CANBERRA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Federal authorities in Australia have charged three men over an alleged plot to import over 1 ton of liquid methamphetamine into the country in juice bottles.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Tuesday said that the men, aged 30, 35 and 43, from the northeastern state of Queensland have each been charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border-controlled drug.

If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

The AFP said that it launched an investigation in May after the Canada Border Services Agency allegedly identified 1.2 tons of liquid methamphetamine hidden in juice bottles that had arrived in Vancouver from Brazil and were bound for Australia.

The illicit drug was removed from the packages and replaced with an inert substance, the AFP said, and the shipment continued to Brisbane.

The three men were arrested earlier in September after the shipment was delivered to a property in the town of Jimboomba, approximately 40 kilometers south of Brisbane.

According to the AFP, the liquid methamphetamine has a street value of 400 million Australian dollars (269.9 million U.S. dollars) once converted into crystal methamphetamine and could have equated to four million street deals.

"The cost to our society from 4 million hits of crystal methamphetamine cannot be overstated," AFP Acting Commander Adrian Telfer said in a statement.

"If converted to crystal meth and sold into the Australian community, this amount of liquid methamphetamine would have led to domestic violence, assaults and contributed to the road toll, as well as lined the pockets of organized crime."

Testing by Canadian authorities revealed the liquid methamphetamine allegedly had a purity level of 89 percent. The AFP said it would conduct its own forensic testing to confirm the purity. Enditem

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