A man has been charged for allegedly possessing 69 MDMA capsules at a Newcastle venue during a major weekend crackdown that involved police commands and units from across the Hunter.
Police arrested 11 people, laid 17 charges, caught 10 people allegedly involved in drug supply or possession, issued 40 traffic infringements, checked 74 licensed premises and cautioned 11 juveniles during Operation Surge.
The operation involved more than 100 officers from Newcastle City, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens-Hunter and Hunter Valley police districts as well as the highway patrol, the dog unit, Strike Force Utah, Polair and the transport command.
A single, real-time base was used to coordinate the extensive police resources as part of the operation.
One of the major arrests resulted in the charging of a 20-year-old man who was allegedly found with 69 MDMA pills at a licensed premises on Hunter Street, Newcastle West.
He was charged with supplying a prohibited drug and was granted conditional bail to face court on February 27.
Operation commander Superintendent Danny Sullivan said the second roll-out of Operation Surge was a success, with officers able to respond in numbers across the wider community, regardless of their home police district.
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"Operation Surge was created to merge police resources across several Hunter suburbs, being able to move freely and deploy to wherever the demand and need is at any given time," he said.
"This operation allows police to engage with the public in highly visible areas and in vast numbers - reinforcing that the Hunter's police are there to protect the community all day, every day.
"For the second deployment of Operation Surge, we wanted to focus on utilising the real-time intelligence from our analysts to target repeat offenders within each police district.
"Police will continue to put operations like Surge into practice - those in the community who wish to cause trouble need to know we will be there, and we will be there in large numbers.
"The public should continue to feel confident that their local police are out in force, protecting their neighbourhoods and families."
Operation Surge will be continually rolled-out through various deployments in 2020, police said on Monday.
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