Five men are in custody after more than 50 police officers executed six search warrants in Parkes, Forbes and Bogan Gate on Thursday.
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Operation Foment commenced 12 months ago after police received information from members of the community relating to the sale of drugs in Parkes.
Central West Police District, Orana Police District, Dog Squad, Rural Crime, and Operation Support Group officers were involved in the search warrants.
Several items, including 80kg of cannabis, 380g of methylamphetamine ‘ice’, 70g of MDMA, cocaine and ecstasy pills, cash, and firearms were siezed.
Four Parkes men, aged 63, 38, 37, and 28, along with a 32-year-old Forbes man will be charged with more than 300 major drug supply and firearm offences.
The charges will include large commercial supply, commercial supply of methylamphetamine, indictable supply charges, ongoing supply of prohibited drug and possession.
Central West Police District Superintendent Chris Taylor said the success of the operation is due to a lot of hard work over a long period of time by Parkes police.
“This will cause a major dent in drug supply in Parkes and surrounding areas but it’s not the end of the story,” he said.
“There will be ongoing investigations from these search warrants which reinforces our emphasis on targeting low and mid level drug supplies in regional areas across NSW including Parkes, Orange and all parts of the Central West Police District.
“Out of the recent reengineering there have been Regional Enforcement Squads based at locations across NSW.
“Currently they are at Tamworth and Dubbo while positions for Bathurst are being advertised. I am confident that we will now be able to get some across the Central West who will specifically be targeting drug supply in regional areas of NSW.
“We will be working with them closely as well as having our own detectives and target action group officers targeting these sorts of drug supplies.
Part way through the Operation Foment a link to Lake Illawarra developed.
Officers from the Lake Illawarra Police District executed nine search warrants at properties across the region on Thursday resulting in the arrest of 11 people.
