By Peter Brewer
Almost 400kg of cocaine likely intended for markets in the Snowy Mountains, South Coast and Canberra has been seized from inside construction machinery in a sleepy NSW town.
Heavily armed tactical police swarmed the back streets of Bungendore in the state's south west on Sunday morning, making two arrests related to the $144 million shipment from South Africa.
The drugs arrived into Australia in a second-hand 20-tonne Caterpillar excavator, shipped out of South Africa and into the Port Botany container terminal.
Border Force officers were suspicious about the origins of the heavy equipment and X-rayed sections of it. "Anomalies" were found and investigated.
The cocaine was concealed within the hollow steel hydraulic lifting arm of the excavator.
From both a local and a national perspective, the Bungendore arrests are significant.
Police estimate the drugs found inside the excavator are equal to 2 million street deals.Credit: Australian Border Force
"To put this in perspective, in the 2017-18 financial year approximately 795 kilograms of cocaine were detected at the border; this 384 kilogram delivery represents almost half that," Border Force acting deputy commissioner of operations Sharon Huey said.
She described Australia as a "lucrative market" for cocaine.
It is suspected that the target market for the cocaine was Canberra, the South Coast and the Snowy Mountains region.
"I suspect this is not an insignificant hit to the syndicate; $144 million is a lot of income," ACT Chief Police Officer Ray Johnston said.
High levels of co-operation involved in bust
The joint operation commenced with partners from ACT Police, NSW Police, the Australian Federal Police National Anti-Gangs Squad, Australian Border Force and other partners earlier this year.
The 384kg seizure is the biggest drug interception made by ACT Police, who coordinated the raid in strict secrecy after having a local criminal syndicate under surveillance for some months.
Bungendore residents reported witnessing the black-clad tactical officers carrying semi-automatic weapons preparing to enter the target premises, a small landscaping company in King Street about 40 minutes east of Canberra.
The precautions were necessary because the syndicate had close links to a bikie gang, ACT Chief Police Officer Ray Johnston revealed.
After simultaneous search warrants in Queanbeyan and Bungendore, two men appeared in Queanbeyan Local Court on Monday as a result of the raid.
They are Timothy John Engstrom, 34, and Adam Phillip Hunter, 35, both of Queanbeyan. Neither man applied for bail, nor entered pleas. They will be held in custody until their next scheduled court appearance on September 9.
The two men are expected to face high-level drug trafficking charges, which potentially carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Prior to shipment, the heavy duty steel boom arm of the excavator had been cut open, the void filled with 384 separate one-kilogram packets of the drug, the access point then welded shut, perfectly restored and repainted in the factory yellow colour.
The concealment was described by acting deputy Commissioner Huey as "incredibly sophisticated" and "very specialised".
"From the outside it didn't look like it had been tampered with at all."
She said it took two days for Border Force officers to cut into the arm, extract the drugs, substitute them and return the excavator to its original condition.
The excavator was then trucked down in a controlled delivery to the Bungendore landscape supplies company, where police were waiting.
The Canberra Times with Natassia Chrysanthos