Australian police seize 1 ton of cocaine, arrest 15 men

They're using street prices in this article, at point of sale, Australia, one of the highest-priced markets in the world. Not wholesale prices at point of origin. The SMH article explicitly says street price, this one doesn't, but why assume otherwise? Law enforcement generally touts the street price of drugs seized rather than wholesale.

Street price would be around $60K/kilo in UK, Portugal, and Netherlands. Is that why you thought $60K/kilo in Australia?

It's listed at around $3500 to $5000 per kilo in the producing countries, retail. Nothing close to $60K.

http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/cocaine-prices/

Turbo,

You're kinda proving my point. Those importing the drugs are buying them at the source from south American cartels and paying the same price as everyone. Comparing prices between New Zealand and Brazil isn't really helpful, you surely have a world atlas and know that coca only grows in South America?

Oh, and seriously - talking about yourself in the third person is somewhat troubling.....

Madverts: Dammit I just had my arithmetic corrected by a US Republican. How embarrassing, even for first thing in the morning. ... It still 'aint 260 grand thou. I thought as a conspiracy aficionado you'd have had my back on this one, Turbo. ...

Two more corrections ... (maybe you need more coffee) ... turbotsat is not a Republican ...

And the price of cocaine in Australia was quoted at $235 USD per gram in 2015, so $235K per kilo, in an article discussing world prices, linked below. I guess we can trust the $260/g USD figure for 2016, provided by the Australians themselves (and Sydney Morning Herald has the same price of $360M Australian, in their article on the drug bust). $260/g is only about 10 percent higher than the 2015 figure.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/worlds-highest-lowest-cocaine-prices

The World's Highest (and Lowest) Cocaine Prices - June 10, 2015

Where do you think Sydney, Australia lands?

... Outside of the three coca-producing countries of the Andes (Bolivia, Columbia, Peru), the world's cheapest cocaine, at a little over $10 a gram, is in Brazil. ... It's a different story elsewhere. Here are the world's most expensive countries for cocaine, grouped into tiers:

One. Outrageously Expensive—Australia and New Zealand. Cocaine in these two countries costs more than 20 times what it does in Brazil, with Australia having the world's highest price at $235 a gram and New Zealand close behind at $215 a gram. Why so high there? Both countries are essentially islands in the remote South Pacific, with strong border controls. They are also relatively small markets, making them of less interest to cocaine trafficking organizations. ...

In March, officials seized 600 kilograms of cocaine in the South Pacific island nation of Tahiti

Tahiti is part of French Polynesia, not what I would call an 'island nation'. Also slightly misleading to say traffickers "face a maximum sentence of life in prison". Most get 7 to 10y sentences in oz even for big quantities.

Hope The Evidence dont disappear it worth more then the government's wages for a year so i wonder where it will end up

Interesting, WTF. I like words.

Tonne is actually a French word derived from a German "tun"....(although the Swedes apparently have a claim too...)

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/tonne

None of this however explains how the Australian coppers add roughly 200k to the price of their kilo. Nor my embarrassment at adding a zero to the sum. Perhaps the two hundred grand is the governments' secret cut of the drugs global cash cow .....

1000kg in a metric ton actually its correctly spelt "tonne" which comes from the french, 1kg = 10cm/3 of pure water at sea level at 4 °C

Good job Police!

Dammit I just had my arithmetic corrected by a US Republican. How embarrassing, even for first thing in the morning.

It still 'aint 260 grand thou. I thought as a conspiracy aficionado you'd have had my back on this one, Turbo.

The NRL players would get through that in under one season.

1000kg in a metric ton

Madverts: Who invents these figures? A kilo of cocaine does not cost 2 million 6 hundred thousand dollars. More like sixty thou.

AP: seized more than a ton of cocaine worth about A$360 million ($260 million)

How many kilos in a ton?

Who invents these figures?

A kilo of cocaine does not cost 2 million 6 hundred thousand dollars. More like sixty thou. More bollocks from the people who really run the trillion dollar a year CASH industry - YOUR GOVERNMENT.

This is just but one shipment. How many noses are getting down on this stuff? Legalize and TAX it.

Great news!

It wasn't boy scouts who produced, smuggled or were due to distribute this stuff, and I doubt if any old ladies will be deprived of being helped across the street.

Such a waste...oh well.