The New Zealand city of Wellington Authorities claimed Monday that after the suspects’ boat broke down off the coast of Queensland, police in Australia confiscated a record 2.3 tons of cocaine and detained 13 people in searches.
According to a statement from federal police, the drugs were worth 760 million Australian dollars ($494 million), which would have equated to up to 11.7 million street sales if they had made it to the 28 million-person nation.
The drugs were brought from an unnamed South American nation, investigators informed reporters in Brisbane.
According to Australian Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay, the arrests on Saturday and Sunday came after a month-long investigation into a tip that the Comancheros motorcycle gang was preparing a multiton smuggling operation.
According to Jay, the traffickers tried twice to carry the drugs from a mothership that was anchored hundreds of miles offshore to Australia. The suspects were left stranded at sea for several hours until police raided the fishing boat and confiscated the drugs after their first boat broke down and their second vessel foundered on Saturday, he added.
According to Jay, the mothership was not captured and was in international waters.
According to Jay, authorities have previously confiscated more than a ton of cocaine, but the haul over the weekend was the largest ever seen in Australia.
The defendants were scheduled to appear in a number of courts on Monday and are accused of plotting to bring the narcotic into Australia via boat. The charge carries a potential punishment of life in prison.
Police said some were waiting on shore to pick up the cocaine, while others were caught on the boat. According to them, all were nationals of Australia, and two were less than 18.
According to Jay, organized crime groups find Australia to be a very alluring market for the shipment of drugs like cocaine.
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