Cocaine, GHB, fantasy, LSD, fake Xanax, heroin among SA drug busts
Hundreds of kilograms of drugs worth millions of dollars are intercepted and seized by SA Police every year. These are the biggest busts they’ve made.
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In houses along urban streets, boats sailing on the horizon towards Port Adelaide, and in planes streaming their way effortlessly in the state, illicit drugs can be found.
Police work tirelessly to intercept, disrupt and stop the supply chain of drugs entering South Australia.
Every year they seize staggering numbers of all manner of drugs from cocaine, to GHB, to LSD.
Superintendent Billy Thompson from the SA Police Serious and Organised Crime Branch said that relentless work was often done to little or no fanfare, but every bust was making a difference to the community.
“It’s nice to quote big numbers, and it’s nice whenever I can stand up and we’ve got a big show of drugs we’ve seized or cash or whatever it is, but it’s important to point out there is a lot of stuff that happens that the media and the public don’t see which causes disruption to these people,” he said.
“Policing is about public safety, it’s about keeping our kids safe and keeping our community in general safe.
“The best way we can do that is sometimes by disrupting people from getting their drugs in.
“A lot of times we do work that’s never seen but does have a massive impact on community safety.”
Those busts that have made headlines, however, make significant disruptions in one fell swoop.
And while they often happen in an instant, there are countless hours of police work that go into making them successful.
These are SA’s biggest drug busts by type of drug in the last five years.
Xanax
The haul: 10,000 fake Xanax tablets.
When: May, 2022.
The bust: Fake Xanax tablets have been flooding the state at a such a rate SA Police have described them as a “big concern”.
In part that concern has arisen from their bootleg production meaning nobody knows what’s in them, and the rest because they are disproportionately being consumed by young people.
So when police came upon 10,000 fake Xanax tablets at the Mawson Lakes home, it was no doubt a relief to have the haul removed from the streets.
Forensic testing of the drugs showed they were, in fact, a bastardised concoction of the highly addictive drug Clonazolam.
At the time of their seizure police said the tablets were “destined for illegal sale” and “could have had catastrophic consequences for people choosing to take them”.
“We want the community, including young people, to be aware that products for sale on the internet or via other sources are dangerous,” Supt Thompson said.
“Criminals manufacture these products using potentially dangerous and poisonous ingredients, for their own gain.
“Ingesting tablets or substances from unknown sources can be potentially fatal or lead to an overdose.”
Cocaine
The haul: 431 kilograms of cocaine.
When: March, 2022.
The bust: It was not just a big bust, it was the biggest value bust ever.
In March this year SA Police, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force stepped up and announced they had captured 431 kilograms of cocaine destined for Australian shores.
The cocaine cache was so large it was the equivalent of just under half the total amount of cocaine seized in the whole of Australia in 2021.
Its street value, police say, was more than $250m.
Fantasy/1,4-Butanediol
The haul: 800 litres of fantasy.
When: November 2021.
The bust: It was late in December last year when, on a summery Saturday police raided a Largs Bay house on suspicion there was drugs inside.
Their suspicion was confirmed almost immediately when they stumbled upon the largest haul of 1,4-Butanediol – known as the drug fantasy – in South Australian history.
The suspicion arose after a call from the Australian Border Force and the Home Affairs Department, who told them 800 litres of 1,4-Butanediol had arrived in Sydney from overseas, destined for the Largs Bay home.
The drugs had a street value of about $5.6m, and the bust came on the back of 10-days straight of dogged police work.
Detective Chief Inspector Denise Gray of the Serious and Organised Crime Branch said the seizure came as the drug exploded in popularity and use in the state.
1,4-Butanediol is not illegal to import into Australia, and is used to make paint thinners and Lycra, but is illegal to import into SA.
It has also been connected to death in SA and others interstate.
Steroids
The haul: 500,000 tablets and 100 litres of steroids.
When: July, 2021.
The bust: When SA Police receive a call from Australia Post, it’s often about a suspicious package.
In July last year, that phone call turned into what would be the largest steroid bust in state history.
During a three-day operation police uncovered and subsequently dismantled a large-scale drug lab.
The Netley house raided was also equipped with a commercial pill press, other high-end manufacturing equipment, 100 kilograms of steroid powder, 100 litres of liquid steroids and a further 500,000 steroid tablets.
LSD
The haul: 20,000 tickets of LSD.
When: July, 2019.
The bust: A police investigation led to the discovery of a huge haul or LSD in 2019.
The intercepted a package of 20,000 tickets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from an address in the city.
SA Police Detective Chief Inspector Tony Crameri said the size of the seizure was “very rare around the world”.
It was so rare, in fact, it was the largest of its kind in South Australian history.
The drugs were valued between $499,950 to $699,130 if sold individually or $180,000 to almost $300,000 if sold in lots of 100.
Detective Chief Inspector Crameri said the LSD tablets would have been dangerous to the community if they had not been intercepted.
“This is a highly dangerous hallucinogenic drug which can have long-term health effects on the user,” he said.
Heroin
The haul: 15 kilograms of heroin.
When: November, 2018.
The bust: Described by Supt Thompson as a “niche” drug, heroin remains one of the most dangerous drugs in the world.
The use of heroin spiked during Covid, but has since steadily declined, according to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program.
And in November 2018, the largest heroin bust in South Australian history coincided with those levels of heroin use declining to the lowest point recorded for about eight months.
That bust at Angle Park in the state’s inner-northwest, saw police seize a staggering 15 kilograms of heroin.
That amount was almost six times more than the total amount of heroin seized throughout the whole of 2016-17.
Police said the drugs, which were estimated to have a combined street value of several million dollars, were packaged in a way consistent with being part of a large commercial enterprise.
*Methamphetamine related busts have not been included.
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Originally published as Cocaine, GHB, fantasy, LSD, fake Xanax, heroin among SA drug busts
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