Police say they have broken up a major illegal drug syndicate operating out of Melbourne’s west and north-west.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Major Drug Squad investigators arrested three people this week and seized 38 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated value of $12.3 million.<\/p>\n
A large quantity of methylamphetamine has also been taken off the streets after raids on several properties.<\/p>\n
Police said the syndicate had been operating out of Braybrook, in Melbourne’s west, and Fraser Rise in the city’s north-west.<\/p>\n
A 30-year-old Sunshine man, a 31-year-old Cairnlea man and a 26-year-old Fraser Rise man have been charged with drug trafficking offences and will face court on January 30.<\/p>\n
Victoria Police said the arrests follow an 18-month operation focused on dismantling a sophisticated and organised drug trafficking syndicate.<\/p>\n
Sophisticated drug lab uncovered<\/p>\n
On Monday, police stopped two vehicles at Sunshine and on the Hume Highway near Euroa, and found 32 kilograms of cocaine.<\/p>\n
They later raided properties at Braybrook, Fraser Rise, Sunshine and Cairnlea.<\/p>\n
Investigators found a sophisticated drug lab at the Braybrook property, as well as six kilograms of cocaine, 16 kilograms of methylamphetamine, weapons and $70,000 in cash.<\/p>\n
Police said the methylamphetamine was worth an estimated $9.6 million.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police say the investigation into the drug syndicate is ongoing. (ABC News: Kristofor Lawson)<\/p>\n
Detective Inspector Jamie Walker from the Major Drug Squad said the investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n
“Drug trafficking doesn’t just affect those using the substances \u2014 it drives violence, crime and trauma right across the state. That’s why we have come down hard and arrested those involved,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Our team has been relentless to track down offenders as part of this investigation and in turn have removed considerable quantities of drugs from the streets \u2014 particularly cocaine.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police say they have broken up a major illegal drug syndicate operating out of Melbourne’s west and north-west.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,93928,93927,48,1730,44,1158,93929,13963],"class_list":["post-136369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-braybrook","tag-bust","tag-crime","tag-drugs","tag-news","tag-police","tag-sunshine","tag-syndicate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}