A man has been charged after police seized drugs with a street value of more than $23 million dollars from a cargo ship at Port Botany in Sydney’s south on Thursday.
Police say Australian Border Force officers stopped two men as they left the ship yesterday evening and found six kilograms of ice and a kilogram of cocaine in the backpack of one of the men.
A search of the ship allegedly uncovered 16 more kilograms of ice and another kilogram of cocaine.
A 35-year-old man was charged with importing a commercial quantity, and a marketable quantity, of a border-controlled drug and is due to appear before court on Friday.
Police say the bust was the result of an “intelligence led operation” involving the ABF and the Polaris Joint Waterfront Taskforce.
In September last year, that same taskforce busted an alleged multi-million-dollar cigarette smuggling operation that police say involved corrupt waterfront officials.
Twelve people were charged during that operation.
"This operation has shut down a significant syndicate allegedly involved in facilitating the importation of illicit goods into the country and distributing those goods into the community, as well as trafficking in commercial amounts of prohibited drugs," Polaris Waterfront Task Force Commander Detective Superintendent Nick Bingham told the ABC at the time.