Navy warship HMAS Melbourne makes second African drug bust - Over 2 Tonnes

Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

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The Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Melbourne has made another major drug bust off the coast of East Africa.

The warship intercepted a dhow carrying more than two-tonnes of cannabis resin valued in excess of $100 million.

This follows two intercepts earlier this month by the guided missile frigate that yielded more than 500kg of heroin with a street value of more than $1 billion.

The latest drug smuggling dhow was identified by a Pakistan Navy vessel before the Melbourne was called in to conduct the bust.

The ship deployed a high-speed Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) and a heavily armed boarding party to get control of the vessel and her illegal cargo.

Two earlier boarding parties uncovered 190 kgs of heroin valued at about $380 million and a second haul of 353 kgs with an estimated street value of more than $620 million.

Navy circles are abuzz with rumours that the Melbourne could become the first Australian warship since the Iraq War to be awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation for her exemplary service during her Gulf deployment.

The ship has smashed a major pirate ring and intercepted and destroyed illicit drugs valued at well over $1 billion.

She is due to return to her home port of Sydney on March 15.
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Source: http://www.news.com.au/national/nav...frican-drug-bust/story-fncynjr2-1226829809619
 
That's a lot of cheese - but considering it's a $350,000,000,000 USD annual market, it means little in the long run.

They have succeeded in depriving the world of a mixture of THC and diacetylmorphine for about a day. /golfclap
 
Those good ol' $50,000 keys of hash - I mean, really - even street price-wise, $50 for a gram of hash? Yeah maybe back before the hydroponics revolution but nowadays I don't know anyone that'd pay that price 8)

Wonder if it got dumped overboard too? Imagine beach-combing in Tanzania and discovering a tonne of hash!
 
ro4eva said:
That's a lot of cheese - but considering it's a $350,000,000,000 USD annual market, it means little in the long run.

They have succeeded in depriving the world of a mixture of THC and diacetylmorphine for about a day. /golfclap
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Consider an $80,000,000,000 USD in annual seizures.
 
alasdairm said:
why is the australian navy conducting drug busts off east africa?

alasdair
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Difficult to say, because "current operations" are rarely discussed publicly, but I believe an increase in the frequency of pirate attacks on freight ships, cruise ships etc by highly armed Somali (?) bandits has made much of the African coastline trecherous (in terms of running into boatloads of AK-47 toting rogues at sea.
I assume the RAN is patrolling the area, in an effort to allow safe passage for shippong - and most likely harassing the shit out of any vessel that could possibly be "pirates".

Smugglers sort of fit that bill, I guess....not that I have much trust in the Australian Navy or their attempts at polishing their public image.
 
alasdairm said:
why is the australian navy conducting drug busts off east africa?

alasdair
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Anti-piracy patrols as part of Operation Slipper - apparently

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Slipper

The costs are interesting, despite the big ticket busts where they have to inflate the price by factors of ten (the old $50,000 key of hash), the operation cost Australian taxpayers $1.8 billion in 2013 alone. Value for money?
 
HMAS Melbourne interdicts second heroin shipment in 48 hours
02/10/2014
"Initial analysis indicates the seized heroin is pure, which correlates with laboratory test results from previous CMF seizures in the area."
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Seizures so far amount to over $4b a year on average.
EDIT: No exact figure, I would guess an $8b annual budget, but the US probably spends way more than some average cost on a military operation.
 
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pmoseman said:
Seizures so far amount to over $4b a year on average.
EDIT: No exact figure, I would guess an $8b annual budget, but the US probably spends way more than some average cost on a military operation.
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Where are you getting those figures from?

Your source says 1362.4 kilos seized, even allowing for the wildly inflated and completely fictional dollar figures attached to these seizures - $2 million per kilo - that's STILL only $2.7 billion
 
It is the same ship. My method for pricing is based on average purity and cost per gram in Australia. Seemed relevant.

I would assume whatever method the people for the article use to get their figures for seizures are the same methods they use to get estimates of the whole drug market.
 
pmoseman said:
It is the same ship. My method for pricing is based on average purity and cost per gram in Australia. Seemed relevant.

I would assume whatever method the people for the article use to get their figures for seizures are the same methods they use to get estimates of the whole drug market.
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Right. So you've just pulled numbers out of your arse? Sounds consistent to your previous performances.

And why do you think Australian prices and purity are relevant? Just because the RAN made the busts you're making the idiotic assumption that the drugs were in anyway destined for Australia, which displays a pretty impressive ignorance for basic geography. Typically parochial for an American, no wonder you don't give a shit about the impact the US drug trade has on people outside of American borders.
 
bit_pattern said:
Right. So you've just pulled numbers out of your arse? Sounds consistent to your previous performances.

And why do you think Australian prices and purity are relevant? Just because the RAN made the busts you're making the idiotic assumption that the drugs were in anyway destined for Australia, which displays a pretty impressive ignorance for basic geography. Typically parochial for an American, no wonder you don't give a shit about the impact the US drug trade has on people outside of American borders.
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I could have used the same pricing guideline as the article, which you had already complained about. I chose not to use that and instead used the value of the vessel's native country to compare to the annual tax investment of that same country; this seemed reasonable.
I do not know where the article got their values for heroin from, but using that would have given $12 billion AUD (10.8 USD) in seizures for the annual average.
 
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You should have thrown a few Oompa-Loompas into the mix, seeing as though it seems that the imagination really is the only limit when it comes to you :D
 
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