Australian cops announce $1B cocaine seizure, country's biggest bust ever

March 4 (UPI) -- Australian police on Saturday revealed the details of an operation that intercepted $1 billion worth of cocaine in the country's biggest-ever drug bust.

Western Australia Commissioner Col Blanch spoke about "Operation Beech," which led to the arrest of 12 people allegedly linked to the Mexican drug cartel.

"This was an opportunity to catch the syndicate -- the group of people that were capable of receiving it, landing it and then distributing it across Australia," Blanch said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had seized 2.4 tons of cocaine off the South American coast in November. The drugs were headed to Western Australia, but the drug traffickers were unaware of the seizure.

Instead, police recreated fake packages to lure the drug traffickers.

"Over a number of weeks, our officers from the [AFP] Transnational, Serious and Organized Crime squad and other officers assisted to reconstruct those identical packages, and drop 1.2 tons of those drugs into the ocean, 40 miles off the coast of Joondalup," Blanch told reporters.

In late December police watched two boats bring the drugs ashore. They then arrested 12 men in connection with the seizure from the boats.

Western Australia Police Deputy Commissioner Tony Longhorn said that the collaboration with the DEA was key to making the seizures.

"It's a confidence booster ... every time we do these operations we're testing the limitations of our capabilities," he said.