A crew from an Australian warship has seized more than 400kg of heroin from pirate smugglers off the Somalia coast during a daring raid.
The drugs were found on a vessel when navy personnel from HMAS Darwin swooped.
The boarding party discovered the contraband hidden in 20 bags on a motorised dhow, 44 nautical miles off Somalia.
Tuesday's bust follows an even bigger haul where more than a tonne of heroin was found in a smuggling vessel off the coast of Kenya in April. This is the second find of its kind in a month. Last month, more than a tonne of heroin - worth $290 million - was also found by HMAS Darwin on a smuggling boat in Kenya. That 1032kg haul was a record find, according to the Department of Defence, and was found in a dhow in the Indian Ocean, about 27 nautical miles east of Mombasa, Kenya.
According to protocol, the seized drugs are tossed overboard and smugglers are released.