'One million street-level deals' worth of methamphetamine smuggled in PC case shipment
Ordinarily when we hear about a PC hardware smuggling story, it's something like a bunch of ex-crypto mining GPUs making their way illicitly over a border, or a collection of CPUs badly taped to a man attempting to make his way through customs. Here though, the tables have been turned—as this time it's the hardware itself that's been used to smuggle something far more valuable.
Australian authorities have discovered a Malaysian man attempting to import 100 kg (200 pounds) of methamphetamine into the country, stashed inside a collection of PC cases (via Techspot). The offending articles arrived via an air cargo assignment, and on inspection revealed multiple large packages of suspicious white powder stashed inside.
A laboratory test confirmed that the substance was methamphetamine, said by the authorities to equate to «one million street-level deals» worth of the substance if it made it to the good people of Australia.
A 45-year-old man was arrested by AFP officials as he attempted to collect the shipment and has been charged with one count of attempted drug possession. As for the cases themselves, once stripped of their illicit cargo they were successfully delivered to a storage unit in Kingsgrove, New South Wales.
The cases look to be Dell Optiplex models, which should only weigh a few kg each. Adding 100 kg of extra, err, cargo to the shipment is likely to have been the tip-off here, although Australia is known for having particularly strict border processing controls for many items arriving into the country, so there are multiple ways the drugs could have been discovered.
“ABF officers monitor consignments closely for any anomalies to disrupt these criminal syndicates’ supply chains,” said ABF Acting Commander Matthew O'Conner.
“They will attempt to hide illicit substances in creative cavities to evade our detection.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
“Our officers’ skills in detecting and
Read more on pcgamer.com
