Aussies claim world's largest E seizure

Australian Customs and police announced they had seized 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy tablets, in what they said was the biggest haul of the illicit drug anywhere in the world.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the seizure of the drugs, which were concealed in tins of tomato shipped to Australia from Italy, had resulted in the arrests of 16 people across the country in pre-dawn raids.

Authorities had worked for more than a year to track the syndicate behind the drugs after Customs discovered the ecstasy hidden inside more than 3000 tins, each weighing about 1.5 kilograms in June 2007.

Customs officials replaced the ecstasy with an inert substance and monitored the consignment but the arrests were brought closer two weeks ago when a coffee bean shipment carrying 150 kilograms of cocaine was detected in Melbourne.

Keelty said the drugs were part of a global syndicate and the seizures would be "a major disruption to transnational organised crime, in this country and abroad."

He said the ecstasy haul had been kept secret until now to allow the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Customs to carry out their investigations.

"There have been 185,000 telephone intercepts in this operation, there have been 400 members of the AFP deployed to this operation, there have been 10,000 hours of surveillance deployed to this operation to find the perpetrators of this world's largest seizure and importation into our country," he said.

Keelty said Australian and European police were attempting to stop the syndicate from trafficking and that search warrants had already been issued in Belgium and the Netherlands.

"It is classic organised crime and we have done our best to shut down the syndicate," he told reporters.

Customs chief executive Michael Carmody said the bust was the result of "small snippets of information".

"This is a great result. This is what makes getting up in the morning and coming to work worthwhile," Carmody said.