13 people charged over the largest cocaine seizure in Australia  

The AFP has charged 11 men and two juveniles following an investigation into a transnational organised crime syndicate accused of conspiring to import 2.34 tonnes of cocaine into Australia by sea. 

The men, including the crew of a vessel allegedly attempting to import the illicit drugs into Queensland and multiple parties waiting on shore to collect the cocaine, were arrested on Saturday (30 November, 2024) night and in the early hours of yesterday (Sunday, 1 December, 2024), following a joint investigation between the AFP and Queensland Police Service (QPS). 

The AFP will allege one of the men arrested on Saturday night was the vice-president of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle club’s Brisbane chapter. 

This is the largest ever seizure of cocaine in Australia. The cocaine had an estimated street value of about $760 million dollars with the potential to equate to 11.7 million individual street deals, had it reached the community.  

The investigation, codenamed Operation Tyrrendor, began in November, 2024, following intelligence that a criminal syndicate with links to the Comanchero motorcycle crime gang was planning to import border-controlled drugs into Australia.  

In the past week the AFP, QPS and Australian Border Force (ABF), tracked a recreational fishing boat, recently purchased by a 35-year-old man, as it travelled to sea, where it allegedly met a mothership to collect the cocaine, before returning towards the Queensland coastline.  

When the fishing boat became stranded about 18km off the northeastern tip of K’gari due to a suspected mechanical breakdown on Saturday, the AFP and QPS initiated multiple arrests at sea, in the Bundaberg region and Brisbane.   

Two members of a group planning to collect the drugs on-shore, men aged 43 and 44, were arrested by QPS tactical officers in the vicinity of the Strathdees Boat Ramp, near the Port of Bundaberg, about 7pm on Saturday (30 November, 2024). 

About 7.40pm, AFP tactical officers boarded the stranded recreational fishing boat off K’gari and arrested the two men on board, aged 35 and 57.  

A search of the vessel allegedly found 51 bales with roped netting around them. Each bale contained about 40kg of a white substance packaged in individual 1kg blocks. 

The substance returned a presumptive positive result for cocaine. The total estimated gross weight of the suspected cocaine located is 2.34 tonnes, which is the largest amount of cocaine seized by the AFP.