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A Canadian man was arrested in Australia and accused of being a representative of a “high-level transnational organized crime syndicate” that imported 645 kilograms of ecstasy cleverly hidden inside a shipment for barbecues.

The Canadian flew to Australia a week ago and the day after he arrived went to a warehouse to inspect the cargo, police allege. Unbeknownst to him, however, the shipment had been intercepted by Australian authorities, the drugs replaced with fakes and officers lay in wait.

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Laert Kasaj, 33, of Thornhill, Ont, north of Toronto was arrested Monday.

He is one of two men arrested so far in the large probe.

“We’ve been able to ascertain that this is truly an international syndicate — that the drugs came from Cyprus, we have inquiries in the U.K., we have a man who’s come from Canada and we’ve arrested a person in Brisbane,” said Kirsty Schofield, commander of the organized crime division of the Australian Border Force.

Photo by Australian Federal Police

The investigation began in July when the Cyprus Drug Law Enforcement Unit tipped Australian authorities to a suspicious incoming shipment that had already departed the port of Limassol in Cyprus for Sydney.

The Australian Border Force intercepted the shipping container when it arrived on July 17, 2019. Inside were 200 aluminum barbecues. X-rays revealed that many of them had a false bottom aluminum plate. Packages of a brown crystalline substance were found under the false bottoms.

In an attempt to conceal it, the packages had been vacuum sealed (likely to reduce odour to avoid drug-sniffing dogs) and lined and layered with carbon paper (likely to interfere with X-ray penetration).

The substance was found to be MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, and weighed 645 kilograms, authorities said.

The drugs were removed from the barbecues and replaced with an inert substance and police monitored the shipment’s delivery to its destination — a warehouse in a suburb of Sydney.

It sat there, untouched and ignored, for more than three months.