By Perry Duffin
Organised crime gangs are infiltrating ships in the Panama Canal and hiding cocaine inside refrigeration units of shipping containers in a novel method to import drugs into Sydney.
Authorities warn it’s a matter of time before Australian gangsters, tasked with breaking into the units to retrieve the cocaine, attack security guards or factory workers who get in their way.
Two refrigerated shipping containers arrived at Port Botany and were inspected by Australian Border Force agents in late January.
Two shipping containers, both laden with bricks of cocaine and tracking devices, were intercepted in two days in January on their arrival to Port Botany.Credit: AFP
They found 20 bricks of cocaine hidden in the wall panels of the first container, which arrived from Chile on January 23.
The next day, a second container from Belgium was found with a further 21 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside.
Photographs show the red bricks wrapped with the Turkish flag.
The cartels infiltrate supply chains as ships pass through the Panama Canal and hide bricks of cocaine inside the refrigeration units of containers. Since April 2023, more than a tonne of the drug has been seized in Sydney.
The cocaine is hidden in refrigeration units. Credit: AFP
The smugglers secrete GPS trackers with the drugs and pass the tracking information on to Australian underworld distributors.
“We believe these tracking devices are used by transnational serious organised crime syndicate members to identify and monitor the containers containing the illicit drugs once they arrive in Australia,” AFP Detective Superintendent Peter Fogarty said in a statement.
“These syndicate members then wait until they can identify an opportunity to break into docks, storage yards, warehouses or other facilities to access the drugs.”
Police fear the plots will trigger a confrontation between drug gangs and people guarding or working at Port Botany or in container holding yards across the city.
“Both [AFP and ABF] hold grave concerns the practice will result in harm to the safety and security of innocent workers at the facilities where criminals try to retrieve drugs to then sell onto the community,” the agencies said in a statement.
Cocaine has long entered Australia through sea freight, and tonnes are routinely seized by authorities at the border.
Among countless deceptions, cocaine has been found inside machinery, dissolved in hot sauce or disguised as aquarium salt.
Australian gangs then have to get the shipments and extract the drugs without being caught.
However, the new method does not require cartels to create elaborate and expensive fake shipments.
Instead, they can simply breach the container’s external refrigeration unit as they pass through the canal.
It’s faster, cheaper and easier to extract the product for Australian drug runners – but the agencies say they’re now focusing on refrigerated containers.
Four men who pleaded guilty to breaking into refrigerated containers to retrieve cocaine will be sentenced this month.
The Panama Canal has become a major “strategic flashpoint” for the world’s great powers, given its importance to global shipping.
Since taking office last month, US President Donald Trump has voiced plans to seize control of it, alleging Chinese influence over the crucial shipping route.
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