Customs seize another ice shipment

October 26, 2004
A SECOND shipment of the designer drug ice hidden in hollowed out candles has been reported in Western Australia.

West Australian Customs officers intercepted the illegal consignment containing almost 1kg of ice on October 15 in an air cargo package from China described as "Christmas candles and samples".
The package was X-rayed in Perth and anomalies noted in the centre of the candles.
Customs opened the package and among the boxes of pinecones, wreaths and Christmas decorations was a box of six scented candles.
"Further tests with X-ray and ionscan equipment indicated the presence of crystalline methylamphetamine powder hidden within each candle," the Australian Customs Service said today.
"The consignment was referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) who deconstructed the consignment and confirmed that the candles contained 995 grams of ice."
Customs WA director Paul O'Connor said the seizure demonstrated the combination of cutting edge technology and advanced testing techniques capable of detecting sophisticated attempts to bypass border controls.
Investigations into the drug haul are continuing.
The latest detection followed a joint Customs and AFP operation in NSW, in which 125kg of ice was found - also hidden inside hollow candles.
The drugs were found in a shipping container unloaded from the Maltese flagged container ship Kota Sejati at Sydney's Port Botany on October 9. The vessel had arrived from China.
That haul was the second largest ice seizure in Australia, and enough for a million and a quarter street deals.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11189897%5E421,00.html

Ok... now after reading this article, that's so-far 2 out-of, how many shipments of Ice from the same syndicate?

They've seized 2... but. But, how many shipments actually got IN? That, we will never know.
Quite possible those 2 other were mere "decoys" to get the BIG shipment in. Again... WE WILL NEVER KNOW!!

^ 125kg of ice aint decoy, that much I know.

I think its a pretty fucked drug, but nonetheless, its kinda painful to hear about- weather its immediately or further donw the track, its gonna have an effect on supply, prices, or most likely, both.

Why would they ship stuff in air cargo and not through port shipping? Wouldnt they be like a billion times more likely to find sometihng in air cargo than in the uncontrolled ports?

believe me, I work in the freight, customs and logistics industry.

ports are in no way undercontrolled.

AQIS and customs can be an absolute fucking nightmare to work with.

has australian law driven local production of shores?

mm: i would assume its the other way around.

no good local cooks = more imports

more seized imports = more employed local cooks that produce lousy product

both these busts will seriously effect the buy and seller(s).

More likely it's due to the availability of precursors and / or price of the final product. The best cooks in the world need to have something to start with and pseudoephedrine - the shortcut approach to synthesizing meth - has become tightly restricted in Aus.

Asia is a completely different story. The starting material is cheap and abundant, and labour worth far less; so why not turn to Asia? An off shore proposal would probably sound very attractive to a crime boss in Aus, providing of course he/she had a way of getting it through customs.

phase_dancer said:

the shortcut approach to synthesizing meth - has become tightly restricted in Aus.

Asia is a completely different story. The starting material is cheap and abundant, and labour worth far less; so why not turn to Asia? An off shore proposal would probably sound very attractive to a crime boss in Aus, providing of course he/she had a way of getting it through customs.

Click to expand...

Yeah the Joys of the global market in profit driven environments, have you noticed how many pharm campanys are based in the islands around .au??

the newest player in vietnam is Pann, the same factory that had $1mill of phuesdo stolen in 2000 plus that eleet recall..

plus in a factory makin meth is cheap..

Does anyone who actually uses it call it ice??? I thought it was only mainstream media hysteria jouno's that call it that.
Crystal Meth all I have heard it reffered to as IRL

ice, rock, cold stuff, chardz is my fav name tho

Ice is, 4-methylaminorex, Crystal Methamphetamine is, Methamphetamine.

streetsurfer: ice is probably the most common term I hear used in Sydney, shabs is also pretty common.

well 4-mar for the most part dosent make it to aus, so can we safely assume when people say ice they do mean meth (speed, crystal, whatever)

4-MAR has been seen around Brisbane over the past couple of months. Effects are different to meth and the crystal is a dead ringer for 4-methyl-aminorex.

4-MAR piccy (Erowid)

tonnes of people in WA smoke meth and they all call it ice... better get used to it, cos its pretty firmly entrenched in society...

damn cops tho... i just got burned by some crappy product... hate paying hundreds of dollars for some bloody MSM

buyer-seriously-effected
BUST!

there used to b fourmah a pleeeenty!
* none smoked since suva

i have never met an educated dealer when it comes to ice or meth. other than being chemically aware these "rox" make u buzz, it seems perth is very naïve. Lately the word "gear" is being used to sell this local msmeth rubbish.

I found that MSM cut gear became common around Melbourne at the end of the last Crystal Meth. craze that swept the nation. Just after the huge bust happened, ie >200 kg from memory?
So I recomend caution when purchasing the stuff in the next little while. Maybe read up on the melting properties of MSM and Meth... it may save you some money.

MSM melts slightly before meth right? i tend to notice that most of it melts pretty fast when i have crap gear but little bits of it melt a bit later....

also it doesnt make much smoke, you can smoke a big uber rock and blow out almost no smoke with MSM cut stuff...

i also recrystallise it in the pipe... MSM looks like a blob but meth forms 'shards' or lines through the melted gear...

you can also tell by the taste... meth has a distinctive taste and when i smoke bad gear i can clearly not get that satisfying meth flavour ....

these are my methods of weeding out MSM... please correct any mistakes for the benefit of tweakers everywhere as im no expert...

another thing im doing lately is holding the bag up to a blacklight. i have heard that meth glows in UV light... lo and behold in good gear theres lots of glowing 'veins' and patches in the rocks,
with crappy MSM stuff there are scattered specks of glow... im not 100% on this method... it seems too good to be true so can someone clear this up?

^^

MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane) does melt before meth at 108 - 110 C whereas meth will melt at about 175 C ... And because its actual boiiling point is at 238 C it doesn't produce as much smoke.

As for the UV light to verify presence of meth, i've never heard of it before but you never know, you might be on to something.

next time u get some meth hold the bag right up so its touching a blacklightt here are definate bits that glow bright green/yellow... from testing about 4 bags, the better gear has more glowing bits in it...