Smuggling ring uncovered in Sydney
Three Hong Kong gangsters arrested in connection with Australia's second-largest haul of the drug Ice are part of an international drug-smuggling syndicate operating out of Hong Kong, police said yesterday.
The Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau has a continuing investigation into the syndicate bosses allegedly behind a series of large-scale shipments of crystal methylamphetamine to countries including Australia, Japan and the United States.
The arrests of the three men in Sydney on Friday followed a tip-off from Hong Kong police about a suspect shipment aboard the Maltese-flagged Kota Sejati, which arrived in Port Botany from Guangdong on October 9.
Police and undercover agents intercepted the container ship, set up surveillance of the drug shipment and later arrested two men at a warehouse at Homebush in western Sydney and the third at a hotel in Sydney's Chinatown.
The three men are alleged to have led the Australian base of the sophisticated international drug syndicate.