The organization headed by Guillermo Michel has detected that organizations dedicated to smuggling frequently appeal to the way of the courier to deliver irregular merchandise to Australia, for which reason it has ordered companies in this sector to increase controls on packages that go there.
Specifically, a package addressed to the oceanic country whose declared content was a water heater showed suspicious images when passing through the scanner, so a K-9 unit from Customs was present at the scene to evaluate it.
The customs dog reacted in a manner consistent with the presence of foreign currency or narcotics and, with the proper court order, the vehicle was opened for a thorough inspection. Indeed, 1.363 grams of cocaine were found inside the water heater.
The Customs Office therefore contacted the Argentine Federal Police to further investigate and the court authorized the tapping of two telephone lines, one of which was declared as a contact number on the package. The monitoring of calls allowed the identification of a Bolivian citizen as the person responsible for the shipment and the identification of her address. In addition, it was revealed that she was planning another similar operation: a package with a smoke machine, with the same destination country.
The monitoring of the person in question found him imposing the aforementioned shipment that same day and, by court order, it was opened: Inside the smoke machine were 1.100 grams of cocaine.
In this context, the court ordered a search of the citizen's home in the town of Moreno, province of Buenos Aires. This operation resulted in her arrest along with that of a man - also of Bolivian nationality - who was with her at the time of making the delivery.
Later, new wiretaps ordered by the court revealed information that the Bolivian citizen was waiting to receive an internal package from Misiones, addressed to the recently raided address. Customs personnel and agents from the Superintendency of Dangerous Drugs of the Argentine Federal Police appeared at the headquarters of the logistics firm in charge of the shipment and scanned the package, which, like the previous ones, showed inconsistencies in its texture and density.
Un sA second check with a police dog reinforced the hypothesis that there could be narcotics in the package, so the court ordered it to be opened. Certainly, there were drugs inside two reflectors with 831 grams of cocaine.
Since the sender of the package had his address in Bernardo de Irigoyen, a city in Misiones located on the border with Brazil, the court ordered the whereabouts of the person registered in the shipment, an Argentine citizen, to be found. Investigative tasks also linked him to two criminal cases for drug smuggling. The search of his home resulted in his arrest, the third in the case that began with the shipment of a water heater by parcel.
13.500% margins on drug shipments to Australia
The General Directorate of Customs has identified thate The Argentina-Australia route is especially attractive for drug trafficking, since itIn the oceanic country cocaine is more expensive than anywhere else in the world. Thus, while in Argentina a kilogram can be sold for around 2 thousand dollars, its value rises to USD 270 thousand when entering the Australian market – 135 times more.
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