Cocaine Smuggling... 6 Additional Packages Found
Police have launched an investigation after piles of cocaine washed ashore on beaches in Sydney, Australia, and other areas.
On the 25th (local time), local media including The Australian reported that around 8 p.m. on the 22nd, a package wrapped in plastic was found washed up on a beach in the Magenta area north of Sydney, New South Wales (NSW).
The package was covered with barnacles, indicating it had been floating in the sea for a long time. A local resident who discovered it tore open the plastic and found suspicious white powder inside.
Police investigation confirmed that the powder was cocaine. The New South Wales Police conducted a search operation along the coast between Sydney and Newcastle and found six more cocaine packages by the 24th.
These packages were also wrapped in plastic and covered with barnacles.
The police plan to continue the search to check if there are more similar cases. They urged residents not to open any similar packages they find and to report them to the police immediately.
Recently, there have been consecutive drug-related news reports in Australia. On the 19th (local time), Australian police responding to a robbery report uncovered drugs worth over 1 billion Australian dollars (about 880 billion Korean won) during their investigation.
At that time, the police explained that, excluding cases where drugs were intercepted while being smuggled from overseas, this was the largest seizure of drugs already inside NSW.
Drug smuggling by throwing drugs into the sea between Australia and New Zealand and then retrieving them using GPS and other location tracking systems is becoming widespread.
In February, New Zealand authorities seized 81 packages of cocaine weighing 3.2 tons floating in the Pacific Ocean.
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