31 May 2010

Five held in $14m Sydney cocaine bust

8:43 am on 31 May 2010

Five people have been arrested in Sydney for allegedly trying to smuggle 33 kilograms of cocaine worth nearly $14 million into Australia.

Federal police says two packages containing the drugs disguised as tins of powdered nuts arrived in London from Mexico earlier this month addressed to business premises in Sydney.

British police seized the drugs and replaced them with fake substitutes. A 41-year-old man took delivery of the two packages at a storage facility in Sydney's west on Tuesday.

He was one of five people, four of them American citizens, one Australian, arrested three days later.