The criminal charge of murder is the only other offence that has a similar bail condition. A key risk is that users who possess large quantities will be presumed to be trafficking and erroneously imprisoned as traffickers (Harris 2011b; Walsh 2008). Drug trafficking is one of the most crucial and dangerous parts of the illicit market. "External organised crime actors have played a central role inestablishing, fuellingand maintaining the drug market in the Pacificand driving the growth of local drug production and consumption," the report said. Accordingly, data on quantity of drug consumed was also sourced from the 2010 NDSHS (AIHW 2011). There are 5 different quantity ranges under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act. For example, according to the statistical data, Australians spent approximately $5.8 billion on methamphetamine and $470 million on heroin in 2020 (Hughes et al., 2020). The final quantities were then compared against the actual trafficable thresholds to identify for each drug and state two thingsfirst, whether most users consume less than the threshold quantity in a single continuous session of use (using median and mean estimates) and second, whether there is risk to any users of an unjustified charge/conviction; that is, whether the maximum possessed is equal to or greater than the trafficable threshold. A massive leak of classified documents from the Colombian government has exposed the identities and methods of secret agents working to stop international drug cartels from operating in Australia. Those funds are undermining Australia's public health and distorting our economy, and ultimately funding drug cartels and traffickers in Southeast Asia. Moreover, in a heavy session, 80 percent of regular users in New South Wales reported consuming more than the trafficable threshold quantity (18% in Western Australia and 30% in South Australia). Report: Global Drug Trafficking Market Worth Half a Trillion Dollars When these drugs land in Australia - up to 70 per cent are connected to Myanmar they are potentially fetching upwards of wholesale $100,000 per kilogram. The companies associated with the syndicate have had investments in gyms, a mechanical workshop, a halal meat product company, a used car dealership, commercial premises, residential real estate, businesses related to luxury cars, boats and heavy machinery, hairdressing, beauty treatments, massage businesses and a nightclub. Break the link between illicit drugs and social media: UN-backed report The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory were excluded from this analysis for two reasonsthe prior analysis of the Australian Capital Territory (Hughes & Ritter in press) and lack of adequate data on illicit drug use and purchasing for the Northern Territory. The police informed that the 21-year-old youths were caught while returning from the casino. In Victoria, the penalty for trafficking a commercial quantity of a drug of dependence is a maximum of 25 years imprisonment and up to a $250,000 fine. Accordingly, training enables the frontier guards to prepare for complex operations. There has been an increasing push for all states and territories to adopt the proposed threshold quantities (AGD 2011; NDS 2007). Most Australian states and territories employ three different thresholdsa trafficable threshold (that distinguishes crimes of low-level trafficking versus possession for personal use), a commercial threshold and a large commercial threshold (Hughes 2010b). The organization deals with matters that threaten Australias national security. Two people were charged with drug - South Australia Police | Facebook They are resilient, opportunistic and involved in a wide range of serious crimes, including drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion, firearms offences and high-level violence. In 2010, more than 26,000 people from all Australian jurisdictions aged 12 years and over were sampled (AIHW 2011). Drug Trafficking, Selling and Cultivation | Commonwealth Director of The amount of illegal drugs seized coming into Germany spiked considerably in 2019, the German government said. For example 19 percent, 31 percent and 57 percent of regular MDMA users in Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales respectively purchased more than the current trafficable threshold quantity on their last MDMA purchase (risks in other states were much smaller3 to 6.5%). A principal challenge has been how to effectively differentiate and sanction participants in the drug trade . The AFP is concerned about possible breaches of operational security as a consequence of this data compromise, a spokesperson said. The Advertiser writes that "Booker served as a police officer for four years before leaving the job in 2018", but later in the same article states "He was fired from the . Maritime drug smuggling into Australia - Wikipedia Under such a situation, circumstances where users exceed the thresholds would be much less troubling, as in the absence of any additional evidence of trafficking intent, the user would be appropriately charged with a simple possession offence (and liable to a much smaller maximum penalty eg 2 years imprisonment). Drug trafficking examples typically take the form of more illicit, or scheduled, drugs, like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines. "When they are returned, they're returned with no cultural understanding, language skills of those countries support networks to receive them or prospects of work. In some cases, Indigenous and local groups were working with international cartels to develop home-grown production facilities. "These markets, for being so lucrative, become of interest to transnational criminal organisations, trafficking drugs to the Pacific," he said. The cocaine was destined to be sold on the streets of Australia. . Australian drug kings have gone global - ussanews.com Illicit drugs include illegal drugs (such as cannabis, opiates, and certain types of stimulants ), pharmaceutical drugs (such as pain-killers and tranquillisers) when used for non-medical purposes, and other substances used inappropriately . The exception to this has been the Australian Capital Territory. To calculate Metric 1, raw data on all three samples (IDRS, EDRS and NDSHS) were used. At the same time, it was verified that such methods facilitated the detention of a smuggler at the border by gathering information and using specially trained dogs to search for narcotics (Man jailed for role in 300kg cocaine import to Victoria, 2021). Sometimes, even in one country, the customs authorities have different operating instructions and do not interact well. We target criminal gangs through the . Two Nepalis arrested in Australia on charge of drug trafficking This was necessary given all available data on which thresholds can be evaluated (patterns of use and purchasing) concerning admixtures. Based on the report released by the National Drug Strategy Household Survey or NDSHS, an estimated 16.4% or about 3.4 million of the total population in Australia had used an illicit drug in the previous 12 months.And it had spent 11.3 billion illicitly on substance abuse in 2020 based on the drug use trends in Australia. The ABC has reached out to Australian Border Force for comment. The application of such an approach provides complete control and visibility of all parts of the frontier, even in hard-to-reach places. Consequently, collectively with border guards, the Australian Federal Police is involved in the struggle against drug trafficking. Inspectors face the operational hurdle of including the exponential increases in contract sizes with only a restricted number of workforce and tools of their control. One of the largest drug crackdowns involving Australian police. The supremacy of the principle of prosecutorial burden of proof has been for good reason. Drug laws in Australia | Australian Government Department of Health and This is exemplified by considering patterns of consumption and purchasing from two of the five drugs examinedheroin and MDMA. Of relevance here, users of cocaine are underrepresented in the sample (Degenhardt & Dietze 2005). These border controlled drugs and precursors, along with offences and penalties can be located under Part 9 Section 307 Criminal Code Act 1995. Our research can be found in: Hughes, C.E., Cowdery, N. & Ritter, A. The maritime corridor that is used for legitimate trade between Australian, Asian and American markets is also a key transit hub fororganised crime syndicates and drug cartels, in what is called thePacific "drug highway", according to the report. Therefore, another critical strategy at the international level is to maintain and develop a collective policy to prevent drug trafficking. A principal challenge has been how to effectively differentiate and sanction participants in the drug trade . Legal thresholds are significant yet controversial tools in the sentencing of drug offenders (Hughes 2010a, 2003). Threshold quantities for Queensland were converted into mixed grams (admixtures) based on the 201011 retail purity (ACC 2012) as listed in Table 1. A Gold Coast man charged with trafficking several drugs - including cocaine and MDMA - as part of an organised crime network has fronted court for the first time. The syndicate also has the ability to impregnate cocaine into items like plastic tables and mobile phones. Malins, P. (2019). "There has beena notable increase in OMCG members travelling to the Pacific since2016, most commonly to the Cook Islands and Fiji.". The U.S. and Australian police jointly handled the case, uncovered an international drug trafficking syndicate, and intercepted 2.4 metric tons of cocaine on a ship bound for Australia off the coast of South America, with a market value of up to 1 billion Australian dollars (approximately NT$20.6 billion). The cartel uses people on student visas, who receive the air cargo consignments from FedEx Colombia and then send money to Colombia. Australian frontier authorities and customs patrol borders, airports, and ports on a regular. Combatting these transnational crimes requires close cooperation bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally. Yet, a rational basis for whether current or proposed thresholds are fit for purpose, that is, whether they enable proportionate sanction, has been largely ignored. She trafficked drugs between November 2018 and May 2019 in . The second solution, if deemed supply laws are retained, is that threshold quantities be elevated to exceed the maximum quantities identified for personal use. Over the past 50 years, levels of apparent consumption of different alcoholic beverages changed substantially. Drug Trafficking In Australia Essay Sample This study was funded by a grant from the Commonwealth of Australiathe Criminology Research Grants. Second, the methods by which existing quantitative thresholds have been devised have been largely ad hoc and non-transparent. Drug trafficker Tony Mokbel taken to hospital | Sky News Australia 16 February. Meanwhile, "narco-corruption" in the Pacific "compromised institutions and individuals across key agencies, such as customs, policeand immigration,and undermined the rule of law". Drug trafficking is increasingly on the agenda among international organizations, which are sincerely concerned about the growing prevalence of the problem. Australia is seen as an attractive target for criminal organisations involved in maritime drug trafficking due to the high price of drugs in Australia, and high demand for drugs in Australia. For each state, the ability of the legal threshold to successfully filter out drug users from drug traffickers (ie the reasonableness of the assumption that all who exceed the trafficable threshold warrant severe charge/sanction for trafficking) was examined using two metrics of the quantity of drug a user is likely to possess for personal use alone: Metric 1: User patterns of use; that is, quantity of drugs that a user is likely to possess for a single session of personal use. As summarised at an international meeting on threshold quantities. Instances of exceeding the thresholds are also greater when examining practices of regular users, rather than irregular users, and for considering patterns of heavy use, rather than patterns of typical use. Two people were charged with drug trafficking and money laundering following a police investigation that uncovered a handgun, drugs and nearly a million dollars in cash. Moreover, sample sizes for a number of estimates were small, which likely reduces their reliability. 4 Drugs and Schools: Legal Issues the duty is clearly to take reasonable care to avoid harm and to take positive action to prevent injury; and the duty is not that of strict liability like WorkCover which provides automatic compensation to workers injured at work, without any negligence having to be proved. Hughes, Caitlin|Ritter, Alison|Cowdery, Nicholas|Phillips, Benjamin, The implementation of model schedules for Commonwealth serious drug offences, Data sources on illicit drug use and harm in Australia, Containing ecstasy: Analytical tools for profiling an illegal drug market, Conviction by numbers: Threshold quantities for drug policy, TNI-EMCDDA expert seminar on threshold quantities, Topic overview: Threshold quantities for drug offences, Legislative threshold for drug possession and traffic: An overview of state and territory differences in Australia, The role of the quantity in the prosecution of drug offences (ELDD comparative study), A summary of diversion programs for drug and drug-related offenders in Australia, Serious drug offences (Model Criminal Code), Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy joint communique16 May, Drug offences guideline: Professional consultation, http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/emanuals/CrimChargeBook/default.htm. They use this knowledge to find the least controlled way and efficiently deliver the required goods. "Officials reported that the increase in drug offences indicated the growing presence of methamphetamine in the kingdomand[that] correlated with an increase in drug-related crime such as robberies and house break-ins," the report said. "In the past decade, the local [Pacific]drug market has grown, with facilitators being paid in drugs for services, then selling them onwards," the report said. Australian threshold quantities for 'drug trafficking': Are they For MDMA, under typical conditions, most users again reported consuming less than the thresholds. Vietnam and the Mekong's Synthetic Drug Epidemic A massive leak of classified government documents has exposed the identities and methods of secret agents working to stop . Chill Now? Drug trafficking and money laundering are global issues that are interconnected. Drug trafficking is selling, transporting, or importing illegal drugs. During the 20th century, many of these groups established themselves as the key suppliers of marijuana and heroin. The question arisesto what extent is it reasonable to expect a drug user in such circumstances to prove the absence of trafficking or intent to traffic? NDARC is supported by funding from the Australian Government. They have been designed to target different populationsregular injecting users, predominantly heroin (IDRS) and regular ecstasy users (EDRS). 22. That said, legal thresholds are used primarily to facilitate responses to high-level offenders; that is, drug traffickers. The United States and Australia cooperate in anti-drug! The largest Kingpins or mules: An analysis of drug offenders incarcerated in federal and state prisons. This is due to gaps in knowledge about the frequency of high use and purchase behaviour. The wicked problem of drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere Drug crime | Australian Federal Police Colombia and Peru have alternated as the top . More than five terabytes of data, including more than five million emails and tens of thousands of documents, were hacked and held in a password-protected database in August. In emerging countries, it is easy to cross certain parts of the frontiers unnoticed with illegal substances. Not just is it simple to walk across borders without attention, but even huge transports with crime baggage also pass illegally (OReilly et al., 2020). In so doing, it is feared that thresholds reduce the capacity to sanction drug traffickers on the basis of their intended or actual harm. Crackdown operations. Australian police have described the action as one of the biggest blows to organized crime by seizing about 1.5 tonnes of drugs, including more than . The New Zealand and Australian prime ministers publicly clash over the deportation of Kiwi criminals. Indeed, with one exception, the maximum quantities reported by cannabis users were 3.535 times under the threshold. This paper summarises key findings from a Criminology Research Grant funded project. The Herald and Age have reviewed thousands of emails (most in Spanish), verified them and then destroyed all copies along with all the associated metadata, to have no access to the leaked database or any of its contents. A., Hughes, C. E., Bright, D. A., & Ritter, A. In this study, the authors use data on patterns of drug user consumption and purchasing to evaluate Australian legal threshold quantities to see whether Australian drug users are at risk of exceeding the thresholds for personal use alone.