Eight men have now been jailed for a combined 95 years over a 2023 plot to smuggle six tonnes of meth worth $1.7 billion into Australia.
The plot was foiled by an international investigation (Operation Parkes) that involved Australian, Canadian and New Zealand customs and police.
Yesterday (February 18), a 27-year-old NSW man was the final syndicate member to be sentenced when he was jailed for four years and six months in Coffs Harbour District Court with a non-parole period of two years and six months behind bars.
The eight men, arrested across Victoria and NSW, were jailed for their role in trafficking four consignments of meth, hidden in canola oil bottles, from Canada and in a drug laboratory in Melbourne.
ABOUT THE INVESTIGATION
Operation Parkes was an investigation by the Victorian Joint Organised Crime Taskforce (VIC JOCTF). It comprised of officers from the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police Force and Australian Border Force. It also involved officers from NSW Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), New Zealand Police and NZ Customs.
HOW THE EIGHT WERE CAUGHT
The AFP says investigations began in December 2022 when Canadian authorities seized about 200kg of crystal methamphetamine (with a street value of $180 million) inside bottles of canola oil to be exported to Australia.
The Canadians alerted the AFP, who began Operation Parkes, after they found 2900kg of liquid meth in January 2023 in a shipment of canola oil worth an estimated $720m.
The drugs were replaced with an inert substitute then the second consignment was shipped to Melbourne in March 2023.
Officers watched two Melbourne men, aged 41 and 34, collect the shipment and drove it to storage sites across the city; Victorian police arrested and charged them in June 2023.
Another two NSW men, aged 36 and 27, were identified as handling the collection, delivery and storage of part of the large shipment when it arrived in Sydney from Melbourne; they were charged in February 2024.
Three other Victorian men, aged 31, 28 and 22, were charged in June 2023 for operating an illegal drugs lab in Melbourne from which large amounts of cocaine, meth, cash and two imitation guns were seized.
Canadian authorities seized two more shipments of liquid meth in May 2023 (about 325kg worth $81m and 2900kg worth $717m).
In January 2023, NZ police and customs officers seized 713kg of crystal meth and charged six people.
EIGHT SENTENCES
- A Hinchinbrook, NSW, man, 27, has been jailed for four years six months (non-paroled for two years six months).
- A Melbourne CBD man, 41, has been jailed for 23 years (non-paroled for 11 years).
- Another Melbourne CBD man, 34, was jailed for 17 years six months (non-paroled for nine years 10 months).
- A Sunshine North (Victoria) man, 31, was jailed for 22 years six months (non-paroled for 15 years nine months).
- A US national, 28, was jailed for 13 years (non-paroled seven years 10 months).
- A St Albans, Victoria, man, 22, was jailed for six years (non-paroled for three years).
- A Canley Heights, NSW, man, 36, was jailed for five years three months (non-paroled for three years).
- A Melbourne CBD man, 54, was jailed for three years 10 months (non-paroled for two years 10 months).
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