The world's largest haul of Ecstasy has been seized after being hidden in tins of tomatoes and shipped from Italy to Australia.

Police said they found 15million pills weighing almost five tons, with a street value of £200million.

It arrived in Melbourne in June last year and following a tip-off, officers raided a shipping container and found more than 3,000 tins, each weighing more than 3lb.

Australian Federal Police say they have smashed an international drug syndicate following the world's single largest seizure of 4.9 tons of Ecstasy

Police have arrested 21 people following the raid after the tablets were concealed in 3,000 tins of tomatoes

The Ecstasy was described today by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as the biggest haul of the drug anywhere in the world.

Police said 21 people had been arrested in connection with the raid.

Customs officials replaced the Ecstasy with an inert substance and monitored the consignment but the arrests were brought closer two weeks ago when a coffee bean shipment carrying 330lb of cocaine was detected in Melbourne.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said the drugs were part of a global syndicate and the seizures would be ‘a major disruption to transnational organised crime, both in this country and abroad.’

The drug haul had been kept secret until now to allow the AFP and Customs to carry out their investigations.

‘There have been 185,000 telephone intercepts in this operation, there have been 400 members of the AFP deployed to this operation, there have been 10,000 hours of surveillance deployed to this operation to find the perpetrators of the world’s largest seizure and importation into our country,’ Commissioner Keelty said.

The Ecstasy haul is estimated to be worth at least £205million

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He said Australian and European police were attempting to stop the syndicate from trafficking and that search warrants had already been issued in Belgium and the Netherlands.

‘It is classic organised crime and we have done our best to shut down the syndicate,’ he told reporters.

Commissioner Keelty said the syndicate was allegedly still able to traffic drugs even though it had lost the massive 4.9 tons shipment, underlining the apparent demand for illicit substances in Australia.

‘There are not many boardrooms in Australia where you would write off half a billion dollars worth of a commodity or a product and continue your business,’ he said.

‘What we have to do is reach out to the youth of the country and reduce demand.’

Commissioner Keelty said related searches in Europe had already uncovered large amounts of cash and a cache of firearms.

Meanwhile, the Australian investigation had also identified a money laundering operation worth more than nine million dollars.

So far, 13 people had been charged with a range of offences in Australia including conspiracy to import ecstasy and precursor chemicals, an Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said.

Customs chief executive Michael Carmody said the bust was the result of ‘small snippets of information.’

‘This is a great result. This is what makes getting up in the morning and coming to work worthwhile,’ Mr Carmody said.