POLICE have been aware for two years of a potential multi-million dollar cocaine operation involving the ports of Port Fairy or Portland, it has emerged.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was briefed about the alleged operation which involved a boat travelling from Port Fairy about 500 kilometres south to rendezvous with a drug ship at sea.
The syndicate allegedly tried to use an increasingly common method for drug importation, known as the "mothership" method where a ship importing drugs from overseas loiters off the coast before being met by a smaller boat which brings the drugs to shore.
Confirmation a fishing boat that became stuck on a reef at Port Fairy during December was part of a botched bid to import cocaine into Australia came to light on Wednesday when alleged syndicate members appeared in a Melbourne court charged with attempting to import a commercial quantity of cocaine.
Four people were remanded in custody until May 10.
A fifth man fronted the court on Thursday following an extradition from Queensland.
A sixth man is also understood to have been charged but is yet to face court.
A source said the Melbourne-based drug syndicate members had travelled to Port Fairy for a trial run.
They chartered a boat which went deep into the Southern Ocean monitored by crime authorities and the Australian Navy.
"They wanted to see if it could be done. They were s... scared," a source said.
Syndicate members then returned to Port Fairy in November but a boat they were towing from Melbourne fell off a trailer near Pomborneit.
The source said authorities helped fund the purchase of a Port Fairy fishing boat for an undisclosed price.
On December 6 syndicate members set sail south for the drop-off with former Japanese whaling boat Kaiyo Maru No.8.
But the crew only got to the mouth of the Moyne River when their fishing boat ran aground on Griffiths Island.
A lifejacket and a lifeboat were found on a nearby beach, but the crew was nowhere to be seen.
The next morning, on December 7, the boat was the talk of the town. At low tide, it was possible to walk out and touch it.
At the time, a massive crime task force was based out of Warrnambool police station.
"They pretty much took over the station," the source said.
Rumours of drug drop-offs along the south-west coast have persisted for 30 years.
Those rumours have now led to action.
