NSW Police stopped a Toyota Prado on the Hume Highway heading south from Sydney and found nearly $700,000 in cash stuffed into a plastic Coles shopping bag.
It further reveals the extent of drug and proceeds of crime cash running up and down the road.
This follows on from the seizure of 60kg of methamphetamine worth about $15 million from a black van that fled down the highway from Sydney in February, and was only stopped when police managed to throw out road spikes near Gundagai.
Around 5pm on April 17, a 33-year-old man was pulled over for driving his van erratically on the Hume Highway near Goulburn. He was found with $105,000 in cash and a small amount of methamphetamine.
In late December, police found $16,500 in cash and 1.3kg of methamphetamine in multiple sealed plastics bags in a car parked at Manton, with the driver fast asleep, midway between Gunning and Yass.
The latest seizure, which resulted in the arrest of the Prado's 43-year-old driver, involved officers attached to Raptor South, which was formed last year to target the flow of drugs from Sydney south to major markets such as the ACT.
Raptor South is based out of the Illawarra, using the heavily armed tactical Operations Support Group teams as well as NSW Highway Patrol.
While Raptor South, with its team of 25, primarily targets criminal gangs in the Wollongong and Shoalhaven, it also extends down to the Snowy Mountains and the border communities near Victoria.
Strike Force Raptor was first formed in 2009 and became the stand-alone Raptor Squad in 2021.
