A stuffed monkey, a skull and a bear in a box – these are just a few of the many thousands of prohibited products that are picked up every day by the state-of-the-art Australia Post.
The company today unveiled its newest weapon in Australian Biosecurity Artillery, which works in conjunction with sniffer dogs and can scan more than 500,000 items per day.
The $ 5 million Rapiscan 3D X-ray machine detects organic meat or plant matter and can rotate or even cut a product in half to reveal what’s inside.
A taxidermy bear found in a box and discovered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Environment. (Delivered)
The new technology is so powerful that it can accurately determine the fat content of sausages.
Last year, the Gateway’s Granville facility screened 24 million packages, resulting in 54,000 biosafety certificates.
Around 70 percent of the sections are seeds, with meat, animal products including pet food, and plant materials making up most of the remainder.
Pork is at high risk after African swine fever and foot and mouth disease were found in imported products.
And it also revealed some of the strange and disturbing detections. The worst offending countries were Taiwan, China, Malaysia, and the United States.
“We just say be honest because if you are not we will catch you because we are investing in technology that will reach you,” said Agriculture Secretary David Littleproud.
“We’ll do everything, be it boots on the ground, new technology or paws on the ground.”
With such high risks to the economy, penalties have increased.
“What we’ve done is move our resources from our airports to our postal facilities and ports because that’s where the goods come through,” Littleproud said.
“We increased the local fine from $ 444 to $ 2,660, and for commercial importers we increased the fine to over $ 1.1 million and up to ten years in prison.”
“Two foot-and-mouth disease cases that we managed to catch would cost the farm around $ 50 billion,” he said.
In the past year, the Australian government canceled 14 visas and guilty parties cannot return for three years.
“It makes our job a lot easier because we have no residue from the inspection. The machine is very quick and very thorough,” said Michael Cope, CEO of Australia Post.
Australia Post is currently working on a wildlife algorithm to detect live animals that have been smuggled across our border.
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