AN Ealing man is among a group of six charged and held in prison following the seizure of 450kg of MDMA hidden in an excavator that was shipped to Australia.

Stefan Baldauf, 61, of Midhurst Road in Northfields appeared at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday, April 6, along with five other men and they were all remanded to appear again on April 16 for a pre-trial hearing.

The men were all charged with conspiring to export Class A drugs after a joint investigation between the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

On March 15 2020, officers at the Port of Brisbane discovered the drugs hidden in a specially adapted boom of the excavator.

It had been lined with lead to mask the 226 packages of MDMA concealed inside.

After being emptied of its illegal load, the excavator was delivered to its intended recipient in Sydney.

EncroChat messages sent between January and June 2020 were analysed by NCA investigators and helped uncover the criminal acts.

They detailed plans to purchase the excavator in the UK, hand-drawn illustrations of the concealment within the boom, costs relating to the importation and confirmation that it had been loaded onto a vessel in Southampton on January 24 and arrived in Brisbane seven weeks later.