UPHILL STRUGGLE ON TRAIL OF RECORD HEROIN BUST

DESPITE an international hunt, police have yet to identify the criminal
masterminds behind last month's record heroin seizure in Australia.

After a four-week global asset search, Australian Federal Police have only
made restraining orders on a modest Hong Kong home unit, stolen watches,
bracelets and gold bars, freezing only $400,000 in assets and jewellery
from the 18 gang members charged with the bust.

The notes were found in bank safety deposit boxes - but belong to only one
of the 18 foreigners implicated in the October 14 seizure at Grants Beach,
near Port Macquarie, on the NSW north coast.

Officials have failed to find assets held by the other 17 defendants - six
Hong Kong Chinese nationals and 11 Indonesians. It is feared police have so
far only netted the minnows of an international drugs syndicate.

According to sources, the investigation is now spreading to China and
Thailand, with checks being made on air travel movements and financial
transactions.

Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau officers, who have been in Sydney for the past
few days to help prepare evidence for court hearings, believe the
organisers of the massive 400kg shipment - shipped on the Belize-registered
freighter Uniana - have so far evaded detection.

Checks to unmask the ring-leaders have stretched to the US where the
headquarters of the Uniana's owners is located.

AFP chemists are conducting heroin profile analyses to try to locate the
area in the Golden Triangle, and even the laboratory, where the drugs
originated.

This process may be made easier because of the quality of the haul -
believed to be about 70 per cent pure heroin.

In Bangkok, where the AFP has its largest liasion office, police are trying
to find the route and method used to transport the drugs to the Uniana.

It is believed the Uniana picked up the consignment from another ship
somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand.

AFP sources said confiscation proceedings have been initiated in relation
to only one the defendants.

A tiny home unit, in Tai Wo in the outlying New Territories in Hong Kong,
has been seized.

This led police to execute search warrants on bank security boxes.

A hearing, in chambers, is scheduled for December 6, where further
applications and orders will be made over asset seizures.

Checked-by: derek rea