Melbourne men jailed for a combined 33 years for meth import hidden inside cans of coconut milk

Two Melbourne men were sentenced to a combined 33 years in jail on Friday, after hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine was discovered inside coconut milk tins.

The duo, who pleaded guilty in court, were members of a crime syndicate posing as legitimate existing companies, to facilitate the freighting of their illegal drug imports.

As many as 20 companies were conned into collaborating on the consignments worth nearly $100 million, the Australian Federal Police said.

The first to be intercepted was an airfreight from Thailand landing in Sydney in August 2020, with “288.44kg of pure methamphetamine concealed inside tins of coconut milk,” AFP said.

The second contained 160.3kg of pure methamphetamine hidden inside four air compressors, sent from Malaysia to Sydney in September 2020.

The men were arrested during raids across Melbourne in November 2020, during which a number of items were seized, including $682,000 in illegal cash, 90g of pure cocaine, and two bottles of butanediol or “bute” — a harmful substance linked to sexual assaults and overdoses.

The two men were sentenced in the Melbourne County Court on Friday.

And Aintree man, 29, was sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of ten-and-a-half years.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border controlled drug, two counts of trafficking in a drug of a dependence, and fail to comply with an order.

The Melbourne man, 39, was sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 11 years.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border controlled drug, and dealing in proceeds of crime offence, money or property worth $10,000 or more.

They were not the first to be charged in relation to the offences — a 36-year-old Aintree woman was also arrested during the 2020 raids and charged with supporting a criminal organisation.

She was sentenced in May to two years in jail, but released on a $1000 recognisance release on a three-year good behaviour agreement.

“Methamphetamine accounts for 8 per cent of all drug-related hospitalisations in Australia,” AFP Detective Superintendent Simone Butcher said on Monday, citing data from the Australia Institute of Health and Welfare.

“Today’s sentencing outcome marks a significant result for the dedicated AFP investigators who prevented a substantial quantity of drugs from reaching our community.”