$52.8m of Drugs Found In Fruit Juice

[JDanger]

Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty says the appetite for drugs in Australia is "fuelling and financing'' drug syndicates, after the AFP seized 662 kilograms of pseudoephedrine worth $52.8 million.

Four Sydney men were charged overnight after Customs officials discovered the pseudoephedrine in 45 boxes of fruit juice imported from Thailand.

The men, aged 21, 28, 29 and 30, face court this morning. The AFP would allege in court that the pseudoephedrine was to be used to manufacture methamphetamine, used in the production of drugs like ice, Mr Keelty said.

The seized pseudoephedrine - on display at a press conference this morning - was capable of producing up to a tonne of ice, worth a street value of $50 million, he said.

In the last 24 hours, police had executed 20 search warrants in western Sydney, in an operation involving over 100 police, he said.

Police were continuing to search premises this morning, he said.

The boxes of fruit juice had been inside a container of various food items, including instant noodles and rice, said Australian Customs Service CEO Michael Carmody.

Customs had specifically targeted the container for surveillance after receiving intelligence from police, he said.

After discovering the pseudoephedrine, Customs replaced it with an inert substance and continued to monitor the shipment, resulting in yesterday's warrants and arrests.

"The last five weeks has seen law enforcement in Australia at its most effective in dealing with the threat of drugs,'' Mr Carmody said.

While the massive pseudoephedrine seizure had dealt a blow to drug syndicates, Mr Keelty said more needed to be done to curb drug demand in Australia, which he said was "fuelling and financing'' the drug trade.

"It would appear our market here in Australia is prepared to pay a premium for this sort of narcotic,'' he said.

"What we have to do is [target] demand as much as we target supply.''

Police executed search warrants at Arndell Park, Illawong, Castle Hill, Dural, Oakhurst, St Marys, Blacktown and Wetherill Park.

This included searching homes and a warehouse at Wetherill Park, where the pseudoephedrine was alleged to have been taken, Mr Keelty said.

The four men charged lived at Oakhurst, St Marys, Castle Hill and Blacktown, he said.

Two were charged with importing a commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine, and three were charged with supplying a prohibited drug greater than a commercial quantity.

The operation involved the NSW Crime Commission, NSW Police, the AFP and Customs.

Meanwhile, two of the men charged in Melbourne after the world's largest ecstasy seizure last week were also charged overnight with conspiring to import six tonnes of pseudoephedrine from China, Mr Keelty said.

"Had that six tonnes been successful in arriving in Australia that would have had a street value of some $2 billion.

The charges were laid following an ongoing investigation that involving Hong Kong police, he said.

Over the last five weeks, the AFP and Customs have charged 38 people with offences relating to drug importation.

Link

[MindExpansion]

The AFP would allege in court that the pseudoephedrine was to be used to manufacture methamphetamine, used in the production of drugs like ice,

Methamphetamine used in the production of drugs like ice? what do they mean by that?

And why do they always assume that pseudoephedrine is going to be used for methamphetamine and not just amphetamines?

Who thinks these recent busts will effect availability of pills, meth and speed?

Peace,

Mind

[JDanger]

Mr Keelty said recent seizures had prevented 14.6 tonnes of illegal drugs, with a potential street value of $3 billion, hitting Australian streets.

Link

Generous estimate?

[indigo264nm]

Methamphetamine used in the production of drugs like ice? what do they mean by that?

And why do they always assume that pseudoephedrine is going to be used for methamphetamine and not just amphetamines?

Who thinks these recent busts will effect availability of pills, meth and speed?

Peace,

Mind

Pseudo is used to make meth and not amphetamines as the reduction of ephedrine (a fairly simple process which can be done kitchen chem style) yields methamphetamine and not amphetamine - same with the oxidation of ephedrine making methcathinone and not cathinone. The chemistry then to turn methamphetamine into amphetamine I'd imagine would be not worth the effort considering dose of pure methamphetamine verses pure amphetamine is about 3x lower.

Also remember that speed in Australia is just impure and dirty methamphetamine, and is not amphetamine itself. The only source of amphetamine on the black market in Australia is in pharmaceutical form.

[Airbender]

he he what do they mean by GREATER than a commercial quantity...is that like they had SOOOOO much they couldnt possibly sell it.. ...they seem to have commited some kind of "UBER CRIME"

[Alice]

Also remember that speed in Australia is just impure and dirty methamphetamine, and is not amphetamine itself. The only source of amphetamine on the black market in Australia is in pharmaceutical form.

That is simply not true.

[~shameless~]

i agree with alice,

[Torsten]

how do you make a tonne of ice from 660kg of pseudo. Quite some magic numbers there even at 100% conversion.

[JDanger]

Those druggies are reknowned for their black magic, Torsten. 'Ent you heard?

[Vertmorpheus]

Don't you know that trick T?

Homeopathy, coming soon to a funny smelling house near you...

VM

[Auxin]

Big Brother the world around has very well established accounting principals. If adulterants have ever 'commonly' been encountered calculate as if they would have put in the high amount in the 'common' range of adulterant concentration. Then base all monetary estimates on the upper number in the 'common' range of prices for a single dose.

What frightens me is this

"What we have to do is [target] demand as much as we target supply.''

Wave goodbye to more of your civil liberties The new measures they dream up wont work at all, naturally, but it may at least give exhibitionists a thrill when they institute street side cavity searches.

Y'all really need to fix your meth problem, it really is horrible shit especially when done in the long term... but find a way to fix it that doesnt involve the government, its quite clear they are not on your side.

[Teotzlcoatl]

Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty says the appetite for drugs in Australia is "fuelling and financing'' drug syndicates, after the AFP seized 662 kilograms of pseudoephedrine worth $52.8 million.

The seized pseudoephedrine - on display at a press conference this morning - was capable of producing up to a tonne of ice, worth a street value of $50 million, he said.

Now how the fuck does that make sense?

[MindExpansion]

Pseudo is used to make meth and not amphetamines as the reduction of ephedrine (a fairly simple process which can be done kitchen chem style) yields methamphetamine and not amphetamine

Pretty sure that isn't right either, but could be wrong there...

Also remember that speed in Australia is just impure and dirty methamphetamine, and is not amphetamine itself.

And that IS wrong, I mean, if thats what you have got I think you need to have some stern words with whoever gave it to you.

Peace,

Mind

[_e_]

on a positive note, everytime i hear about these huge busts i think to myself "hopefully somewhere some rich fat cat is going to gaol for feeding the degeneration of our society via amphetamines"

[alkatrope]

Pretty sure that isn't right either, but could be wrong there...

Nah that's right.

Ephedrine is N-methylated. Unless you cleave the methyl off the N then you're gonna have an N-methylated product (ie methamphetamine). There might be a way to cleave the methyl off but not sure how. Either way I don't see why you'd add an extra step in order to obtain a less potent drug.

Reduction of phenylpropanolamine, on the other hand, would yield plain amphetamine. Though they stopped selling phenylpropanolamine in the early 2000s, which would limit amphetamine production greatly.

edit - I only just realised where the name amphetamine is derived from.. AlphaMethylPHenEThylAMINE. Cool

Edited August 22, 2008 by alkatrope

[Sassy]

PPA would be wasted making amphetamine when it could be used to make 4MAR aka Euphoria, ICE.

Ephedrine and Pseudo (iso) both reduce to same end Meth aka Crystal meth which is not ICE.

Good to see Mick Keelty has pulled himself away from the 7.5million dollar sim card investigation and is back after rich fat cats degenerating our society with amphetamines.

I wish I could get degenerated for a couple of days.

[alkatrope]

^ Yeah 4-MA would definately be a more worthy product than amph.

And while I know what you mean about the "ice" thing, you can hardly say meth isn't actually "ice" because these days when someone says "ice" 99% of the time they are referring to crystal methamphetamine.

[AndyAmine.]

I was under the impression PPA was taken off the OTC shelves around the early to mid 90's in Australia?

In the past, I understand that most of the speed (amphetamine) was made with methods like p2p# and methyl*amine etc but when this became so much harder to get things switched over to Meth because the ephe*drine reduction was a lot easier to do, easier to source feedstock and chemicals for and one ended up with a more potent product.

I used to really like the amphetamine sulphate rush, quite unique IMO.

4MAR would be great but besides the PPA factor, from what I understand its not quite as easy to make or source the reagents for as well?

I tried it a couple of times in the 90's (or at least thats what I was told it was) and I really liked it.