Several people have been arrested over the importation of a 30-kilogram load of an anaesthetic, disguised as car parts and allegedly linked with a southeast Asian drug smuggling syndicate.
The arrests were revealed on Wednesday, a month after the bulk shipment of ketamine arrived in Melbourne from England.
Police allege Wayne Michael Terry, 54, flew from England to Melbourne and retrieved the consignment on February 26, before passing it off to two men in Canberra.
The pair then allegedly took the consignment to western Sydney.
Terry was arrested in Melbourne on March 12, before detectives moved against four more men in Sydney on Tuesday morning.
The smugglers' alleged ringleader, 30-year-old Weiu Deng Got, was accused of supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug and knowingly directing the activities of a criminal group.
Neither Got nor Terry made an application for bail in court on Tuesday and will remain behind bars.
Two alleged accomplices, 30-year-old Randolf Sheehan-Hazell and 38-year-old Royston John Osten, were also denied bail and will reappear before the court in May.
A fifth man arrested on Tuesday morning was released on conditional bail, accused of being part of a criminal group.
It was not immediately clear if the ketamine was seized during the police investigation.
The arrests came after border force officers foiled a Sydney man's alleged attempt to import 27.5kg of ketamine over multiple shipments in January and February, with the drug stashed in medicine balls and therapeutic cushion covers.
The Australian Border Force reported seizing more than 438kg of ketamine worth $75 million in January, with federal police totting up 1.3 tonnes of the narcotic intercepted at ports of entry in 2025.
Based on that valuation, the England-to-Melbourne shipment was worth more than $5 million.
The illicit use of ketamine, which can provide a dissociative feeling, has been rising in recent years.
Australia's premier drug use survey in 2024 suggests 300,000 people used the drug in the past 12 months.
