COCAINE HAUL SMASHES SYNDICATE

POLICE believe they have smashed a major international drug ring behind a
$50 million cocaine operation uncovered this week.

Federal officers claim the 225kg find - Australia's biggest cocaine haul -
will stop one million hits of the drug reaching the streets.

And they believe the six-month investigation code-named Operation Gentle
has put a severe dent in the major cocaine syndicate.

Police seized the cocaine from a small runabout boat which was attached to
the 6m yacht Maeva Chiqui, which moored at Coffs Harbour on the NSW coast
on Saturday.

An Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said officers pounced when the
runabout was brought ashore about noon on Monday.

"The drugs were incredibly well concealed between the lining of the boat
and the outside edge of the boat," she said.

"So we believe the boat was custom-built, with the purpose of transporting
the drug."

Police claim a crew of three sailed the ketch from Venezuela via Panama the
Marquesas Islands and Tonga before making its way to Coffs Harbour.

An AFP statement said more than $6 million - allegedly from cocaine sales -
had been transferred out of Australia by people believed to be connected
with the Maeva Chiqui.

The bust was the result of a six-month surveillance operation involving 100
customs and federal police of officers.

The AFP spokeswoman said police also had seized another yacht, the Tuareg,
which docked at Forster on NSW's north coast in February and is believed to
have been used in a similar cocaine operation.

This week's bust comes less than two months after federal police carried
out Australia's biggest heroin seizure, intercepting 400kg of the drug near
Port Macquarie.

Federal Justice Minister Amanda Vanstome yesterday said the latest haul
showed law enforcement was working in the fight against drugs.

"In one day we've seized what would otherwise take us two and a half years
but of course the operation has been going on for a number of months," she
said.

"But when you put this seizure with the record amphetamines seizure in the
last couple of months and the record heroin seizure, it surely must put
paid to the argument that there's too much emphasis on law enforcement."

Police believe the cocaine was heading for Sydney, where the drug rivals
heroin as the major problem on the streets of inner-city Kings Cross.

Four people appeared in Coffs Harbour Local Court yesterday charged over
tbe record haul.

They were Robert Scott Flavel, 28, of Florida; Beatriz Gonzalez-Betes
Suarez, 38, of Spain; Jose Manuel Campillo Vaquere, 34, of Adelaide; and
Gregory Paul Meggett, 28, of South Africa.

They were remanded in custody to appear in the same court next week.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski