Australian police arrest 13, seize 2.3 tons of cocaine on a boat

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Police in Australia seized a record 2.3 tons of cocaine and arrested 13 people in raids after the suspects’ boat broke down off the coast of Queensland, authorities said Monday.

The drugs had a sale value of 760 million Australian dollars ($494 million) and equaled as many as 11.7 million street deals if they had reached the country of 28 million people, federal police said in a statement.

Investigators told reporters in Brisbane that the drugs were transported from an unidentified South American country.

The arrests on Saturday and Sunday followed a monthlong investigation after a tipoff that the Comancheros motorcycle gang was planning a multiton smuggling operation, Australian Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay said.

The smugglers made two attempts to transport the drugs to Australia by sea from a mothership floating hundreds of miles offshore, Jay said. Their first boat broke down, and the second vessel foundered on Saturday, leaving the suspects stranded at sea for several hours until police raided the fishing boat and seized the drugs, he said.

The mothership was in international waters and was not apprehended, Jay said.

Authorities have seized more than one ton of cocaine before, Jay said, but the weekend’s haul was the biggest ever recorded in Australia.

Those charged are accused of conspiring to import the drug into Australia by sea and were due to appear in various courts on Monday. The maximum penalty under the charge is life in prison.

Some were arrested on the boat, while others were waiting on shore to collect the cocaine, police said. Two were under age 18 and all were Australian citizens, they said.

“Australia is a very attractive market for organized criminal groups to send drugs such as cocaine,” Jay said.