Five people accused of allegedly concealing 183kg of drugs inside 19 vessels sent to Sydney storage facility

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Police have charged five people in Sydney over the importation of an estimated $180m worth of methamphetamine concealed inside kayaks sent from China.



Customs allegedly found about 183kg of the illegal drug on Wednesday last week after x-raying 27 kayaks that had entered Australia.

The tests showed 19 of the kayaks contained packages with methamphetamine inside.

Australian Federal Police on Tuesday allowed the kayaks to be delivered to a Sydney storage facility, where they arrested four Taiwanese nationals.

Three of them – men aged 21, 30 and 35 – were charged with possessing a commercial quantity of drugs and the fourth, a 28-year-old woman, was charged with drug importation.

Police later arrested a 32-year-old Kensington man at his home and charged him with attempting to import the drugs. David John Alton appeared before Sydney’s Central local court on Wednesday and was refused bail.

Meng-Chih Shih, 30, Zhao Xiung Huang, 35, and Chien Khih Kuo, 21, also appeared before Central local court on Wednesday and had their bail formally refused.

Court documents show the three men resided at the same CBD address. Chieh-Wei Lin, 28, from another CBD address, also had her bail refused. All are due to return to court on 9 April.

A Customs regional director, Tim Fitzgerald, said the 183kg of crystal meth was found in watertight areas inside the kayaks.

There were lifejackets inside the boats that might have been put there to misdirect the attention of searchers, he said.

“It’s fair to say that any item coming into Australia can be used to hide narcotics,” Fitzgerald said. “Previously, through airports, we’ve seen narcotics concealed inside surfboards.”

Fitzgerald said that, in the past 14 months, customs had found more than 1000kg of meth in liquid and crystal form.

He said the drug was a “significant problem” for border protection authorities and a significant amount came from China.

The AFP’s Sydney manager, Ray Johnson, said people accused of being involved with drug hauls of the amount found in the kayaks could expect to face about 15 years in jail.

The kayaks were inspected at the Sydney Container Examination Facility.

The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, on Wednesday congratulated customs for preventing the methamphetamine from reaching the streets.

He said the federal government had provided $88m of additional funding to customs to increase screening of international mail, air cargo and sea cargo to stop illegal firearms and drugs getting in.

“Inspection rates of international mail and air cargo will increase by 25% and 33% respectively and the examination of sea cargo in the major ports of Sydney and Melbourne will increase by nearly 20%,” he said.

That would result in an additional 1500 containers being physically examined by customs officers, he said.