Owen Hanson on How He Smuggled $4M of Cartel Coke into Australia

In a gripping interview, Owen Hanson revealed the intricate operation used to smuggle $4 million worth of cartel cocaine into Australia, one of the world's toughest drug importation markets. After losing access to established cartel routes, Hanson collaborated with a high-profile Australian crime kingpin to devise a cunning plan. Meeting secretly in Fiji, they hatched the idea to convert cocaine into a liquid form disguised inside dark wine bottles from Napa Valley. Using Everclear alcohol, Hanson dissolved cocaine into liquid, carefully bottling and sealing it to resemble legitimate wine shipments. The packages were shipped as “samples” to avoid suspicion. Despite limited resources and constant FBI surveillance, Hanson orchestrated this bold smuggling method, leveraging wine’s unsuspected status to move significant quantities of cocaine. The ingenious scheme highlights the lengths traffickers go to bypass stringent security in Australia’s heavily policed ports.