Police hit a major narcotics jackpot in Sydney after they stopped an alleged attempted kidnapping which led to an alleged 722 kilograms of cocaine stashed in an apartment.
The $1 billion of cocaine was “one of the biggest single seizures” in NSW history that did not involve intercepting a smuggling operation at the border, police said, while describing the events that led to the arrests of five men as “incredible”.
A routine break-and-enter phone call just before 7am yesterday was the first domino to fall, with police rushing to a unit block in Ryde, in Sydney’s west.
In an underground carpark they discovered a scene straight out of a Guy Ritchie film: four men allegedly sitting in a Toyota Yaris wearing all-black clothing and face coverings.
Police searched the men and the small car and found a number of items that pointed to an alleged kidnap plot, including a 60cm crowbar, gloves, a meat cleaver, bladed knife, box cutter, flashing light bars and zip ties.
Detective Superintendent Joseph Doueihi described that gear as an alleged “kidnapping kit”.
Police arrested the men – aged between 19 and 25 – and charged them with multiple offences. Detective Doueihi said the four were “known to police”.
After questioning the group, police identified the intended victim of the alleged kidnapping and at 10.45pm they swooped to execute a search warrant at the residential unit where the Yaris had been parked up.
When police knocked on the door, a 24-year-old man from Melbourne tried to escape, jumping off a balcony but officers caught and arrested him, Detective Doueihi said.
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Inside the two-bedroom unit, which the man had rented for three weeks through Airbnb, police allegedly found 722kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of over $1 billion.
Once in the unit, Detective Doueihi said police were immediately confronted with numerous large black sports bags allegedly “filled with one kilo blocks of cocaine”.
Stacked high and wide inside the bedroom wardrobes police allegedly discovered “hundreds of kilos of cocaine”.
“The seizure of that quantity of drugs is unseen,” Detective Doueihi said, adding that stamps and markings on the one-kilogram bricks of cocaine indicated they had likely been smuggled in from Colombia or South America.
“Not only have we seized that (cocaine) … we have prevented a potential kidnapping.”
The Melbourne man was arrested and charged with supplying a commercial quantity of illicit drugs and dealing with the proceeds of crime.
Detective Doueihi alleged the four masked men had turned up to rob the cocaine and kidnap the man in the Airbnb rental.
He said NSW Police had made 48 arrests for kidnapping this year, where rival criminal groups had targeted drug dealers to steal narcotics and cash.
All five men are scheduled to appear in Burwood Local Court today, where police will allege the four men broke into the unit complex with the intent to rob and kidnap.
