Australia pensioners 'used as drug mules' to Canada

An elderly Australian couple were unwittingly used as drug mules in a ruse involving a free trip to Canada, Australian police have revealed.

The couple, from Perth, were told they had won a week-long trip, with flights, hotel and new luggage included.

But when they landed back in Perth, they told customs officials they feared something was wrong with their luggage.

Officials subsequently found 3.5kg (8 pounds) of methamphetamine in the lining of each bag.

The incident happened on 13 October. A 38-year-old man was arrested later that day at Perth airport and has since been charged with drug-related offences.

Local reports put the value of the drugs at A$7m ($6.7m, £4.1m) and said police believed the suitcases were swapped while the couple, aged 72 and 64, were in Canada.

In a statement, police said the subsequent investigation had revealed "a complex and highly-organised scam in which older Australians appear to be targeted by a bogus Canadian-based tour company identifying itself as 'AUSCAN Tours'".

"The organisers of this scam went to great lengths to provide a facade of legitimacy," Perth Airport Police Commander David Bachi said.

"Thankfully the travellers contacted Customs and didn't dismiss their concerns, allowing us to make the arrest."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24668072

Instead of telling the cops about it, they should have kept like a tenth of each of those bags. Methamphetamine can be very beneficial to senior citizens.

Lol.. It's kind of lucky it happened here and the customs officials actually followed up on it and got some of the people who set it all up, imagine if they had of come home via Indo or something and Indo customs found it and didn't believe their story at all and charged them with this bust, they'd have been stuffed.

there have been alot of reports this year of australian pensioners being heavily targeted for scam cases; although this is the first i have heard of involving drugs.

...kytnism...

You don't see really much meth exported from Canada, it's more often you see it being smuggled in. It already has high street price in Canada. Would make more sense if they were coming back from Mexico which has several super labs.

It's probably still alot more expensive in Aus, most drugs seem to be.

23536 said:

Methamphetamine can be very beneficial to senior citizens.

Click to expand...

How's that? Or are you joking?

Heh, imagine how much faster and how many more things they could knit.

Even if meth goes for a high price in canada I am almost positive it would sell for a lot more in Australia. I remember hearing Australia has some of the highest prices for drugs in the world. Makes sense since it's an island and everything must be either produced locally, boated in or flown in.
Sux for you ausies I cant imagine paying 200 dollars for a gram of coke thats cut to shit. I guess coke is a bad example, even in the states if you dont have a good connect you can end up paying 100 bux for 2 grams of shitty coke. I feel like with all the synthetic options coming out as far as stimulants that coke is gonna fall by the wayside as soon as one of the cathinone derivatives goes more mainstream. Coke will never disappear cause its just so well known but it may become 2nd tier to meth and other synthetics once the USA economy fails and the borders close.

The simplicities of over land drug smuggling are taken for granted in the USA.

I wont discuss specific prices but trust me cocaine costs more here than you jut quoted mate. Sometimes considerably so.

I thought that Canada was a major producer and exporter of amphetamines, maybe I am wrong, but I seem to recall reading that from numerous reputable sources. I have certainly heard of a good number of recent shipments to Australia in recent years that came from there. It makes sense that if Canada were exporting meth that they would have to go further abroad, because the US is already full of Mexican cartel meth and it is hard to imagine that Canadian gear could ever be price competitive with the cartels.