The rows stretch for so far as the attention can see, a bounty of wholesome inexperienced leaves rising out of the brown soil.
However, as particular brokers working beneath Operation Greyhound found, the sector of inexperienced was truly an unlawful crop of tobacco which might have yielded 250,000 kilograms of product, value a staggering $42 million in misplaced taxes.
The Australian Taxation Workplace-led Operation Greyhound discovered the crop in Koraleigh, within the Riverina area of NSW.
Operation Greyhound brokers, which included NSW Cops, destroyed the 24 acres of tobacco with a purple tractor, which shredded the sector row-by-row.
Brokers additionally seized a selecting machine and water pump from the farm, which the ATO stated was linked to the legal underworld.
"The quantity of illicit tobacco discovered is equal to the load of 13 bulldozers," performing ATO assistant commissioner Megan Croaker stated.
"This was a complicated, organised operation."
She stated the ATO was decided to detect, disrupt and dismantle crime syndicates who develop illicit tobacco.
"Organised criminals view the illicit tobacco commerce as low-risk and high-reward, however this merely is not the case," she stated.
"By stopping illicit tobacco from going from crop to buy, it creates a degree taking part in subject for small companies."
It has been unlawful to develop tobacco in Australia for greater than a decade.
Penalties for rising, promoting or possessing illicit tobacco are vital.
If convicted, criminals can withstand 10 years' imprisonment, and as much as a $330,000 effective, or each.
The ATO estimates illicit tobacco value the Australian group $909 million in misplaced tax income annually, cash that's as a substitute channelled into organised legal actions.