Three men accused of conspiring to smuggle about $200 million worth of cocaine into NSW on a yacht from Tahiti will spend Christmas behind bars.
Newcastle-based delivery skipper Craig Lembke, 47, along with Kent Jackson, 63, and Dennis Bath, 68, faced Newcastle Local Court on Thursday one day after they were arrested in the NSW Lake Macquarie region.
After receiving intelligence about the planned delivery, authorities say they tracked the vessel through Australian waters and watched it closely when it arrived in Coffs Harbour last Friday.
But officers didn't pounce until Wednesday afternoon when the yacht docked at Catalina Bay, south of Newcastle, allegedly with more than 700 kilograms of cocaine stashed in the hull.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan says liaison officers in Mexico and Colombia would attempt to track down which South American drug cartel supplied the cocaine.
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In the past year, 3.3 tonnes of cocaine has been seized by the AFP on vessels headed to Australia, but despite this Mr Gaughan says the street price of the drug hasn't budged.
"Why do we have such an insatiable demand for not only cocaine but methamphetamine in this country?" he said to reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
"It says something in relation to the amount of cocaine that is still out there on the streets."
Lembke is listed on a website which provides professional yacht delivery skippers.
Asked whether the owners of the yacht may have been unwitting participants in the conspiracy, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mal Lanyon would only say the vessel was a conduit.
"If it was not for that yacht, there could have been another methodology used," he said.
It's not the first time criminals have used Tahiti as a departure point when trying to smuggle drugs into Australia.
But Mr Lanyon said it was too early to link the conspiracy to any other investigation.
"Criminals will use any route to get drugs into Australia," he said.
Mr Gaughan said detectives would investigate whether the yacht was paid for using the proceeds of crime.
None of the men applied for bail and it was formally refused in each case.
They've each been charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
All of their matters will return to court on January 30 next year.
