A Swedish man was caught trying to smuggle over $8 million worth of drugs into Australia using the lining of his suitcases.
The man had originated in Turkey and was traveling with two suitcases. Officials pulled him aside for secondary screening. After running his bags through the x-ray machine, his bags were brought over to an inspection area for further screening.
After the contents were emptied out, his “empty” bags still weighed 20 pounds each. The drugs were found in the lining. Officials noticed what appeared to be a brown substance, which later tested positive for crystal methamphetamine, popularly known as ICE.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrested the man and he now sits in jail awaiting trial. AF Commander Kylie Flower said:
This was a brazen attempt to sidestep authorities and bring a significant amount of ice into our homes.
While these drugs have an estimated street value of $9 to $12 million, the human cost to our communities would have been far greater.
If you are a methylamphetamine user, know that you are being taken advantage of by people who do not care for your health, your family or your finances.
CONCLUSION
I’m of the opinion that Singapore gets it right for those who try to smuggle lethal, addictive drugs into a country.
This man won’t suffer that fate. What is truly sad is that so many likely slip by unnoticed.
No, Singapore doesn’t get it right…not by a long shot. Singapore has a very long, sorry tradition of executing those on the lowest rung of the drug trade , mostly mules ( including minors) while providing safe haven to many of those who have made millions from controlling the drug trade, including Burmese, Indonesians and Thais.
It’s a sick and pathetic system.
‘Disney Land with the death penalty’
Usually I agree with you Paolo but not this time.
Singapore executes anyone caught with sufficient drugs and while in the main that is low level trafficers it can be those at the top of the tree. The one thing they don’t do is discriminate and their laws are applied to everyone without fear or favour.
Remember Michael Fay and a few more westeners?
That’s the image they like to project; the reality is a bit different, eg, the notorious high society drug case in which a number of people were facing capital drugs charges. Mysteriously the main trafficker ( a Tunisian) was granted bail ( unprecedented in itself) and ,needless to say, absconded…leading to the cases against prominent Singaporeans collapsing, including the son of a prominent judge and lawyer.
Singapore loves to promote itself as a place in which the law functions without fear or favour but concurrently provides safe haven to mega crooks like the Suhartos and low-life fugitives like the Red Bull heir.
At least they’ve moved away from mandatory death ( probably reflecting some of the egregious, terminal errors made in its application in the past). It’s a start.
What about people who manufacture and distribute drugs in their own country?
Same punishment. Including opioid makers.
Stop wasting money fighting drug wars. Too many people om earth living in poverty that want to do better. Why water energy on lists. It’s good if more people ODed and died.
In fact it’s better to open safe houses where people can shoot up as much as they want on tax payer dime in return for allowing organ harvesting after their death. Win/ win / win
People that want to do drugs get to do drugs for free.
Governments get organs from willing donors on an expedited basis
We can use money saved to help non druggies better themselves.
*Why water energy on lists =why waste energy on losers
“Lethal drugs”.
Most drugs (most things) are lethal when taken in sufficient quantities. The purpose of crystal meth is to get high not set it off in the subway killing loads of people. Your headline makes it sound as if the guy had ricin or Zyklon B in his suitcase.
Not meant as a reply.
I can’t wait to see this story on “Locked Up Abroad”!
Take a step back, Matthew. How, logically, is importing of a controlled substance something that deserves the death penalty? The bloodthirst is shocking.
Do you know people who have died due to their drug addictions? I do.
Yes, I do, and I think that drug laws should be significantly liberalised. Study after study has shown that policies like legalization, supervised injecting sites, needle exchanges, are some of the only things shown to actively reduce drug abuse.
Whether or not you think drugs should be illegal, though, the death penalty is an unconscionable abuse of state power. Singapore has killed multiple people for importing Cannabis, a drug which is just about physically impossible to overdose on and certainly ruins fewer lives than alcohol.
I bet that the penalty for drunk driving, something that poses imminent deadly bodily harm to all those surrounding, is much lighter.
Well said, Cameron!
How anyone in 2019 can support death penalty is just beyond me.
No human beings should invocate the RIGHT to kill someone as such is not compatible with mankind and its born inaptitude to always and in every instance make right decisions. Innocent people died because of that, killed by other humans who seemed to believe that state power allowed them to do so,
Sad.
People should have freedom to do whatever they want to their own bodies as they please. It’s really that simple. Any laws which punish people for making choices for their own bodies whether seat belt laws, free speech bans, drug laws, soda bans, fatty food bans, alcohol restrictions or smoking restrictions or vape bans, are immoral, inhumane and counter to every principle of human freedom. The government should not own your body and have any say what you do to it. Your body belongs to God, your parents, your spouse, your kids when you get to old age, but definitely not the government.
We live in world in which we must live and interact with others. Such a libertarian theory is unworkable becuase there are spillover effects to others for every vice you believe should be totally unregulated.
Your problem is you thinking these are vices in the first place. It should not be up to you or others to decide what is or is not a vice when dealing with a body that is not your own. If someone’s actions spillover and violate your freedom you have a right to defend yourself. If someone breaks into your home or assaults you on a street you have that right. But people not wearing seat belt, possessing or doing drugs, gambling with friends for money, eating fatty foods or vaping in their own house does not constitute a spillover warranting the government to use violence and threats to prevent completely consensual and voluntary actions. In every instance where the government targets personal freedom, the spillover skyrockets. The innocent children in Mexico who were killed this week would not have been if there was no war on drugs that has done nothing but destroyed millions of lives. Let the degenerates who want to do drugs foolishly overdose at their own hands.
Matthew, c’mon man, you went to law school. I am very surprised to see you whole heartedly support something as barbaric as the death penalty. At least in the US it punishes mostly poor people of color. Everywhere worldwide, there is no taking it back if it is realized that the police and DAs made a mistake.
That’s why I voted to ban it in California. My position is nuanced. The execution of innocent people and the high cost of executing versus life imprisonment makes the death penalty ultimately unworkable, at least in the USA. But morally, I am a big proponent of the death penalty…and I do believe it is still appropriate in some cases.
People of color commit a disproportionately high amount of violent crime so just because more people of color are imprisoned and receive the death penalty doesn’t mean it is not deserved. People of color should stop committing a disproportionately high amount of violent crime and then we can talk.
The reason the death penalty is bad is the government shouldn’t be choosing who lives and who dies. I have zero trust in the police state, judicial and legal industrial complex to make fair, just and correct decisions. I myself disagree with 90% of the laws made by politicians so I am not keen on the people who they appoint making decisions. Juries are often rubber stamps.
DAs are more likely to seek death in a case against a person of color than in a case against a white person.
Glad we at least agree on the death by government part.