Ordinarily when we hear about a PC hardware smuggling story, it's something like a bunch of ex-crypto mining GPUs making their way illicitly over a border, or a collection of CPUs badly taped to a man attempting to make his way through customs. Here though, the tables have been turned—as this time it's the hardware itself that's been used to smuggle something far more valuable.
Australian authorities have discovered a Malaysian man attempting to import 100 kg (200 pounds) of methamphetamine into the country, stashed inside a collection of PC cases (via Techspot). The offending articles arrived via an air cargo assignment, and on inspection revealed multiple large packages of suspicious white powder stashed inside.
A laboratory test confirmed that the substance was methamphetamine, said by the authorities to equate to "one million street-level deals" worth of the substance if it made it to the good people of Australia.
A 45-year-old man was arrested by AFP officials as he attempted to collect the shipment and has been charged with one count of attempted drug possession. As for the cases themselves, once stripped of their illicit cargo they were successfully delivered to a storage unit in Kingsgrove, New South Wales.
The cases look to be Dell Optiplex models, which should only weigh a few kg each. Adding 100 kg of extra, err, cargo to the shipment is likely to have been the tip-off here, although Australia is known for having particularly strict border processing controls for many items arriving into the country, so there are multiple ways the drugs could have been discovered.
“ABF officers monitor consignments closely for any anomalies to disrupt these criminal syndicates’ supply chains,” said ABF Acting Commander Matthew O'Conner.
“They will attempt to hide illicit substances in creative cavities to evade our detection.
“Our officers’ skills in detecting and disrupting this criminal behavior will continue to thrive through our collaboration and information sharing between our federal and state counterparts.”
Creative cavities indeed. While a substantial amount of dangerous substances have now been kept off the Australian streets, it's possible that these Dell Optiplex cases are now available for sale again, with their potential new owners unaware that their new cheap case purchase was the subject of a significant criminal investigation.
Sort of brings new meaning to the whole "rock in a box" debate with cheap GPU purchases, doesn't it? We're sent PC cases for testing here at PC Gamer on the regular, so here's hoping we don't end up with some extra cargo we'd really rather not receive hiding in our next shipment.
