Ben Asadollahi Zoje arrived in Sydney on a flight from Abu Dhabi when customs officers discovered the drugs hidden in containers of bath salts.
Responding to his son’s arrest Zoje’s father spoke to the MailOnline from his home in Belgium saying he was shocked by the charges.
‘The biggest crime he’s ever done is a driving offense,” said his father, who wished to stay anonymous adding that his son was in London 3 days ago but he had not known that he was flying to Australia.
The night club events promoter who works between London and Dubai appeared in court on Friday. He was charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug and was refused bail and will appear in court on 23 July.
Published in an article on the MailOnline Tim Fitzgerald, regional commander of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service said, “Stopping drugs at the border is of the highest priority and ACBPS officers are always alert to people trying to illegally import drugs, no matter the concealment.” He added that this was “a particularly elaborate attempt” at smuggling drugs into the country.
“People bringing these drugs into Australia can be as creative as they like with their concealment, but the AFP and its partner agencies have a track record of identifying and adapting to trends, leading to arrests and disruptions,” Commander Wayne Buchhorn of Sydney airport federal police said in an article publish by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.
The maximum penalty for smuggling a large amount of drugs into Australia is life in prison.