SeveredPsyche
Bluelighter
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Italian mafia flood Australia with ecstasy
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
April 10, 2008 07:43am
THE Italian Mafia has joined forces with Dutch and Chinese criminals to flood Australia with ecstasy in a re-emergence of a crime network not seen here since the 1980s.
Dutch authorities have warned Australian counterparts that shipping containers with tonnes of concealed ecstasy pills are being sent to Australian ports, with the nation now topping the world's market-demand for the drug.
The Netherlands-based elite Synthetic Drugs Unit, which co-ordinates the international fight against illicit substances, said criminals had formed multinational alliances to service the high-demand, high-returns being offered in Australia.
The market is so big, the Dutch have closed their anti-drugs bureau in Miami in the US and instead, just three weeks ago, permanently stationed a top police officer in Canberra to liaise directly with the Australian Federal Police.
Millions of tablets
Cees van Spierenburg, the Dutch national public prosecutor who runs the multi-agency counter synthetic drug operations, told The Daily Telegraph intelligence had uncovered plans for mass production and shipment of drugs to southern shores.
"We are talking about shipments of millions of tablets," Mr van Spierenburg said yesterday.
"When you talk about shipments of millions of tablets, those are the world's major shipments and those shipments are going to Australia.
"It's a question of supply and demand. Organised crime groups are trying to earn as much money the easy way as possible in the shortest amount of time, so if you are able to sell a tablet for $20 or more and it costs you a quarter of a Euro dollar to make, you can make a lot of money."
The drugs are also "made to order" and even have logos stamped on them with local images as demanded by Australian underworld criminal network chiefs.
The national prosecutor, who co-ordinates the running of police operations against synthetic drugs, said his officers had found the Chinese were sending precursor drugs such as PMK to Holland to manufacture into illegal drugs.
Italian mafia
These were then driven to ports throughout Europe, particularly Italy, for exporting to Australia.
"The Italian Mafia is now being the intermediary in the exportation from Europe to Australia," he said, adding the criminal group used its extensive network of contacts to ensure the movements remained undetected.
The direct involvement of the Italians is significant because they have not been a strong feature of the Australian crime scene for more than two decades, since the days of Griffith-based Robert Trimbole and the Woodward royal commission.
A scattergun approach was also suspected, where dozens of containers are sent to various Australian ports, particularly along the east coast, in the anticipation that some will be found but others will not.
"It's like what we have here with cocaine swallowers, you can have 30 swallowers in one plane but we only have the capacity to find two, three or four of them so you take the risk that some get caught but others get through," Mr van Spierenburg said.
The Synthetic Drugs Unit had also found evidence that Chinese criminals were exporting PMK chemicals illegally to the Netherlands but also directly to countries like Australia and Canada for local mass production of ecstasy.
The chemicals were being moved about the world in sea containers, disguised as shipments of goods like soy sauce.
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