An Old Australian Couple Were Accidentally Sent $10 Million Worth of Meth

An elderly couple in Melbourne’s south-east signed for a package they weren’t expecting to receive last week. The parcel was delivered to their home in Hoppers Crossing at about 1 PM on Wednesday, Fairfax reports, and the pair ripped open the "heavy" piece of mail to find that it was packed to the brim with bags of white powder.

"[They] had a look inside, observed a white substance in bags, and called police straight away," said Senior Sergeant Matthew Kershaw. "They weren't sure what it was."

It was meth. Twenty kilograms and an estimated $10 million dollars’ worth of methamphetamine, which police believe was shipped to the wrong postal address by mistake.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Sergeant Kershaw claimed the elderly couple were “unsure of the significance of the find” when they called in the authorities. "They asked each other if they had ordered anything, and it was quite clear they hadn't ordered anything online or through any type of services, [so] they thought it might have been a wrong address,” he said.

Police seized the package and on Wednesday night raided a home in nearby Bundoora, where they allegedly found a further 20 kilos of the drug and subsequently arrested a 30-year-old man by the name of Zhiling Ma. Zhiling has since been charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, and has been remanded in custody for a July 29 committal mention.

"It's quite a large find to take off the streets, it's 40 kilograms of amphetamine which [has a] street value [of] approximately $20 million,” said Sergeant Kershaw. “That's 800,000 hits off the street that we have intercepted… which in terms is quite significant and a good result."

When asked how concerning it was that such a "significant" amount of drugs had been sent to a random residential address, Sergeant Kershaw admitted it was “incredible” that “someone could be that sloppy.”

"When you think about it, $10 million worth of drugs sent to the wrong address: that's quite incredible to comprehend that someone could be that sloppy in relation to their organisation," he said. “[But] it’s a win for police and for the broader community.”

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