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The drugs had a sale value of 760 million Australian dollars
($494 million) and equaled as many as 11.7 million street deals
if they had reached the country of 28 million people, federal
police said in a statement.
Investigators told reporters in Brisbane that the drugs were
transported from an unidentified South American country.
The arrests on Saturday and Sunday followed a monthlong
investigation after a tipoff that the Comancheros motorcycle
gang was planning a multi-ton smuggling operation, Australian
Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay said.
The smugglers made two attempts to transport the drugs to
Australia by sea from a mothership floating hundreds of
kilometers (miles) offshore, Jay said. Their first boat broke
down, and the second vessel foundered on Saturday, leaving the
suspects stranded at sea for several hours until police raided
the fishing boat and seized the drugs, he said.
The mothership was in international waters and was not
apprehended, Jay said.
Authorities have seized more than one ton of cocaine before, Jay
said, but the weekend's haul was the biggest ever recorded in
Australia.
Those charged are accused of conspiring to import the drug into
Australia by sea and were due to appear in various courts on
Monday. The maximum penalty under the charge is life in prison.
Some were arrested on the boat while others were waiting on
shore to collect the cocaine, police said. Two were under age 18
and all were Australian citizens, they said.
“Australia is a very attractive market for organized criminal
groups to send drugs such as cocaine,” Jay said.
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