including supplying a large commercial quantity of prohibited drugs and dealing with the proceeds of crime.

Mr Bingham said another sign that Sydney’s appetite for cocaine has increased, is the growing size of the cocaine seizures by police over the years.

Earlier this year, a whopping 722kgs of cocaine was found stashed inside a Ryde safehouse, while the biggest seizures in recent years have exceeded 1 tonne.

“The appetite must have increased because the seizure sizes have increased,” Mr Bingham said.

“We had large seizures when I was working, but at the start most of them were in the tens of kilograms, then they entered the hundreds of kilograms.

“Now we’re seeing seizures of 1 tonne plus.”

While getting an idea of the true scale of the “demand” for cocaine may prove difficult, police will continue to work on stopping the “supply” from organised crime networks.

Strike Force Barograph, run by the State Crime Command’s Organised Crime Squad, began investigating The Commission in July.

Detective Superintendent Peter Faux (left) boss of the Organised Crime Squad. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

After wiping out the gang they allege were controlling Sydney’s cocaine supply in just three months, police have promised to crackdown on anyone other members of the criminal milieu who might consider trying to take their place.

“That always happens and that’s something we’re always confronted with,” Detective Superintendent Faux said.

“Within six months we’ve taken out this crew who were at a significant level, but we’ve already started looking at who’s going to fill this void.

“We’ve started mapping syndicates and understanding organised crime networks who we know... we’re already identifying vulnerabilities in those crime groups and we’re already starting to target them.”

Originally published as ‘Out of control’: The tip of Sydney’s coke problem revealed