DAWN RAID NETS $150M OF COCAINE

Police tracking an international drug cartel yesterday seized cocaine worth
about $150 million in a dawn raid on a yacht moored in a sleepy New South
Wales coastal town.

The seizure of more than 500 kilograms of the drug at Patonga on the NSW
central coast is Australia's largest cocaine haul.

The bust could keep about two million caps of cocaine off the streets,
police believe.

Crudely packaged blocks of the drug were seized when 45 federal police and
customs officers intercepted the yacht, Ngaire Wha, as it docked at
Patonga, at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, shortly before 4am.

It is believed the 13-metre ketch left New Zealand on January 17, bound for
Australia.

Two men were taken into custody on the vessel, a third was found hiding
under a wharf and three others were apprehended further upstream at
Brooklyn as they waited for the shipment to land.

It is alleged the six are members of an international cartel with links in
Britain, South America and New Zealand.

While confirming that more arrests were possible, Australian Federal Police
Commissioner Mr Mick Palmer was unable to comment on reports one man still
being sought is a prominent overseas yachting identity. Off the record, AFP
sources refused to dismiss the suggestion.

"This was a syndicate of people who were probably at the higher levels of
international drug trafficking," senior AFP spokesman Peter Donaldson said.

Three of the arrested group, two men aged 32 and 50 from the Sydney suburb
of Bondi, and a 46-year-old New Zealander, appeared in Central Local Court
yesterday afternoon.

A fourth, said to be on crutches after fracturing his leg, was unable to
attend the hearing, with the remaining two men to appear today.