Three Charged After Australian Police Foil 320 Kg Methamphetamine

SYDNEY, June 18 (NNN-Xinhua) -- Australian authorities have charged three people, including a United Kingdom (UK) national, over a failed attempt to import 320 kg of methamphetamine from Ghana, Xinhua reported.

The Australian Border Force (ABF) said on Thursday that it notified the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to commence an investigation in April when officers at Sydney's Port Botany detected anomalies in two shipping containers from Ghana.

The containers, which purported to contain charcoal, were x-rayed and officers located a white substance that returned a positive result for methamphetamine.

A total of 320 kg of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of A$296 million (US$207.7 million) was removed and the containers were delivered to a facility in western Sydney.

The UK national was arrested after she allegedly attended the facility and supervised while bags that had contained the methamphetamine were loaded into a vehicle. She was charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs and faces life imprisonment.

Two more people, a 32-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman from South Australia, were later arrested for allegedly using false identities to rent storage units in Sydney to house the shipment.

AFP Detective Acting Superintendent Trevor Robinson said in a statement that the seized volume of methamphetamine would have supplied 3.2 million street-level deals. 

--NNN-XINHUA