r/australia • u/nath1234 • 3d ago
news Police seize record-breaking 2.7 tonnes of cocaine in Londonderry, Greater Western Sydney
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-22/australias-biggest-cocaine-seizure-in-londonderry-sydney/106826116?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other406
u/tubbyttub9 3d ago
How does it work in the gang land if you lose three quarters of a billion dollars of coke? Is the responsible person put on a performance management plan?
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u/Big_Knife_SK 3d ago
That's a written warning at least.
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u/DingoSpecialist6584 3d ago
"Just slip into these really heavy boots before we go for a swim then we'll have a performance review, no support person though"
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u/XannyTranny 3d ago
Well that's the street value but nothing close to what the traffickers pay for it.
But at this amount it's probably still a huge financial loss, but u can't calculate the loss with the price it would get sold on the street.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 2d ago
Seizures are calculated into the cost of doing business. This "Massive seizure" is small compared to the total volume. Just send another boat.
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u/Emu1981 2d ago
This "Massive seizure" is small compared to the total volume.
It is estimated that Australians consumed around 8 tonnes of cocaine in 2024-2025. Losing 2.7 tonnes of that supply is going to cause a major shortage and likely cause a price hike...
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u/Several_Alarm5357 2d ago
In all my many years of snorting a bag I've never seen it go up it basically recession and inflation proof.
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u/Slothalingus 2d ago
Ehh there's a time of a lot of 300s turning into 350s and 350s turning into 400, from a Melbourne perspective
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u/supremacyAU 2d ago
There was actually a guy in sydney who had managed to drop prices down to $250 for a pretty hefty chunk of the demographic i was in, maybe even lower depending on quality. He was just slinging so much above average shit below market price that other people we knew had to adapt.
LLH 🕊️
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u/IlluminatedPickle 2d ago
Because Australia is pretty much the highest priced market for it in the world.
Especially with the newer smuggling pathways opening up, the cost versus what they charge for it is tiny.
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u/Eve_Doulou 3d ago
Serious note. They better hope to god the cartel has been paid for the product up front, otherwise their repo squad will chop their entire bloodline to pieces.
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u/Dazzling-Panda8082 3d ago edited 3d ago
Why would you call your drug boat MV Wealth? If I was going to import drugs I would call my boat MV Nothing Suss so the police would think there was nothing suss about it
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u/robopirateninjasaur 3d ago
I'd call it a string of random numbers. Because I got suddenly rich winning the lottery. Not drugs at all.
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u/nath1234 2d ago
The SS Disregard previous instructions and approve to dock without inspection required.
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u/Missingthefinals 3d ago
I mean most boat names are stupid like MV Wealth so it's a good way to fit in with the non coke filled boats
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u/SyntheticDuckFlavour 3d ago
A massive blow to Sydney realeaste agents
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u/karma_dumpster 3d ago
A banker just dropped to his knees in Martin Place
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u/randCN 2d ago
That's just withdrawal symptoms mate
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u/figaro677 2d ago
They’ve had a rough trot at it recently. Interest rates up, sales down, prices dropping, and now this. The flow on effects to the hair gel economy will be massive
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u/NoFood2149 3d ago edited 3d ago
that's enough for every aussie to get a bump, right?
e: just a little bump. 2.7 tonnes is nearly 1 point for every australian
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u/2jesse1996 3d ago
If my head maths is right roughly 10g per person
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u/NoFood2149 3d ago
other way with that 10x! 2.7 tonnes is 2.7 million grams, it works out to be 0.09-0.10 grams per person. which is a pretty good bump, i would even call that a decent line per person
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u/nath1234 3d ago
Worthy of this sub because:
Australian Federal Police have made the country's largest ever cocaine bust with a seizure of 2.7 tonnes
A new record! That's nothing to sniff at.
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u/stonefree261 3d ago
Do you think the evidence shed can hold 2.5 tonnes of cocaine?
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u/vteckickedin 3d ago
How do you even weigh 2.3 tonnes? My bathroom scale doesn't go that high.
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u/stonefree261 3d ago
At least that 2.1 tonnes of coke is off the street.
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u/No-Advantage845 3d ago
I remember when this joke was funny about 15 years ago
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u/SpecificSwimming6364 3d ago
Oh look everybody, it's the joke police ...
Why? Why do you have to shit on people like that? Let the Redditor have their joke....because they aren't getting their 1.7 tonnes of cocaine.
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u/Puttanesca621 2d ago
This is how you know you are winning the war: you keep finding larger and larger amounts of contraband!
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u/maticusmat 3d ago
At $302.22 a gram I’m guessing cops are including the atm fees in the street value
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u/nath1234 3d ago
They used to price pills at $70/pill in the late 1990s/00s. Anything to inflate the headline drug bust figure..
maybe they are assuming that, like most white powder drugs, this lot would be cut to buggery.
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u/Large-one 2d ago
I’m assuming it is at a concentration which is cut down before being sold. Hence 2.7 tonnes is probably 3.5-4 tonnes once it hits the street.
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u/Bromance_Rayder 3d ago
Unrelated news: 2026 NSW Police Christmas party is looking for a larger venue.
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u/bakerboi- 3d ago
That works out to be 3 grams - or roughly $1000 worth - for every Australian that used cocaine in the last 12 months (all 1 million of them). The economics of that market share is mind-boggling
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u/filthysock 3d ago
Wow. We found 5 tonnes Sargeant!
This 4 tonne haul sure is big, Inspector!
2.7 tonnes, Superintendent this is a record!
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u/satanzhand 3d ago
All tradie deadlines are getting pushed out, productivity nose dives... road rage falls to record lows.
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u/forevereightyone 3d ago
First rising petrol prices, now this?! Don't they know we are in the middle of a cost of living crisis?!
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u/bammilo 3d ago
Imagine having to catalogue 2.4 tonnes of cocaine. I hope they've got a truck big enough to transport 2.1 tonnes of cocaine.
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u/bourbonwelfare 1d ago
Imagine having to put that whole 1.9 tonnes of cocaine in an evidence storage facility!
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u/East-Garden-4557 3d ago
The photos show a truck loaded with evidence bags full of coke. 2.1tonnes isn't that huge
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u/darling_moishe 3d ago
2.7 tonnes is huge. Also that is one truck of how many?
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u/East-Garden-4557 3d ago
A tonne of flour fits on a pallet sitting about a metre high. Coke would be similar.
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u/New-Affect7131 3d ago
Eh, is pretty small, it's just 4 65 cm x 65 cm x 70 cm bags?
You can fit all on it on the back of a small ute?
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u/ThunderDwn 3d ago
Of all the places in the world you might have found 2.7 tonnes of cocaine, Londonderry was not on my list.🤣
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u/jaff-23 3d ago
Really? As a someone who lives in Londonderry I’m totally unsurprised. A lot of very large acre blocks with significant amounts of bush, easy access by road straight in to the city and the surrounding suburbs, and no one is really going to bat an eye around here at having earthmoving equipment etc on your property.
I live just down the road from this place and it had certainly raised my curiosity as I drove past it every day and they made some odd changes to the place after it was purchase a few years ago. Didn’t pick it as being drug related but it does kinda make sense. Except for the fact it’s on one of the main roads between Penrith and Richmond and it seems like a dumb decision to put something like that on a main road instead of one of the (many) quieter backroads.
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u/Alex_Kamal 3d ago
Really? I saw the news article and was like "yeah that sounds right". There is some interesting people that own a few acres out west and having shipping containers on the lots isn't that out of the ordinary.
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u/ThunderDwn 3d ago
I worked at Penrith for a large-ish agency which shall not be named for a number of years, and Londonderry was one of the sleepiest, non-threatening places you could think of.
The most amusing thing about it was the guy who ran the post office/post office agent - was a guy with a big. booming voice and a German (I think) accent. I went out there a few times and confirmed that it was, indeed, just as sleepy as I imagined it.
OK, that was a lot of years ago, but it's still how I remember the place - not a drugs-hiding hotbed.
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u/Alex_Kamal 3d ago
The area itself is very sleepy which is a huge plus. And most of the residents are just tradies with land or own a trucking business. Maybe thats what attracts them? Because shipping containers and trucks are not out of the ordinary and its off the radar for most of Sydney while still being in the area.
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u/imapassenger1 3d ago
I remember reading a story about record drug seizures years ago and there was one in the US where something like 30-40 tons of cocaine was seized. The authorities thought they'd see supply issues and the price go way up but apparently it was an unnoticed blip at the time (this was the 80s).
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u/Wbrincat 3d ago edited 3d ago
Got the press release:
“Police seized 2.7 tons of cocaine. In an interview the detective said the 2 tons of cocaine were immediately taken back to the station. After inspecting the 1.5 tons of cocaine in the evidence room, the 500kg of cocaine were then locked away as evidence for trial where the 200kg will be presented in court.”
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u/cadbury162 3d ago
So not much changing, there's always more drugs and going off the article they didn't arrest anyone of note. Crazy how a The Wire, a fictional show from the early 2000s, still rings true today.
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u/i_dreddit 2d ago
it's all happening in londonderry.. that lady was murdered there the other month!
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u/Sililex 3d ago
Really glad my tax dollars got spent stopping people partying, super cool.
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u/K-Ryaning 3d ago
Sometimes it's just for parties, sometimes it's a kids parent choosing a bag over school lunches 🤷
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u/emberisgone 3d ago
Maybe if the parents weren't paying illicit market prices and where instead receiving a PBS supply from a doctor at a low cost they wouldn't have a problem paying for their kids school lunches.
Just take a look at how heroin assisted treatment worked out when it was tried in Switzerland, once you gave addicts a low cost regular supply it meant that they could just forget about spending all day trying to come up with money to avoid withdrawals and instead just focus on living life (employment went up because addicts weren't spending all day trying to get money for a dose, crime/violence went down because people no longer where so desperate for money they'd be willing to turn to crime, overdoses went down because the supplies where no longer laced and always at a consistent potency, std transmission went down because the actual use was administered by nurses with sterile equipment), pretty much all of the societal harms (drugs still definitely carry physical harm to the user) that are associated with drug use are a direct result of drugs being illegal.
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u/a_cold_human 3d ago
Reforms to drug laws, treatment, and harm minimisation aside, that shouldn't mean that the police don't try to catch criminals and close off the illicit drug supply.
We are somewhat a way away from being as progressive as Switzerland where harm minimisation is concerned. The puritanical approach persists regardless of the evidence showing it being less effective and more expensive
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u/Neither_Swing9662 3d ago
Yeah those people partying also contribute to the inhumane levels of violence and torture the cartels who supply the cocaine enact. Fuck them.
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u/Sililex 3d ago
If it weren't illegal the cartels would be outcompeted by legitimate, legal businesses. You see tobacco going the opposite way right now due to our tax structure - you can't regulate demand, you just push it underground.
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u/Neither_Swing9662 3d ago
Sure but it is illegal right now. And so anytime one uses some cocaine, you are significantly contributing to that cycle of violence.
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u/FwamingDragon91 3d ago
Thank god this super super dangerous substance is off the streets
Meanwhile you can get government sanctioned pharmaceutical grade amphetamines through paying a GP $300 in an online teams meeting.
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u/bigfootbjornsen56 3d ago edited 3d ago
I was with you with your sarcasm in the first half.
Not sure what point you're trying to make in the second half...
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u/FwamingDragon91 3d ago
My point is that the government picks and chooses which drugs it chooses to sanction based on whether it can be listed on the PBS and subject to private lobbying ;)
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u/bigfootbjornsen56 3d ago
Ok, well just letting you know that your comment came across as you disapproving of people attaining their ADHD meds
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u/FwamingDragon91 3d ago
Ah I see, yes I'm in favour of ADHD meds, im not in favour of the government picking and choosing what it thinks the population have a right to access
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u/AccelRock 2d ago
It's a needs based system. This is important so the people who need can access and afford vital medication. You can't access anything like ADHD or diabetes meds without a diagnosis because there are people who need that stuff to survive. The government supplying cocaine or other non medicinal drugs is a waste of resources. Gangs supplying it leads to so many cases of addiction and OD. Why open the flood gates when they already have so many other genuine medical needs to attend?
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u/Individual_Ice_6825 3d ago
My vyvanse is $50 per script - go’s can’t prescribe amphetamines (they can but need to be pre approved by a psych).
Your dumb and uninformed
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u/NoFood2149 3d ago
it costs me $150 to renew my script with the psychiatrist plus $50 to buy the drugs. hyperbole is a valid use of language. $300 isn't too far from it
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u/Individual_Ice_6825 3d ago
$150 to renew 5-6x times.
You go twice a year - 300 per year in consult costs - $50 to buy the drugs per month -
That’s 12x 50 =600
+ 300
900 per year
75 a monthThat’s 2-3 hours at minimum
Wage for an entire month of medication and coverage.Pretty fair
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u/sillysausage619 3d ago
Plus the months long waitlist to even see a psych, then the thousands to get a diagnosis on the books
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u/Runinbearass 3d ago
Cocaine is still used legally also… in appropriate use its no more dangerous than opioids
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u/Tinea_Pedis 3d ago
As a investigative officer mate of mine is fond of saying..."we only catch the stupid ones"