70,000 ECSTASY TABS HIDDEN IN PUMPS

WHEN two 100kg water pumps arrived at Sydney airport from France on
Sunday, customs officers were suspicious.

An X-ray revealed 70,400 blue ecstasy tablets hidden inside the pumps,
which were packed in wooden crates on board Cathay Pacific flight CX101.

The pale green, speckled tablets with a butterfly tin-print were
concealed in rubber bladders under the side plates of the two pumps.

With an estimated value of $5 million, it was the biggest designer
drug bust of the decade, prompting a police sting operation to catch
the smugglers.

On Tuesday, the crate containing the drug-filled water pumps was taken
to Federal Police headquarters where a physical evidence team removed
and tested the contents.

Then they replaced 90 per cent of the contents with an inert drug
substitute to make a controlled delivery.

AFP set up surveillance and waited for the water pumps to be
collected, ready to follow whoever picked it up.

In documents tendered at Central Local Court yesterday, police allege
art importer Mordechai Cohen, 35, an Israeli national of no fixed
address, took delivery of the pumps.

The court was told Cohen and importer Andrea Rocco, 31, of South
Africa loaded the water tanks from a storage depot in Hornsby into a
Toyota Tarago van on Wednesday.

With police following them, the pair drove to Mona Vale where police
found the water pumps dumped in an abandoned car.

The inert drug substitute was littering the roadway. Later Cohen and
Rocco were arrested, driving in St Ives.

Police allege the pair were found with the drug substitute strewn
throughout the van.

The men appeared in Central Local Court yesterday charged with
knowingly importing and possessing a prohibited import.

Cohen applied for bail and it was refused. Rocco did not apply for
bail and was remanded in custody.

Both men will reappear in Central Local Court on December
3.

AFP spokesman Steve Simpson said early indications suggested the
importation was a highly organised operation from Europe which is a
common source of ecstasy.

He confirmed the haul was the second largest in Australia following a
32kg seizure in Sydney in March 1989.

Justice Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone said the amphetamine haul by
the Australian Federal Police and the Customs Service was
significant.

It followed the seizure last week of 400 kilograms of heroin on the
New South Wales mid-north coast.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry