World

Australian school students used as drug mules

13:49 pm on 25 November 2013

Customs officials in Australia say an international crime syndicate is using high school students as drug mules.

The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service is contacting parents and school principals in the city's inner-west to warn that students have been paid to accept packages from China.

The ABC reports the students are contacted via social media or at their school and offered a few hundred dollars to have a parcel containing hidden drugs sent to their home address.

One of the parcels intercepted contained 4kg of ephedrine, enough to make about $A250,000 worth of the street drug methamphetamine.

Customs officers and police raided five properties earlier this month. Two teenagers face charges and a number of others are being interviewed.

"Someone who gets caught up in this as a young person could throw away their future, throw away their life," NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione warned on Monday.