Recently we had a representative from Border Watch come out and give a presentation on how illicit goods can enter Australia and what to look out for.
In the past financial year (2022-2023) AFP have prevented up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs from reaching Australia, 29 tonnes of which were methamphetamines. The biggest countries which these were from Mexico (16,746kgs), Canada (4,734kgs), New Zealand (3,348kgs) and USA (3,299kgs).
Criminals use a number of different ways to import these products including: piggyback shipments, which are the use of names of legitimate Australian businesses as the importer to avoid suspicion of the ABF. They also infiltrate crew on ships to drop cargo over board before the vessel arrives into port as well as coming up with new ways to incorporate the illicit drugs in products and containers.
At EES we have implemented a number of procedures to try and identify these shipments but also urge importers to be wary and do their due diligence when going into business with new suppliers.
* Table detailing illicit tobacco enforcement from ato.gov.au.
