NEWS: 8/08/08 - World's largest ecstasy bust

[mushi mushi 88]

I think some will still end up on the street I swear they always do especially when their is so many like these...

If they are coming from Europe they would most likely be high dose, and I'm sure their would be some dealers that would of got these and crushed them down and repressed them just to double their money.

 

[Special-T.B.K]

News: World's Largest Ecstacy Haul- Ninemsn.com.au

[EDIT: Threads merged. hoptis]

The seizure of the world's largest ecstasy haul has caused a major disruption to organised crime in Australia and overseas, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said.

The AFP says it seized 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy with a street value of $440 million and arrested 20 people across Australia in police raids on Friday morning.

During a joint 12-month investigation by the AFP and Customs, 3,000 tomato tins were found to contain 15 million ecstasy tablets when they were shipped from Italy to Melbourne in June last year, police said.

Police also allege they seized 150 kilograms of cocaine from the same syndicate in July this year.

The investigation also identified a money laundering operation worth more than $9 million.

Thirteen people appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court facing charges including drug trafficking, drug importation and money laundering.

At a press conference in Melbourne, four customs officers guarded the massive haul of drugs contained in plastic bags and containers sitting on a large table.

Mr Keelty said the investigation also involved cooperation with European police where search warrants were executed in Belgium and the Netherlands with investigations continuing in Italy.

"This is part of a global international syndicate," Mr Keelty said.

"This is a major disruption to transnational organised crime, both for this country and abroad."

The investigation was the largest ever undertaken by the AFP, Mr Keelty said.

"This is the epitome of what organised crime investigations are about and this is for the AFP in our 30 year history, this is the largest operation we have ever undertaken."

Customs CEO Michael Carmody described the drug importation as sophisticated and well organised.

He said the investigation started after officials received small snippets of intelligence more than 12 months ago.

Those appearing in court were Melbourne men Alan Saric, 34, of Werribee, Francesco Madafferi, 47, of Greenvale, Antonio Sergi, 34, of Sydenham, Mohamed Nasfan Abdul Nazeer, 24, of West Footscray, Tanesh Bernard Dias, 35, of West Footscray, Rob Karam, 41, of Kew, John Higgs, 63, of Taylors Lakes, Gratian Bran, 51, of Cheltenham and Salvatore Agresta, 40, of East Keilor.

Also appearing were Sharon Ropa, 37, of the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, Pasquale Sergi, 45, of Griffith, NSW, Pasquale Barbaro, 46, of Tharbogang, NSW, and Severino Scarponi, 39, of Glenside, South Australia.

Seven other people have also been charged.

Police executed 45 search warrants in Victoria, NSW, Tasmania and South Australia.

Prosecutor Brent Young asked the court for extra time to prepare the case.

He said police had intercepted 187,000 telephone calls and had 3,600 hours of listening devices to trawl through.

Mr Young said a brief of evidence would not be available for six months.

Ten of the accused made no application for bail and were remanded to appear in the same court for a special mention hearing on March 26 next year.

Madafferi was granted bail on conditions including reporting to police daily. He will also appear in the same court on March 26 next year.

Dias and Nazeer, who are not charged with drug offences, were remanded to appear in the same court on February 9 for committal mention.

 

[Special-T.B.K]

sorry missed the other post of same topic.... Mods. Please delete thread or add article to other thread.

Cheers
SpecTBK :D

 

[Mr Blonde]

There was a quote in the news blurb on News.com.au... "almost one pill for every Australian".

Think about that for a second.

Mmm... share the love.

Nope ... if that was the case then it would have been 100% pure powder with nothing else like binders & so on.

People step on pills; check out the Mokbel thread.

 

[Fieldy]

i saw some on channel 7 as white hearts, wouldnt be suprised if they are the ones making the round around sydney at the moment, the pink nike's that are up in brisbane are a very professional press, wonder if these were some of them, damn thats alot of biccies but ouch...

 

[malakaix]

Well, if it created a shortage it created it a year ago. By then you would think many more containers have found there way here.

I like to think that for every bust they make at least five loads get through, though the real number is probably more. Otherwise we can expect more rubbish dirty products coming our way.

Yeah they would send multiple containers.. cause they would expect 1 or 2 to get caught.

It sucks But this probably accounts too a smaller percentage seized then whats said in the article. I just find it hard to believe misleading reports, fucking journalists.

 

[trancetasy]

pretty stupid since the custom does x-ray checks 8)

 

[KingConvenience]

This makes me want to cry. I wonder what will happen to these little pills of love? Perhaps some will be destroyed, some will be redistributed?

Word has it that the police are planning a massive love-in with Christine Nixon DJing.

 

[nige1492]

Surely legal pharmaceutical companies would love to be a part of this market. If only they would lobby hard for the job of satisfying the market legally and safely, so many social problems would be solved. This waste is just criminal!!!!!!!!!!!

DJ Christine Nixon and DJ Michael Carmody. I used to work for him when he was the Commissioner of Taxation. The government could collect its tax and we would all still be much better off if this were all legal. This prohibition is the most irrational thing imaginable!!! Ahrrgh!!

 

['medicine cabinet']

damn thats a lot of pills. not the best idea tho putting them in a metal tin, wouldnt they rattle around and NOT sound like tomatos?

 

[hoptis]

13 in court after biggest ecstasy bust
By Shelley Hadfield
August 09, 2008 07:54am

THIRTEEN people have appeared in a Melbourne court following the world's biggest ecstasy bust.

Commonwealth prosecutor Brent Young asked for six months to prepare the case because of the sheer volume of material.

He said the year-long investigation intercepted 187,000 telephone calls and logged 3600 hours of listening device recordings and 20,000 hours of covert mobile surveillance. The material, including a small number of foreign language calls, all had to be sorted and transcribed.

Material was also seized under about 100 search warrants, Mr Young said.

Rob Karam, 41; John Higgs, 61; Gratian Bran, 51; Pasquale Sergi, 45; Salvatore Agresta, 40; Tony Sergi, 34; Severino Scarponi, 39; Sharon Ropa, 37; Pasquale Barbaro, 46; and Alan Saric, 34, were remanded to reappear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on March 26 next year.

Francesco Madafferi, 47, was released on bail.

Magistrate Amanda Chambers remanded Mohamed Nasfan Abdul Nazeer, 24, and Tanesh Bernard Dias, 35, to appear on February 4.

Lawyers for several of the men indicated they may apply for bail.

Mr Barbaro, of Tharbogang, NSW, is charged with conspiring to import and traffic a commercial quantity of MDMA, importing a commercial quantity of cocaine, conspiring to import a commercial quantity of precursor chemical, and laundering more than $7.4 million.

Ms Ropa, of Werribee, faces counts of trafficking a commercial quantity of MDMA, laundering more than $7.4 million in cash with Mr Barbaro, and aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the importation of a commercial quantity of cocaine.

Mr Karam, of Kew, and Mr Sergi, of Griffith, NSW, face charges of conspiring to import and traffic a commercial quantity of MDMA, as well as aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the importation of cocaine. Mr Karam is also charged with conspiring to import a commercial quantity of a precursor chemical.

Mr Madafferi, of Greenvale; Mr Bran, of Cheltenham; Mr Saric, of Werribee; and Tony Sergi, of Sydenham, are charged with trafficking a commercial quantity of MDMA.

Mr Agresta, of Keilor East, is charged with importing and trafficking a commercial quantity of MDMA. Mr Higgs, of Taylors Lakes, is charged with conspiring to import a commercial quantity of MDMA.

Mr Scarponi, of Glenside, South Australia, is accused of trafficking in a commercial quantity of MDMA, aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the importation of a commercial quantity of cocaine, and conspiring to import a commercial quantity of a precursor chemical.

Mr Abdul Nazeer and Mr Dias, both of West Footscray, face charges of laundering more than $1 million.

Herald Sun

 

[static_mind]

pretty stupid since the custom does x-ray checks 8)

I heard that so many containers enter the country that customs can only randomly scan 5% but I dont know that as fact.

 

[hoptis]

Police in drug ring swoop
Nick McKenzie, Tom Arup and Cameron Houston
August 9, 2008

Pasquele Barbaro's father, Francesco, arrives during the raid.

A UNIT in Little Palmerston Street, Carlton, was allegedly a crucial safe house for an international drug syndicate broken yesterday after a year-long Australian Federal Police investigation.

In a series of dramatic raids across the country, some of Australia's most notorious alleged underworld figures were arrested in connection to the seizure in Melbourne of the world's largest shipment of ecstasy.

Police arrested 20 people, eventually charging 19 with various drug and money laundering offences relating to the seizure of 4.4 tonnes or 15 million ecstasy tablets from Italy.

The drugs, hidden inside tins of tomato shipped from Italy to Melbourne, are valued at $440 million.

Key figures in the syndicate include its alleged mastermind, Pasquale Barbaro; the suspected drug baron and founder of the Black Uhlans Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, John Higgs, and Rob Karam, of Kew, who is alleged to have used a corrupt network of Melbourne dock and freight workers to facilitate importations.

Mr Barbaro, 46, and Sharon Ropa, 37, were arrested at the Carlton unit in the early hours of Friday morning. AFP sources told The Age Mr Barbaro travelled frequently between his home town of Tharbogang, near Griffith in New South Wales, and the Carlton unit.

Mr Barbaro is the son of Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro, who was named in the Woodward royal commission as a member of the Griffith-based Calabrian organisation behind the disappearance of anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay in 1977.

In Griffith, about 100 AFP officers swooped on four properties at 4am. Homes were cordoned off as a team of customs officers arrived with sniffer dogs.

The focus of operation was Pasquale Barbaro's sprawling Italianate mansion. His father Francesco remonstrated with AFP officers when he arrived at the property about 6.30am.

"I have no idea what's happening. I don't know anything about drugs, leave me alone," Mr Barbaro told The Age.

Also arrested and charged yesterday was Francesco Madafferi, 47, of Greenvale, a Melbourne fruit and vegetable market identity who the immigration department sought to deport in the '90s after discovering he had been investigated for "Mafia conspiracy" in Calabria.

Thirteen of those charged in relation to the raids appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday, with all remanded in custody except for Madafferi, who was granted bail without appeal.

Prosecutor Brent Young told the court there were 187,000 hours of telephone intercept evidence and 3600 hours of listening device recordings. He asked for six months to prepare the prosecution case.

AFP Chief Commissioner Mick Keelty said the syndicate represented 60% of all ecstasy imports into Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.

"This is a major disruption to transnational organised crime, both for this country and abroad." The investigation was the largest ever undertaken by the AFP, Mr Keelty said. Police executed more than 45 search warrants in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands

Federal police and customs officers found the ecstasy in a shipment that arrived in Melbourne on June 28, 2007, after gathering intelligence from Australian and European agencies.

The AFP then made a tactical decision not to reveal the raid. After secretly substituting inert pills for the tablets and resealing each tin, it mounted an elaborate surveillance and phone-tapping operation.

A key operational coup was the discovery of the crime network's alleged Carlton safe house, which the AFP wired with listening devices.

Pasquale Barbaro was yesterday charged with conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of MDMA (ecstasy), trafficking MDMA, and aiding and abetting the importing of cocaine. He was remanded appear in court again on March 26.

AFP sources said Ropa frequently used the safe house, travelling between it and her Werribee home. She is alleged to be one of three people involved in a $9 million money laundering ring, which allegedly provided funds for drug syndicate.

She appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with laundering money worth more than $1 million, trafficking MDMA, and aiding and abetting the importing of cocaine. She was remanded to appear on March 26.

Windows and doors of the alleged safe house, a double-storey brick townhouse, were boarded up last night and smashed glass covered the entrance. The front garden had also been dug up.

Neighbours spoke of waking at 4am to hear armed police forcing their way inside.

"I was woken by an awful lot of noise and shouting and banging and breaking glass," said one.

On July 24 this year in Melbourne, customs and AFP officials also seized 150 kilograms of cocaine alleged to have been imported by the syndicate.

In yesterday's raids the AFP also seized $140,000 in cash and a bounty of weapons at a Griffith property.

Melbourne Magistrate Amanda Chambers yesterday granted bail for Madafferi, who was charged with trafficking MDMA, but remanded all other accused in custody.

Mohamed Abdul Nazeer, 24, and Tanesh Dias, 34, both of West Footscray and both charged with money laundering, were remanded until February 4. All others are due back in court on March 26.

Alan Saric, 34 of Werribee, charged with various drug offences, and Abdul Nazeer are expected to make bail applications early next week.

John Higgs, 61, of Taylors Lakes, has been targeted by state and federal police for two decades. He remains a suspect in the theft of secret police files detailing the activities of a police informer from the Victorian drug squad offices in 1996.

Yesterday he was charged with conspiracy to import MDMA.

Another Melbourne figure, Rob Karam, was charged with conspiracy to import MDMA, trafficking MDMA, aiding and abetting the importing of cocaine and importing a precursor chemical to manufacture drugs.

Karam is an associate of alleged drug baron Tony Mokbel and was one of Crown Casino's top 200 gamblers before being banned from the casino by Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon.

Others across four states arrested and charged with various drug offences included: Saverio Zirilli, 51, of Tharboganag, NSW, Carmelo Falanga, 43, of Bungle Bungle Ranges, SA, Pasquale Sergi, 45, of Griffith, NSW, Gratian Bran, 51, of Cheltenham, Graeme Potter, 50, of Launceston, Severino Scarponi, 39, of Glenside, SA, Antonio Di Pietro, 41, of Nar Nar Goon, Pino Varallo, 39, of Eltham, Dominic Barbaro, 31, of Lake Wyangan, NSW, Tony Sergi, 34, of Sydenham, and Salvatore Agresta, 40, of East Keilor.

With SARAH-JANE COLLINS, ANDREA PETRIE and AAP

The Age

 

[hoptis]

How police checkmated alleged drug chiefs
Nick McKenzie
August 9, 2008

CATCHING clever crooks is not unlike a game of chess - you wear down your opponent in the hope of finding a weakness.

So it was for Australian Federal Police last year, when intelligence from European and Australian law enforcement agencies suggested that a container shipped from Italy might include more than the tinned tomatoes listed on the customs manifest.

When the AFP and customs officers secretly searched the container in Melbourne, they uncovered the largest single shipment of ecstasy ever intercepted by any law enforcement agency in the world: 4.4 tonnes or 15 million pills.

But the federal agents had a problem. While they had some intelligence on who was involved, the evidence was not strong enough to sustain criminal charges.

The sheer size of the importation pointed to figures who were well-connected, wealthy and with ready access to a large distribution network. It soon emerged that they were also well versed in avoiding police attention; the men hired to unload the cargo were cleanskins with no idea who they were working for or what they had been paid to unload.

The AFP agents had two choices: they could declare their hand and call a press conference to trumpet the massive seizure. Or they could mount a slow play, hoping one of their suspects would trip up and give them enough evidence to identify the main players and start tapping phones.

Those behind the shipment had a weakness - they owed their European suppliers millions of dollars, money that was meant to be repaid after the drugs were sold locally. No drugs to sell meant a bad debt and a major problem.

So the AFP put the press conference on hold. They assigned a team of agents to open each tin of tomatoes, remove the pills and replace them with harmless tablets. Each tin was resealed. Then the AFP waited.

Before long, police began to pick up increasing amounts of chatter and activity involving their Australian suspects.

The European suppliers were getting impatient, and both they and their Australian counterparts were getting increasingly suspicious.

While it was suspected the AFP had substituted the drugs, no one could be sure. Had the suppliers sold them duds? Or were the Australian importers trying to fool the suppliers about a police seizure in order to avoid paying their debt?

Meetings were arranged, phone calls made and overseas trips booked. All the while, the AFP watched and, as they found more suspects' phones to tap, listened.

A key obstacle for police involved the home addresses of some of the alleged principal organisers. The NSW Riverina town of Griffith - named in the 1979 Woodward Royal Commission as home to members of the Calabrian Mafia, or Honoured Society - was a tough place for surveillance operatives to blend in. Not wanting to blow their agents' cover, the AFP concentrated on monitoring the group's Melbourne activities.

Then came the coup de grace. The AFP identified the importation organiser's safe house in Melbourne and, when no one was home, a covert-entry team paid a visit and installed listening devices.

At least one further drug shipment was soon uncovered; customs seized 150 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a coffee importation a fortnight ago.

Last month, the AFP reviewed the intelligence, phone taps and surveillance files it had gathered during more than a year of watching and waiting.

Police had finally gathered enough evidence to allege the involvement of a who's who of organised crime in Australia in a conspiracy to import or distribute drugs. Warrants were secretly issued and, yesterday, the AFP swooped.

Checkmate.

The Age

 

[hoptis]

Lifting the lid on a drug ring
August 9, 2008

The seizure of 15 million ecstasy tablets is a reminder of how forgetful we can be of crime lessons, writes Nick McKenzie.

At a discreet meeting at Rome's Fiumicino Airport nearly three years ago, the senior Italian Mafia investigator related an intriguing story in hushed tones. Italian authorities, he said, had begun investigating a Calabrian crime network spanning nine countries, including Australia. Few details were forthcoming. Inquiries were at an early stage and might take years.

But he was explicit on the size of the network's activities. The anti-Mafia investigator referred to a 2004 operation that uncovered the shipment of 500 kilograms of cocaine from Italy to Melbourne. Compared with the activities of the group he was now targeting, the investigator said, the 2004 bust was no more than an "antipasto" - an appetiser.

The investigator dismissed the view of some in Australian law enforcement that the 'Ndrangheta - a family-based network known also as "the honoured society" with roots in the Calabrian town of Plati - was more myth than reality. He named the Riverina town of Griffith and Victoria as places where the 'Ndrangheta were still "very much active in Australia".

He also warned against forgetting the findings of the 1979 Woodward Royal Commission into drug trafficking, an inquiry launched after the disappearance of Donald Mackay, a Griffith furniture-maker and anti-drugs campaigner who had upset some of the town's Calabrian residents.

The investigator also singled out several 'Ndrangheta family groupings from Plati that had a strong presence in Australia. One of the oldest and biggest families that remained of interest to Italian authorities, he said, were the Barbaros.

As the airport meeting drew to an end, the investigator observed that police around the world tended to play down the existence of Mafia societies unless confronted with their involvement in crimes that made headlines, such as underworld murders, kidnappings or huge drug seizures.

His words echoed with renewed authority after yesterday's dramatic police operation across Australia.

The seizure by the Australian Federal Police of the world's biggest single shipment of ecstasy, and the pre-dawn arrests of some of the alleged ringleaders, exposed the easy availability and seemingly insatiable demand for ecstasy in Australia - with police and drug policy experts saying big busts had no effect on the ease-of-purchase of ecstasy, or its price.

One thing is clear, however. The Italian investigator's conviction that the 'Ndrangheta still had potent roots in Australia three decades after the Mackay scandal has been vindicated.

One alleged principal behind the shipment from Italy to Melbourne of the 15 million ecstasy tablets is well-known in Griffith. Pasquale "Pat" Barbaro, who was arrested in Carlton yesterday, was charged in the early 1990s, and later cleared, in connection with a massive cannabis plantation on a Riverina farm. The 46-year-old Griffith man is also the son of Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro, one of the men named by the Woodward royal commission as a member of a secretive clique of Calabrians who lived in Griffith and who were members of, or were linked to, "the honoured society".

According to the commission, "Little Trees", born in Plati in 1937, earned his nickname from planting citrus saplings on his NSW farm. It helped distinguish him from Francesco "Yoogali" Barbaro, another member of the Griffith cell named at the royal commission. Both Francescos had married sisters of Antonio Sergi, another Griffith resident and native of Plati (born 1935). Sergi and Robert "Aussie Bob" Trimbole were named as bosses of the group's cannabis operation.

The commission alleged "Little Trees" made hundreds of thousands of dollars from "activities associated with cannabis cultivation" and, along with Trimbole and Sergi, was part of an organisation "comprised almost exclusively of persons of Calabrian descent, based in Griffith and Sydney, which engaged in the illicit cultivation, trafficking and distribution of cannabis" between 1974 and 1977.

Justice Philip Woodward also found that this Griffith crime cell was responsible for the murder of Mackay, who disappeared in 1977 after reporting the existence of a marijuana crop to local police. His disappearance, the 1979 royal commission and the subsequent revelations that former Labor immigration minister Al Grassby was linked to some of Griffith's suspected "honoured society" members, dominated newspaper headlines for months.

Three decades after the judge urged authorities to not allow "the curtain to fall upon the activities of the organisation in Griffith", police yesterday were back in the Riverina town. It was a visit many residents will be cursing because, when police make big arrests in Griffith, whispers about the Mafia quickly follow.

It was 4am when the AFP cars rolled down the main street and parked outside the houses of Pasquale Barbaro and his two Griffith associates, Saverio Zirilli and Pasquale Sergi. Several of the alleged crime network's other members in Victoria, and elsewhere in NSW and in Adelaide, were also woken before dawn.

Among them was Melbourne greengrocer Francesco "The Fruit" Madafferi. Madafferi's name first hit the headlines in the 1990s as a result of his nine-year battle with Australian authorities to remain in Australia. A 1998 statement from a Victorian detective was also aired in the court and contained the view that Madafferi "belongs to a crime family involved with blackmail, extortion and murder, and if allowed to remain in Australia will continue to carry out acts of violence on behalf of an organised criminal syndicate".

A well-placed police source says the arrest of Pasquale Barbaro, Madafferi (who in 2006 was allowed to remain in Australia) and other Italian-Australians does not equate to evidence that the "honoured society" identified by Woodward exists in Australia.

The network linked to the ecstasy importation included members of varied ethnicities and operated like a business organisation, with alliances that shifted to suit different money-making opportunities. Still, the source says that the nucleus of the crime network was comprised of figures with Calabrian heritage and that comparisons with Woodward's 1979 report are unavoidable.

The arrests will also give weight to the views of organised crime experts such as the former National Crime Authority chief John Broome, who has long insisted that the focus on terrorism has led Australian police to drop the ball on organised crime.

A former senior police officer with expertise in Italian organised crime says police need to do more to understand how organised crime groups operate.

"As it has evolved here, those involved in Italo-Australian organised crime are in some ways totally different from earlier generations. That is not to say that they are not secretive, clannish and have the strength of community to rely on. But the younger generation are not the same. They do not operate the same or think the same as their parents or grandparents. The code of omerta [silence] is not stuck to," the former police officer said.

"The old-school Italians are mostly old men now. But they were always homebodies within their community and with strong family ties. The new school are far more flamboyant and visible. They are prepared to do business with outsiders."

Unlike the Griffith residents scrutinised by Justice Woodward, Pasquale Barbaro often ventured outside his home. Barbaro, says a well-placed source, lived dual lives. He was the family man in Griffith, where "he seemed to always have a wedding or funeral to attend". In Melbourne, he was the alleged gangster.

Yesterday's AFP arrests included that of John Higgs, who founded the Black Uhlans motorcycle gang, once regarded by police as Australia's most prolific amphetamine producer. Also arrested yesterday was Rob Karam, of Lebanese heritage and an associate of Tony Mokbel. Karam's alleged utility in the crime world is his connection to a network of corrupt freight forwarders and dock workers.

Since the Woodward royal commission, focus on the "Mafia" in Australia has been sporadic, both in law enforcement and the media. The distinction between the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, the Sicilian Mafia and the Camorra of Naples is often ignored.

In 2004, the NSW Crime Commission reported that "the Italian organised crime network has received relatively little law enforcement attention over the past decade, yet continues to generate substantial wealth".

For the past four years, the crime commission has dedicated some resources to tackling the domestic trafficking of cannabis by Italo-Australian groups. But, says one senior NSW police source, "it is a matter of too many crooks and too little time".

In 2006, another Italian prosecutor, Salvatore Curcio, said he was certain that the Honoured Society had its tentacles firmly in Australia. Curcio was involved in the operation that uncovered the 2004 plan to import 500 kilograms of cocaine to Australia. While Curcio jailed scores of Italians in connection to the importation, no one was ever charged in Australia. The cocaine was never seized, despite insistence by Italian police that it reached Melbourne wharves.

No one in law enforcement is suggesting the AFP or other agencies can rest easy after yesterday's arrests. One drugs policy expert, Paul Dillon, warns that unlike other drugs, large seizures of ecstasy do not appear to impact on supply or cost. "It is a market that is resistant to seizures," says Dillon.

The NSW Crime Commission recently estimated that ecstasy can be bought in bulk in Europe for about 75 cents a pill, wholesaled in Australia for $12 to $17 a pill and then sold individually for up to $50 a tablet. In 2006, Curcio warned that the high street-value of ecstasy in Australia meant the country would remain a lucrative market for European suppliers. The Calabrian Mafia, he said, would continue to exploit the high demand for drugs in Australia and adapt to the local law enforcement environment. "To think these people are chicken-thieves is a gross error," he said.

It appears to have been yet another prescient observation.

The Age

 

[Technic]

I heard that so many containers enter the country that customs can only randomly scan 5% but I dont know that as fact.

In Melbourne it's around 200 containers a day out of the thousands brought in

While some are scanned randomly, most that do get x-rayed do because of "risk factors". Like what country they're coming from, what sort of goods have been declared and tip offs.

 

[Sustanon]

Wonder what these are...!

Disappointing if they were really good pills, and a lot of them!

You bet that these are high quality pills if there are 15 million of them.

 

[Sustanon]

I heard that so many containers enter the country that customs can only randomly scan 5% but I dont know that as fact.

I donno about that. Everytime i received some packages from europe they always opened it.

 

[majoha]

It has proven that the xtc pills were dutch/belgium made exported by the italian maffia.

That the hauled shipment is a record is not very strange because they must export it by ship, and they do it by large numbers. It says nothing about australia´s consumption of xtc. In europe it is very easy to ship the pills between the country´s so it can be done in smaller numbers.

What i don´t understand is that after all these years still allmost every (good) xtc pill in the world is Dutch made. You would have expected that the US and Australia could produce their own good quality xtc by now.

 

[Sustanon]

It has proven that the xtc pills were dutch/belgium made exported by the italian maffia.

That the hauled shipment is a record is not very strange because they must export it by ship, and they do it by large numbers. It says nothing about australia´s consumption of xtc. In europe it is very easy to ship the pills between the country´s so it can be done in smaller numbers.

What i don´t understand is that after all these years still allmost every (good) xtc pill in the world is Dutch made. You would have expected that the US and Australia could produce their own good quality xtc by now.

They do but i dont think they can cope with the high demand. We do have small time cooks.