A retired Australian couple were duped into smuggling drugs worth £4 million back into the country.
The pensioners had ‘won’ a dream holiday to Canada. AUSCAN Tours, the travel company which awarded the prize, seemed genuine.
The week-long trip included two flights, accommodation, and new suitcases.
The luggage contained 7kg of methamphetamine in rock form.
It appears that a drug-running syndicate was behind the scam and had hidden 3.5 kg of the drug in each bag.
Police in Australia said it was an elaborate scam operated by a bogus Canadian-based travel company whose website targeted elderly Australian couples, offering them the chance to win an all-expenses trip across the Pacific.
But by the end of their holiday, the 72-year-old man and his wife, 64, became concerned about their gift of luggage. When they landed at Perth airport, they revealed their worries to Customs officials who duly found the drugs.
Precisely what sparked the couple’s concern has not been revealed, but Australian Federal Police said that it will be alleged in court that the couple's original luggage was exchanged in Canada for new bags and that they had no idea as they boarded their flight home that they had become unwitting mules.
As the pair were due to be met on their arrival, police were able to arrest a Canadian man, 38.
His arrest led to a raid on a hotel room in the Perth seaside suburb of Scarborough where officers found documents relating to the scam, along with more bags similar to the ones that had been seized.
The Canadian was charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
