Police seize guns and drugs worth $170 million in raid linked to “kill team” hit in Australia

Australian police said Wednesday they had seized drugs worth $170 million and guns in a raid on a group likely linked to an attempted organized crime hit near a Sydney daycare facility last week.

New South Wales police last week said they had foiled an attempted murder by a so-called “kill team” and arrested three men involved.

And on Wednesday, police said they had taken possession of some 880 pounds of drugs in a major bust targeting a transnational criminal syndicate they said was likely linked to that foiled hit.

Detectives found vacuum-sealed bricks of methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and heroin stuffed inside duffel bags and stashed at Sydney safe houses.  An additional 20 kilograms of precursor chemicals was also seized, police said. They estimated the haul had a street value of Aus$260 million ($170 million).

Police said the raids were part of a broader operation to dismantle a “transnational network believed to be run out of Southeast Asia.”

Organized Crime Squad Commander Peter Faux told local media the syndicate was “highly likely” linked to last week’s attempted killing.

“We believe highly likely there are some links between certain entities around that incident that occurred last week,” he said.

Faux also said there were “potentially some links” to the abduction and killing in April of a Sydney mother over her husband’s alleged connections to a Vietnamese-linked organized crime network.

Police released a video showing officers wearing oxygen masks and images of the purported drugs being seized. The video also showed at least one suspect being detained and led away by police.

Other police images showed a squad of armed officers searching one of the hideouts.

Sealed drug packages littered the floor, emblazoned with a picture of a cartoon bear made famous in the 2012 Mark Wahlberg comedy “Ted.”

Another bag featured red Chinese characters reading “smooth sailing.”

They also seized three pistols and more than 300 rounds of ammo.

Three men aged between 19 and 26 were arrested and charged with a raft of drug supply offences.

Wealthy Australians are willing to pay some of the highest prices in the world for drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.

This lucrative black market has increasingly drawn the attention of sophisticated criminal networks spanning the Triads of Southeast Asia to the cartels of South America.

Last month, authorities said three Sydney dockworkers were charged over a massive shipment of cocaine in a law enforcement investigation into trusted insiders importing illicit drugs into Australia. In 2024, Australian police busted a drug trafficking ring dubbed “The Commission” that brought more than a ton of cocaine into the country in just a few months.