POLICE CLAIM HEROIN DROUGHT AFTER $80M RAID

An $80 million heroin seizure in Chinatown has helped to dry up heroin
supplies in Sydney and severely disrupted a major drugs syndicate, police
believe.

The head of the Joint Asian Crime Group, Detective Superintendent Geoff
Owens, said "well-placed sources" suggested there was a heroin shortage in
Sydney and Melbourne.

The Federal Justice Minister, Senator Vanstone, said the seizure had stopped
two million "hits" reaching addicts.

Saturday's bust, in which three Chinese nationals were arrested in
Haymarket, was the biggest this year.

Yesterday, Jim Shui Tai, 31, Lai Hong Ming, 33, and Ye Zhong He, 37,
appeared in Burwood Local Court charged with a range of importation
offences. The arrests and the seizure of the estimated 80 kilograms of
heroin came, police will allege, after the men met to exchange the drugs
between two vehicles on Saturday night.

The offences carry maximum terms of life imprisonment.

The Premier, Mr Carr, congratulated the NSW and Federal Police for the
arrests.

The Joint Asian Crime Group made the arrest on Saturday night after seizing
15.7 kilograms of cocaine - worth $9.6 million - on Saturday morning and
arresting two men in Edgecliff. While predicting more seizures in the near
future, the co-ordinator of the Australian Federal Police's drug strike
teams in Sydney, Agent Ray Tinker, said: "We would think this [yesterday's]
shipment has probably been brought in to fill the void.

"We would like to think we have severely disrupted this syndicate. We're not
saying we have wiped them out completely but when you look at the amount of
money they have outlayed, we feel we have knocked them around."

The Cabramatta Patrol Commander, Superintendent Peter Horton, confirmed the
apparent shortage, saying "[in] discussions with our officers, users are
saying it is becoming harder and harder to get".

"In my two years at Cabramatta, this is the first time we have seen a
drought of heroin, but I hope it continues."

But at Kings Cross, Dr Raymond Seidler, who treats plenty of heroin users,
said he had not seen evidence of a lack of drug supply.

The cocaine, according to a statement of facts read to Burwood Local Court
yesterday, came through an Australian Air Express freight package posted to
Obiel Antonio Zuluaga-Gomez, 40, who appeared in court yesterday with his
alleged accomplice, Kensington cleaner Jaime de Jesus Betancur, 47.

The Customs Service allegedly detected the cocaine hidden in a battery in
the package, which had come from Panama and contained an industrial floor
cleaner and was addressed to Zuluaga.

They replaced the drug with a substitute and Zuluaga picked up the package,
police allege, and met with Betancur on Friday when they transferred it to a
bag. Police say Betancur was found with keys to that bag when the men were
arrested on Saturday morning.

* Three men and a woman have been charged after $200,000 worth of cannabis
was seized during a raid on Saturday morning at Edensor Park.