MV Raider Cocaine Smuggling Scandal

0:00It's April 4th, this is Adelaide News today, powered by AI. The MV Raider, an old merchant ship from the US built back in 1991, vanished from tracking in 2021, but popped up in Panama. Last December, if Flue Togo's flag aimed for Sydney with a fake buyer in Brisbane and allegedly packed secret smuggling hides for cocaine, Australian Feds say it started with nearly six tons of the stuff hidden inside. French Navy stopped it near French Polynesia on January 16th, dumped 4.8 tons overboard, but missed about one ton deep in the road. Hull. Then they hit the Cook Islands on a fake distress call for engine fixes, customs searched, found nothing, and let it go. Crew kept pushing toward Australia. Experts like former naval officer Jennifer Parker say this shows how cartels target Australia's huge drug market using wild hides like false walls and pipes. Nurse Federation called it one of the strangest sea cases ever, with families back home in Honduras and Ecuador worried sick.

1:02Off New South Wales in late February, it lingered near Wollongon, allegedly dropping coke to local boats via sat phone chats with bosses. It veered to New Caledonia, then you turned with another distress for food and water, getting escorted into Sydney Harbor on March 12th. Six crew now phase drug trafficking charges, investigations hunt the missing ton in syndicates involved, with court back in May. This specific chase highlights how far traffickers go for Australia's cash.