Cocaine smuggled on Tampa and Taronga.

[David Firth]

I found the following story in The Daily Telegraph newspaper here in Sydney.
       SECRET DIVE FOR DRUGS.
It sounds like a scene from "MISSION IMPOSSIBLE".
Under the cover of darkness,a figure in a wetsuit slips from a small dinghy and swims beneath the gigantic hull of a ship docked in a harbour.
He is searching for a canistar of cocaine that had been chained to the hull before the ship made its voyage to Australia.
But the man is unaware that the drugs have been removed and police are watching him.
Prosecutors yesterday detailed the plot to smuggle 27kg of cocaine-worth almost $7 million into Australia as revealed by The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
It involved a large steel "pod" containing cocaine being chained to the hulls of the "Tampa" and its sister ship "Taronga".
Both ships are owned by Norwegian shipping giant Wilhelmsen.
It is understood the shipping company had no knowledge the drug syndicate was using its vessels as de facto smugglers as they travelled from South America to Australia.
Two men yesterday appeared in court charged with conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of cocaine.
Central Local Court was told was told New Zealand Customs Officers discovered the plot in June,when they recovered 17kg of cocaine concealed in a metal pod attached to the hull of the Tampa,which was docked in Auckland Harbour.
The drugs were removed and Australian authorities alerted.
In late September,NZ officials searched the Taronga in Auckland and allegedly found cocaine concealed in the same way.Both ships were bound for Australian waters,with the Taronga arriving in Sydney in early October.
On October 4 ,a man in a kayak-was seen by police paddling around the Taronga,docked at Darling Harbour in Sydney.Telephone intercepts allegedly captured the man using a code to discuss drug importation.
"The girl has arrived at the airport and is in her apartment",he allegedly said.
Prosecutors claimed this was a reference to the Taronga,which had just docked in Sydney.
Refusing bail,the Magistrate said there was a "strong circumstancial case."
If anybody is interested I have posted 2 photos of the Taronga on its last Sydney visit in early October.

[Mike Cornwall]

This has received a lot of publicity here in Auckland.
apparently the pods were attached using magnets of some sort.

But I can tell you that HM Customs and the NZ Navy have had divers down on several ships recently, and I won;t say which ones, inspecting the bottoms.

Some of you may recall that several years ago, about 7/8 yrs ago, a reefer ship berthed in Dunkirk, I think, and was found to have a torpedo like attachment welded to it hull. It was full of cocaine and had come from Colombia.
From memory, it had to be drydocked for some reason, and the drugs were discovered in the attached torpedo.

I am dredging my memory here and some of you may have more info. But whatever, it is not a new way of shipping drugs.

Shoot the mongrels, I say.

Rgds/Mike

[E. Vroom]

Hey guys,

Indeed this is not a new way of smuggling drugs. Here in the Netherlands we know this method too. Because of this, Dutch customs now have their own diving team. They are stationed in Rotterdam but are active across the country. Other hiding places used without knowledge of ships crew are: sea-chests (inlet of engine cooling system) and ruddertrunks of ships. Not seldomly the same divers that put the drugs under the ship, are flown in, to get it back up again.
If you see any (South American) types hanging about ships for no reason or at a quay opposite of ships? Get out of there and call the authorities.