Police have pounced on a drug smuggling syndicate allegedly smuggling cocaine via the Sydney Fish Market. Photo / NSW Police
Police have pounced on a drug smuggling syndicate allegedly smuggling cocaine via the Sydney Fish Market. Photo / NSW Police
Australian police have blown open a major cocaine ring worth hundreds of millions of dollars operating out of the Sydney Fish Market, resulting in the arrest of more than a dozen men.
The arrests, made during a series of Christmas Day raids, come after a two-and-a-half-year investigation by the NSW Police Drug Squad and Australian Federal Police.
The top-secret investigation targeted commercial fishermen who were allegedly using fishing trawlers to move cocaine from Chile to Australia, The Daily Telegraph reports.
A haul of 500kg of cocaine was allegedly seized from the boat north of Sydney. Photo / NSW Police
About 500kg of cocaine was seized on Christmas night, estimated to be worth A$162 million ($168m), NSW police said in a media release.
A further 600kg of cocaine destined for Australia, estimated to be worth about A$197 million, was seized in Tahiti.
The amount of cocaine seized in total has an estimated street value of about A$360 million, according to police.
Fifteen men allegedly responsible for the attempted importations have been charged with serious drug importation offences. The men range in age from 29 to 63 years, and have all been refused bail.
Businessman Darren John Mohr is one of the men arrested over the major Christmas cocaine bust. Photo / News Corp Australia
One of the 15 men targeted in the sting is former Roosters NRL star John Tobin, who was a first grader in the 1970s and '80s, and former Bondi cafe owner Darren Mohr, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Images released by police show multiple men standing in handcuffs in the dark while on board a fishing vessel named Dalrymple.
Police have smashed a $162 million cocaine ring operating out of Sydney Fish Markets during a series of Christmas Day raids. Photo / NSW Police
Detectives attached to the lengthy operation pounced on the alleged trug traffickers on Sunday night, seizing about 500kg of cocaine from an inflatable boat as it pulled up to a boat ramp at Brooklyn, north of Sydney.
"This operation has been running for more than two and a half years and culminated over the Christmas period," the police statement reads.
AFP Organised Crime national manager Chris Sheehan told The Daily Telegraph that every member of the syndicate had now been arrested.
The top-secret operation has been running for more than two-and-a-half years and culminated over the Christmas period. Photo / NSW Police
"No matter how many ventures we disrupted they still kept going," he said. "This group - the 15 we have arrested - that's the entire syndicate from top to bottom."
All of the men are expected to appear before Central Local Court in March but a number are likely to make bail applications in the next few weeks.
Australian Federal Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Chris Sheehan, NSW Police Force Assistant Commissioner Mark Jenkins, and Australian Border Force Acting Assistant Commissioner Tim Fitzgerald will address media in Sydney later today.
