Crime gang’s crafty trick to allegedly smuggle $1million worth of ice into Australia
A crime gang has planted around $1 million worth of drug ice in the fabric of T-shirts, NSW Police allege.
The gang then allegedly used a top-loading washing machine to carefully extract the drugs in a painstaking procedure at a rented Airbnb property in Sydney’s south-west.
The allegations emerged during a bail application by Brandon Maseuli before Judge Stephen Rothman on May 16, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Police said the case showed the lengths to which organized crime groups will go to smuggle drugs into Australia – in this case using T-shirts with a ‘Merry and Bright’ logo on them.
Police alleged in court documents that after the T-shirts were laced with ice they were sent to Sydney by overseas-based drug dealers.
Brandon Masueli (center), whose bail application failed, faces 77 charges in connection with an alleged crime spree late last year
The court heard that after the clothes arrived in Sydney in October last year, a gang allegedly spent a week extracting the deadly drug using a top-loading washing machine and stove burners.
The washing machine was new and still wrapped in plastic when it arrived.
Two of the men listened to nine hours of instructions on how to extract the drug via phone and video calls with a foreign-based criminal and others, the court heard.
βIt’s a new and novel method,β a police source told the Daily Telegraph.
‘They are constantly developing the techniques used. We’ve seen them do it in sauce bottles, shampoo and clay pots.
“And because technology is constantly evolving, they will find another way now that we are aware of this method.”
Maseuli, 27, whose bail application failed, faces 77 charges in connection with an alleged crime spree late last year.
He is accused of being part of a gang that planned to kill a member of the controversial rap group OneFour and tried to steal about $1 billion worth of cocaine.
The criminals are said to have conducted extensive surveillance of the members of the rap group as part of the plot, police said in January.
OneFour has long been the subject of police attention for their music, which focuses on gang subcultures in western Sydney and contains lyrics that often mention violence.
In 2019, they were forced to cancel a national tour after venues failed to meet security requirements demanded by police.
Maseuli’s lawyer Ertunc Ozen SC said his client should be granted bail because he will spend a long time behind bars before his trial.
But police said Maseuli was “a very serious risk to the community” and began planning the $1 billion drug heist on the same day he was granted bail on a new kidnapping charge.
Police foiled an alleged murder plot against members of high-profile Sydney rap group OneFour (pictured)
Maseuli was one of six people involved in the drug-laden T-shirt plot, the court heard.
Police allege that Maseuli and Charlton Schaafhausen (who has also been charged) unpacked the drugs and were coached by telephone and video calls by Anthony Pele and two other “unknown people.”
Pele is stationed abroad and police want to question him about a shooting in Sydney’s west.
Maseuli will appear in Campbelltown Local Court on June 12.