A CARGO vessel thought to be the mother ship of an international drugs-smuggling operation was escorted in to Sydney last night after being boarded by the Royal Australian Navy in a high-seas raid.

Police, navy personnel and customs officials went on board the North Korean- registered Pong Su about 70 miles off the central New South Wales coast after a chase through stormy seas to international waters.

Surveillance teams were alerted last Wednesday, when 50kg (110lb) of high-grade heroin believed to have come from the Golden Triangle in South-East Asia was found on a beach at Lorne, on the coast of Victoria.

Four men — a Singaporean aged 34, two Malaysians, aged 44 and 45, and a fourth man of unknown nationality — were arrested on suspicion of smuggling the drugs. The body of another man, who was thought to have drowned as he ferried the drugs ashore in a dinghy, was found near by.

The 4,000-tonne Pong Su was spotted by a hotelier when it came to within 150 metres of the shoreline. Police and customs officials tried to shadow the ship, but their initial attempts were hindered by bad weather and heavy seas. The vessel, once alerted to the police presence, altered course and tried to flee for international waters.

Repeated calls to the bridge for her to stop went unheeded, prompting an operation involving the frigate HMAS Stuart and three NSW police launches.

Rear Admiral Raydon Gates, of the Royal Australian Navy, said: “Of course, in showing some force, as required in the operation, you put out a warship with a five-inch gun on board and people do pay some attention.”

One of the 10-metre police launches suffered damage in the heavy conditions, injuring two of the crew and forcing it to run for shelter.

Special forces troops and navy divers boarded the North Korean vessel just after dawn yesterday, landing from a navy helicopter and inflatable boats. The ship’s captain and 29 crew did not resist and sailed under a navy crew to Sydney. They are expected to be charged with transporting the heroin found in Victoria to Australia.

John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, praised Australia’s special operations forces for the mission. “The use of defence personnel and assets in this large-scale civilian law enforcement operation demonstrates the quality, flexibility and effective training in our defence forces,” he said.

“This sends a clear message to international drug-traffickers that Australian authorities are determined to stop the illegal import of drugs and will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the people responsible face the full force of Australian law.”

Under Australian law authorities can board a vessel in international waters if it is suspected of being involved in illegal activities inside the country’s territorial waters.

The drugs haul, which has a street value of about A$80 million (£31 million), is the biggest ever seizure in Victoria. Police are also investigating a possible link between the drugs haul and a gangland murder in Victoria last week. Nikolai Radev, a drugs-dealer, was shot seven times in daylight in a Melbourne street.

Although the heroin is thought to have come from the Golden Triangle area of Burma, Laos and Thailand, the North Korean link is seen as significant at a time of Pyongyang’s inclusion in President Bush’s “axis of evil”.

American officials have been keen to highlight North Korea’s role in the international drugs trade. They claim that North Korea is producing 40 tonnes of opium a year, huge quantities of high-quality amphetamines and millions of dollars’-worth of counterfeit $100 bills in an illegal trade estimated to be worth $500 million a year, compared with $650 million in official exports.

Burma, with 81,400 hectares of opium poppy fields, and Afghanistan, with 60,000 hectares, still, however, account for 90 per cent of global illicit opium production. Afghanistan grew 80 per cent of the world total (4,600 tonnes) in 1999. Production fell to 3,275 tonnes in 2000 after the Taleban acted against it.

Worldwide, the area of poppy cultivation fell 17 per cent from 1990 to 1999, largely because of official initiatives. Illicit production fell from 5,800 tonnes in 1999 to less than 4,800 tonnes in 2000 (less than 480 tonnes of heroin), and was some 15 per cent lower than in 1994.

Bush keen on nuclear talks

Washington: President Bush said yesterday that he believed that there was a good chance of persuading North Korea to end its nuclear weapons programme (Tim Reid writes). Plans for talks between the United States and North Korea, possibly this week in China, had been thrown into doubt after North Korea appeared to announce that it was reprocessing more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that could be used to make atomic bombs. In public comments, Mr Bush intended to send the message that the talks would take place after North Korea backed away from the claim. Last night, however, North Korea called on its citizens to “always keep yourselves combat ready” and to increase the country’s defence capabilities.

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