4 Australian guys have actually provided brand-new significance to the term “bricked printers.”

According to a news release from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Australian Border Force (ABF) today, 3 males have actually been sentenced for attempting to utilize 5 printers to smuggle 22.4 kg (49.4 pounds) of drug into Australia.

In 2019, Australian news outlets reported that the printers were Xerox brand name which the drugs had a street worth of roughly 9.3 million AUD to over 12.4 million AUD ($6.7 million to over $9 million).

According to today’s statement, the ABF obstructed the printers in Melbourne on April 30, 2017. They discovered that the printers had 10 plans of “compressed white powder hid within their paper trays.” The authorities utilized “presumptive screening” to figure out that the powder was drug. They consequently eliminated the drugs, changed them with an undefined alternative product, and sent out the plan to its initial designated location, a factory in Airport West, Victoria. Australian broadcast network Channel Nine reported in 2017 that authorities likewise put tracking gadgets in the printers.

In May 2017, Australian authorities detained 4 males who attempted to recover the printers and charged them with “trying to have an industrial amount of a border-controlled drug,” the AFP and ABF stated today.

Among the 4 guys was sentenced this month to 9 years of jail with a non-parole duration of four-and-a-half years. 2 other guys were formerly sentenced: One male was sentenced in 2025 to 10 years in jail with a non-parole duration of five-and-a-half-years, and the other was sentenced in 2022 to 10 years of jail with a non-parole duration of six-and-a-half years. The 4th male detained in 2017 was discovered not guilty.

The event is one example of innovative efforts from criminal activity companies to smuggle controlled substances into Australia, according to the AFP’s acting leader, Simone Butcher.

“The AFP, in addition to our domestic and worldwide partners, are unfaltering in our objective to safeguard the neighborhood by interrupting and taking apart the mob groups and their efforts to benefit off the suffering triggered in our neighborhood,” Butcher stated.