Australia's largest ever police crackdown against people smugglers has seen five men in four states from three different countries taken into custody in dawn raids.
And the Australian Federal Police have guaranteed there are more arrests to come.
Operation Delphinium saw agents descend on immigration centres and residential addresses in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and NSW on Thursday morning to make multiple arrests.
The AFP said they targeted the kingpins of people smuggling syndicates involved in the planning or facilitation of up to 132 illegal boats bound for Australia.
And Steve Lancaster, the AFP's National Manager of Crime Operations, said they would not stop there.
"To those who have not been picked up in the first scoop today, it does not mean you should sleep well tonight," Mr Lancaster said.
"If you are involved or you were involved in people smuggling, with the current intelligence we hold and with intelligence that we have received from over 200 members of the community, it is likely that if you are a significant people smuggling organiser that you are likely to be known by us.
"I guarantee there will be further arrests made ... this is not the end."
Within hours of the arrests, the first of the accused appeared in court.
Barkat Ali Wahide, 31, made a brief appearance in Perth Magistrates Court, where he was accused that between January and May last year, he organised or facilitated the bringing or coming to Australia of two people, contrary to the Migration Act.
Wahide, an Afghan national, told the court in broken English he had been in immigration detention for 17 months and wanted to return there rather than go to jail.
Magistrate Barbara Lane bailed him back to the custody of the Department of Immigration, and Wahide was told he would appear in court again next month.
His fellow accused - a 21-year-old Iranian national, a 36-year-old Pakistani national and two more Afghan nationals aged 40 and 33 - were also due to appear in courts across the country.
The maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $110,000.
Mr Lancaster said the operation had involved a year's work and involved 100 officers - and would put a major hole in people smuggling networks bringing dozens of boats to Australia every month.
"This will disrupt those operations that have been conducted by the syndicates that these people belong to," Mr Lancaster said.
Although three of the five were in immigration detention, Mr Lancaster said that did not mean they were running people-smuggling operations from Australian detention.
He said the AFP investigation centred on their activities in Indonesia.
"We have information and intelligence to say that people are organising and assisting in Australia. That can be shown by the arrests in the previous years," he said.
"It is also clear that there are significant people-smuggling operations in Indonesia and other countries."
