Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav Four Australian men have given new meaning to the term “bricked printers.”
According to a press release from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Australian Border Force (ABF) today, three men have been sentenced for trying to use five printers to smuggle 22.4 kg (49.4 pounds) of cocaine into Australia.
In 2019, Australian news outlets reported that the printers were Xerox brand and that the drugs had a street value of approximately 9.3 million AUD to over 12.4 million AUD ($6.7 million to over $9 million).
According to today’s announcement, the ABF intercepted the printers in Melbourne on April 30, 2017. They found that the printers had 10 packages of “compressed white powder concealed within their paper trays.” The authorities used “presumptive testing” to determine that the powder was cocaine. They subsequently removed the drugs, replaced them with an unspecified alternative material, and sent the package to its original intended destination, a factory in Airport West, Victoria. Australian broadcast network Channel Nine reported in 2017 that authorities also put tracking devices in the printers.
In May 2017, Australian police arrested four men who tried to retrieve the printers and charged them with “attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug,” the AFP and ABF said today.
One of the four men was sentenced this month to nine years of prison with a non-parole period of four-and-a-half years. Two other men were previously sentenced: One man was sentenced in 2025 to 10 years in prison with a non-parole period of five-and-a-half-years, and the other was sentenced in 2022 to 10 years of prison with a non-parole period of six-and-a-half years. The fourth man arrested in 2017 was found not guilty.
The incident is one example of advanced attempts from crime organizations to smuggle illegal drugs into Australia, according to the AFP’s acting commander, Simone Butcher.
“The AFP, as well as our domestic and international partners, are steadfast in our mission to protect the community by disrupting and dismantling organized crime groups and their efforts to profit off the misery caused in our community,” Butcher said.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that people have been caught using printers to push illegal drugs.
In 2019, two men were arrested in India after the country’s Narcotics Control Bureau intercepted a package and found about 422 g (0.9 pounds) of cocaine “in secret chambers of printers,” per a report from The Times of India. Similar to the case in Australia, Indian authorities made arrests after sending a decoy package to the printers’ original intended destination. One of the arrested men reportedly told officers that he was part of a drug ring that had been using printers to smuggle cocaine from Canada to India.
In 2024, a man was sentenced to 31 years in a London prison for a scheme that used printer toner cartridges to smuggle drugs for multiple crime organizations.
Detailing the plot at the time, England and Wales’ Crown Prosecution Service said:
“The cocaine was brought to a location in the Netherlands and was then concealed within printer toner cartridge pallets. They were transported to the UK by courier service and delivered to [a storage] unit, which the organized crime group controlled. The drugs were then distributed from this location. This happened on at least three occasions in 2020. The total quantity of cocaine imported in this way in less than three weeks was at a street value of up to around £132 million [$178.5 million].”
As The Register recalled today, in 2014, Australian authorities charged a woman for allegedly using laser printer cartridges to smuggle an unspecified amount methamphetamine. Authorities grew suspicious upon seeing white powder on the printer cartridges, which are typically black.
And lest you think drug dealers are overlooking 3D printers, note that, in 2022, Australian authorities arrested two men for allegedly using 3D printers to try to sneak 30 kg (66.1 pounds) of methamphetamine into Australia.
“Intelligence indicates [the] syndicate were attempting to import quantities of up to 100 kg [220.5 pounds] at a time. We suspect they were operating long before we started monitoring them and were involved in multiple other drug trafficking plots targeting Australia,” AFP Assistant Commissioner Pryce Scanlan said at the time.
