Update Y'all!!!!
More arrests over ecstasy haul
By Jordan Baker and Krystyna Pollard
15nov04
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11392684%5E1702,00.html
TWO men were arrested in Belgium as two others faced court in Sydney today over an alleged attempt to smuggle 820kg of ecstasy to Australia in a bakery oven.
Customs and Australian Federal Police said they intercepted the country's largest haul of the party drug in October as it arrived in Sydney from Poland via Germany.
An X-ray revealed 62 boxes containing about 115kg of ecstasy powder and three million tablets, weighing 705kg, hidden in the oven's metal shell, they said.
Australians Zachariah O'Brien and Robert Drury were arrested and charged with conspiring to import and attempting to possess banned goods.
O'Brien, 32, from New Italy on the NSW north coast, fronted court today via video link from jail while Drury, 54, of Kings Cross, opted not to appear in the courtroom at all.
They were remanded in custody and will re-appear in Central Local Court on January 19.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said two more men had been arrested in Belgium.
Both were European, although their exact nationalities were unknown, and were more significant to investigations than the Australians, he said.
Mr Keelty said there might be a link between the Sydney haul and a thwarted attempt to smuggle ecstasy to Adelaide in a pizza oven earlier this year.
Australia's previous record ecstasy seizure was in June, when 342kg was discovered in a sea container from the Netherlands.
The Sydney haul alone would have delivered a $200 million profit to transnational crime, Mr Keelty told ABC radio.
"If you weigh up the three major operations on ecstasy this year, you're talking in the order of nearly $500 million of drugs that could have entered the streets of Australia and the money and proceeds of which would have gone back ultimately to Europe," he said.
AFP agent Mike Phelan said the haul of 820kg of MDMA – the pure form of ecstasy – would dent supply.
It was likely the drugs came from western Europe, Australia's main source of MDMA powder, Mr Phelan, the AFP's national manager Border and International, told ABC radio.
"Most of it comes from the western European countries of Holland (Netherlands), Belgium, around that part of the world.
"There is no doubt we have disrupted a very sophisticated and significant syndicate of international drug traffickers.
"Overseas, we have got some further inquiries being carried out on our behalf by the Belgian and Dutch authorities."
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
