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Victoria Police's mighty 7.4 tonne Lenco BearCat armoured truck was towed away from the four-hour siege site in St Albans yesterday on the back of a flatbed tow truck.
Officers have stormed a house in St Albans, Melbourne, after they were fired at while attempting to carry out a drug raid. Vision courtesy Seven News Melbourne
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Officers have stormed a house in St Albans, Melbourne, after they were fired at while attempting to carry out a drug raid. Vision courtesy Seven News Melbourne
A police spokesperson confirmed the armoured vehicle came unstuck when it snagged on a part of the property's fence it was ram-raiding.
"Wire in the fence has hooked onto a transmission fluid line under the vehicle and it's dislodged the line," he said. "Rather than risk damage to the vehicle, they just flatbedded it."
The Canadian-made armoured vehicle is the only one in Victoria Police's collection.
The vehicle, which belongs to the Special Operations Group, was used as a battering ram after a drug raid turned into a four-hour standoff in Melbourne's northwest on Monday morning.
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Dozens of tactical police crawled the neighbourhood and local schools were placed in lockdown after officers were allegedlyy shot at by 33-year-old Nghi Le. He is accused of having ties to an international drug syndicate.
When police finally stormed the Levenia Street property shortly before 10am, they were confronted with an empty house containing a clandestine laboratory and chemicals believed to be for the manufacture of drugs.
Victoria Police's Lenco BearCat is towed from the scene of the St Albans siege. Photo: Penny Stephens
Assistant Commissioner Steve Fontana said Mr Le had been able to escape under the cover of darkness after firing at police when they arrived at his property about 6am.
He said Mr Le fired two shots at police, and one police member returned fire, but no one was believed to have been injured in the shooting.
Detectives at the St Albans property on Monday. The rammed fence is seen in the background. Photo: Penny Stephens
"He did fire on police when they were going to enter the address, police did retreat for a short period, it was dark," he said. "Whilst we had the area covered off he managed to sneak out of the address very quickly whilst under the cover of dark.
"It's a high-risk operation. We did the risk assessment, and this can happen on a day-to-day basis. We certainly had the resources but they weren't expecting this offender to be armed and fire at police."
A heavily armoured vehicle tears down the fence at the St Albans property. Photo: Seven
Mr Le was arrested without incident after handing himself in to police in the CBD about 4.30pm.
The raid was part of an operation targeting an international drug-trafficking syndicate. Seven others were arrested while drugs and firearms were seized during raids in St Albans, Maribyrnong, Sunshine, Cairnlea, and two properties in the CBD.
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