Latest news with #GregDavis
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The investment chief at $10 trillion giant Vanguard says it's time to pivot away from U.S. stocks
Greg Davis visited Fortune this month dressed like a Wall Street titan—and bearing a very un-Wall-Street message about a tepid future for U.S. July 11, Davis––the president and chief investment officer of Vanguard Group––came to our offices in Manhattan's Financial District for a chat with this reporter. Though Davis works from Vanguard's mother ship (its buildings are all named for British vessels from the Napoleonic wars) in the tiny hamlet of Malvern, Pa., west of Philadelphia, he arrived attired in a tailored gray suit and purple silk tie combo that would have fit right in with the most formal of the investment banking cadre and portfolio managers headquartered Davis's message couldn't have been more contrary to the fashionable view among the neighborhood's rosy prognosticators. The 25-year Vanguard veteran's outlook contradicts the prevailing position advanced by the big banks, research firms, and TV pundits that despite serial years of big gains, U.S. stocks remain a great buy. That bull case rests mainly on optimism that the Big Beautiful Bill's deregulatory agenda and tax cuts will spur the economy, and that the AI revolution promises a new world of efficiencies that will shift earnings to super-fast track going forward. The powerful momentum that has driven the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to all time highs this week bolster their argument for more to come. Davis follows the Vanguard mindset that, arguably more than any other, revolutionized the investing world over the past half-century. The company's founder, John Bogle, created the first index funds for ordinary investors in 1975, following the conviction that funds choosing individual stocks regularly fail to beat their benchmarks after fees, and that a pallet of diversified index funds, and later ETFs, that hold expenses to an absolute minimum, provide the best platform for achieving superior gains over the long-term. The top testament to the enduring validity of the Vanguard model: Over 80% of its ETFs and indexed mutual fund beat their peer-group averages over the past 10 years, measured by LSEG Lipper, largely courtesy of those super-tight expense ratios. The Vanguard model's won such overwhelming favor that it now manages 28% of the combined U.S. mutual fund and ETF universe, and it's gained 7 points in market share in the past decade. At $10 trillion in AUM, it ranks second only to BlackRock among all U.S. asset managers. Besides offering over 400 super-low-cost funds worldwide, Vanguard also provides investment advice as a firm, and through its army of financial advisers. A big part of the Vanguard formula: Periodically rebalancing from securities that get extremely pricey by historical standards into areas that are undervalued versus their norms. In our discussion, Davis provided a master class on how the dollars in profits you're getting for each $100 you're paying for a stock influences future returns, and why now is such a crucial time to shift from what's highly, even dangerously expensive into safe areas that look like screaming buys. Put simply, Davis argues that U.S. equities are a victim of their own success. For Davis, the fabulous ride in recent years virtually guarantees that future returns will prove extremely disappointing versus outsized, double-digit gains investors have gotten used to, and that the investment pros predict will persist. The reason is simple: U.S. stocks have simply gotten so costly that their forward progress is destined to radically slow. 'Our investment strategy group's projection is that U.S. equity market returns are going to be much more muted in the future,' Davis warns. 'Over the past ten years, the S&P returned an average of 12.4% annually. We're predicting the figure to drop to between 3.8% and 5.8% (midpoint of 4.8%) over the next decade.' The basic market math, he contends, points to that outcome. Davis notes that the official price-to-earnings multiple on the S&P now stands at an extremely lofty 29.3. And when Vanguard uses a preferred gauge based on Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller's Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings multiple, or CAPE––a measure that adjusts the PE by normalizing for spikes and valleys in earnings––it concludes that US stocks hover 49% over the top end of the group's fair value range. Davis also points out that corporate profits are now extremely high by historical levels, and hence won't grow nearly as fast from here as their jackrabbit pace of recent years. In other words, don't count on an EPS explosion to solve the valuation problem. In fact, this reporter notes that contrary to what we're constantly hearing about forthcoming double-digit increases in profits, the sprint has already slowed to a stroll. From Q4 of 2021 to Q1 of this year, S&P 500 EPS grew from $198 to $217, or 9.6% in over three years, a puny pace that doesn't even match inflation. Huge gains have knocked portfolios out of balance Davis explained how the longstanding bull market has wildly distorted the standard '60-40' portfolio. That classic construction of 60% stocks and 40% bonds has worked well in many periods, he notes. But today, folks who started at 60-40 a decade ago, and didn't rebalance into bonds as equity prices swelled year after year, are now banking far too heavily on those richly-valued U.S. equities. 'In the past 10 years, interest rates have mainly been very low, so bonds returned only around 2% a year, or 10% less than stocks,' declares Davis. 'So the stock portion kept compounding at a high rate and getting bigger, and the bond portion kept shrinking as a share of the total. As a result, what started as a 60-40 mix is now 80-20 in favor of stocks.' To make matters worse, says Davis, 'U.S. stocks outperformed international equities by 6 percentage points a year in the past decade. So 10 years ago, if you started with the standard split 70% U.S. and 30% foreign, you'd now be at 80% U.S. and 20% foreign.' Hence, sans rebalancing, an investor's overall share of U.S. stocks would have gone from 42% to around two-thirds, a gigantic leap. Those weightings, he says, are lopsided in the wrong direction, in two ways—by holding far too big a percentage of stocks and not enough bonds, and within the equity portion, not owning enough foreign shares. 'If you look at the bond market today and the way yields have risen, we're projecting that you're going to pick up very similar returns in a mix of U.S. and foreign bonds as you'll get in U.S. equities, or also 4% to 5%. So the expectations are comparable, but you'll have much less volatility on the bond side,' avows Davis, adding, 'What's the big advantage to betting on risky stocks when you can get 4.3% on three-month Treasuries?' Hence, Davis makes a daring recommendation: Investors should reverse the classic blend and go with 60% bonds and 40% stocks. For the fixed income portion, he notes, Vanguard's Total World Bond ETF (BNDW) offers a blend of domestic and international fixed income, encompassing government bonds, corporates, agencies, mortgages, and asset backed securities. In addition, Vanguard projects that foreign shares over the next ten years will generate average returns of 7%, waxing the 5% or so for U.S. equities. Hence, Davis recommends that in the 40% dedicated to stocks, investors lean heavily to the international side by splitting the allocation evenly, or 20% and 20%, between stateside and international stocks. The Vanguard FTSE All World ex US ETF (VEU) would fit the slot reserved for the international allotment. In summary, Davis is advising a radical rebalancing for folks who let their U.S. stocks swallow a bigger and bigger part of their portfolios as bonds and international shares underperformed year after year. So here's are allocations he'd recommend for the decade ahead: 60% fixed income, 20% international equities, and—gulp—just 20% in U.S. stocks. Once again, that number compares to the around two-thirds you'd hold in U.S. equities if you'd started at 60-40 ten years ago and just let your gains on U.S. stocks rip without any rebalancing. I ran some numbers on the returns you'd garner in the two scenarios: First, if you don't rejigger and keep holding two-thirds of your portfolio in U.S. stocks, and second, if you do what Davis advocates and put 60% in bonds, and park more of the equity share abroad. In both cases, the projected future return is just over 5% yearly. No big difference in returns over the next decade. So why choose the Davis formula? The edge in making the big shift: The path will be much smoother, predictable, and less nerve-rattling that sticking with a huge over-weighting in U.S. stocks. Of course, Davis recommends rebalancing gradually, and funding as much of it as possible with fresh savings and reinvestment of dividends and high interest payments from fixed income assets. Davis is no fan of cryptocurrencies Davis isn't recommending crypto investing as a means of boosting your returns at a time when U.S. stocks won't come close to matching their past performance. 'I got into this business around the time of the era,' he told me. 'Anything with a behind it went to the moon. Some were actually really good businesses, however the majority were not. Good things can come out of crypto like blockchain, and that technology can reduce costs in the financial sector and improve speed, so we think there are some good fundamental components to it. But to us investing in Bitcoin is speculation.' For Davis, Bitcoin offers none of the advantages of traditional investments that generate interest payments, or earnings that feed capital gains and dividends. 'It's not investing in a cash flow generating business, it's not investing in bonds where you have a commitment to getting a coupon payment every six months, then principal at maturity,' he explains. 'It's basically looking to sell to someone willing to pay more than you did. And the whole idea that a limited supply of Bitcoin will drive up its value is questionable when you consider that there's an unlimited supply of new types of crypto that could be created. So I personally don't get it. Vanguard won't launch a Bitcoin fund. We just don't see it as a core part of an investment portfolio.' Davis grew up on an Army base near Nuremberg, Germany, the child of a father in an Airborne division and a German mother. As a kid, he mainly spoke German, including with his grandmother, and didn't live in the U.S. until age 7. 'When I go to Germany and speak the language, people can tell I've kept the Bavarian dialect,' he declares. He started at Penn State pursuing aeronautical engineering, but lack of skill in mechanical drawing forced him to switch—to a major in insurance. 'Penn State was one of the few schools that offered that unusual major,' he says. Davis went on to get an MBA at Wharton, and after a brief stint in a Merrill Lynch training program, got an offer from Vanguard that would require a move from Wall Street to the sleepy suburbs of Philly. Davis took the job in part because Vanguard was then a fast-growing shop, where he figured his chances of advancement would be better than at a huge bank or brokerage. He was especially attracted to Vanguard's highly unusual 'cooperative' model, where the funds––meaning the investors––are the shareholders. 'So because we have economies of scale where over time our revenues grow faster than expenses, we can rebate that money back to investors by lowering fees,' he says. Davis proudly notes that Vanguard has made 2,000 such reductions in its history, and especially that in February it announced the biggest decrease ever—a cut of $350 million across 68 mutual funds and ETFs in equities and fixed income. Vanguard's whole approach where the objective is to constantly lower fees is highly un-Wall Street. So is Davis's contrarian counsel to follow what the valuations and history tells us, to shift from stocks that are extremely expensive and whose prices can't grow to the sky, despite what the bulls are saying. It's a sobering, cautionary tale. But it's one that makes eminent sense. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The investment chief at $10 trillion giant Vanguard says it's time to pivot away from U.S. stocks
Greg Davis visited Fortune this month dressed like a Wall Street titan—and bearing a very un-Wall-Street message about a tepid future for U.S. July 11, Davis––the president and chief investment officer of Vanguard Group––came to our offices in Manhattan's Financial District for a chat with this reporter. Though Davis works from Vanguard's mother ship (its buildings are all named for British vessels from the Napoleonic wars) in the tiny hamlet of Malvern, Pa., west of Philadelphia, he arrived attired in a tailored gray suit and purple silk tie combo that would have fit right in with the most formal of the investment banking cadre and portfolio managers headquartered Davis's message couldn't have been more contrary to the fashionable view among the neighborhood's rosy prognosticators. The 25-year Vanguard veteran's outlook contradicts the prevailing position advanced by the big banks, research firms, and TV pundits that despite serial years of big gains, U.S. stocks remain a great buy. That bull case rests mainly on optimism that the Big Beautiful Bill's deregulatory agenda and tax cuts will spur the economy, and that the AI revolution promises a new world of efficiencies that will shift earnings to super-fast track going forward. The powerful momentum that has driven the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to all time highs this week bolster their argument for more to come. Davis follows the Vanguard mindset that, arguably more than any other, revolutionized the investing world over the past half-century. The company's founder, John Bogle, created the first index funds for ordinary investors in 1975, following the conviction that funds choosing individual stocks regularly fail to beat their benchmarks after fees, and that a pallet of diversified index funds, and later ETFs, that hold expenses to an absolute minimum, provide the best platform for achieving superior gains over the long-term. The top testament to the enduring validity of the Vanguard model: Over 80% of its ETFs and indexed mutual fund beat their peer-group averages over the past 10 years, measured by LSEG Lipper, largely courtesy of those super-tight expense ratios. The Vanguard model's won such overwhelming favor that it now manages 28% of the combined U.S. mutual fund and ETF universe, and it's gained 7 points in market share in the past decade. At $10 trillion in AUM, it ranks second only to BlackRock among all U.S. asset managers. Besides offering over 400 super-low-cost funds worldwide, Vanguard also provides investment advice as a firm, and through its army of financial advisers. A big part of the Vanguard formula: Periodically rebalancing from securities that get extremely pricey by historical standards into areas that are undervalued versus their norms. In our discussion, Davis provided a master class on how the dollars in profits you're getting for each $100 you're paying for a stock influences future returns, and why now is such a crucial time to shift from what's highly, even dangerously expensive into safe areas that look like screaming buys. Put simply, Davis argues that U.S. equities are a victim of their own success. For Davis, the fabulous ride in recent years virtually guarantees that future returns will prove extremely disappointing versus outsized, double-digit gains investors have gotten used to, and that the investment pros predict will persist. The reason is simple: U.S. stocks have simply gotten so costly that their forward progress is destined to radically slow. 'Our investment strategy group's projection is that U.S. equity market returns are going to be much more muted in the future,' Davis warns. 'Over the past ten years, the S&P returned an average of 12.4% annually. We're predicting the figure to drop to between 3.8% and 5.8% (midpoint of 4.8%) over the next decade.' The basic market math, he contends, points to that outcome. Davis notes that the official price-to-earnings multiple on the S&P now stands at an extremely lofty 29.3. And when Vanguard uses a preferred gauge based on Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller's Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings multiple, or CAPE––a measure that adjusts the PE by normalizing for spikes and valleys in earnings––it concludes that US stocks hover 49% over the top end of the group's fair value range. Davis also points out that corporate profits are now extremely high by historical levels, and hence won't grow nearly as fast from here as their jackrabbit pace of recent years. In other words, don't count on an EPS explosion to solve the valuation problem. In fact, this reporter notes that contrary to what we're constantly hearing about forthcoming double-digit increases in profits, the sprint has already slowed to a stroll. From Q4 of 2021 to Q1 of this year, S&P 500 EPS grew from $198 to $217, or 9.6% in over three years, a puny pace that doesn't even match inflation. Huge gains have knocked portfolios out of balance Davis explained how the longstanding bull market has wildly distorted the standard '60-40' portfolio. That classic construction of 60% stocks and 40% bonds has worked well in many periods, he notes. But today, folks who started at 60-40 a decade ago, and didn't rebalance into bonds as equity prices swelled year after year, are now banking far too heavily on those richly-valued U.S. equities. 'In the past 10 years, interest rates have mainly been very low, so bonds returned only around 2% a year, or 10% less than stocks,' declares Davis. 'So the stock portion kept compounding at a high rate and getting bigger, and the bond portion kept shrinking as a share of the total. As a result, what started as a 60-40 mix is now 80-20 in favor of stocks.' To make matters worse, says Davis, 'U.S. stocks outperformed international equities by 6 percentage points a year in the past decade. So 10 years ago, if you started with the standard split 70% U.S. and 30% foreign, you'd now be at 80% U.S. and 20% foreign.' Hence, sans rebalancing, an investor's overall share of U.S. stocks would have gone from 42% to around two-thirds, a gigantic leap. Those weightings, he says, are lopsided in the wrong direction, in two ways—by holding far too big a percentage of stocks and not enough bonds, and within the equity portion, not owning enough foreign shares. 'If you look at the bond market today and the way yields have risen, we're projecting that you're going to pick up very similar returns in a mix of U.S. and foreign bonds as you'll get in U.S. equities, or also 4% to 5%. So the expectations are comparable, but you'll have much less volatility on the bond side,' avows Davis, adding, 'What's the big advantage to betting on risky stocks when you can get 4.3% on three-month Treasuries?' Hence, Davis makes a daring recommendation: Investors should reverse the classic blend and go with 60% bonds and 40% stocks. For the fixed income portion, he notes, Vanguard's Total World Bond ETF (BNDW) offers a blend of domestic and international fixed income, encompassing government bonds, corporates, agencies, mortgages, and asset backed securities. In addition, Vanguard projects that foreign shares over the next ten years will generate average returns of 7%, waxing the 5% or so for U.S. equities. Hence, Davis recommends that in the 40% dedicated to stocks, investors lean heavily to the international side by splitting the allocation evenly, or 20% and 20%, between stateside and international stocks. The Vanguard FTSE All World ex US ETF (VEU) would fit the slot reserved for the international allotment. In summary, Davis is advising a radical rebalancing for folks who let their U.S. stocks swallow a bigger and bigger part of their portfolios as bonds and international shares underperformed year after year. So here's are allocations he'd recommend for the decade ahead: 60% fixed income, 20% international equities, and—gulp—just 20% in U.S. stocks. Once again, that number compares to the around two-thirds you'd hold in U.S. equities if you'd started at 60-40 ten years ago and just let your gains on U.S. stocks rip without any rebalancing. I ran some numbers on the returns you'd garner in the two scenarios: First, if you don't rejigger and keep holding two-thirds of your portfolio in U.S. stocks, and second, if you do what Davis advocates and put 60% in bonds, and park more of the equity share abroad. In both cases, the projected future return is just over 5% yearly. No big difference in returns over the next decade. So why choose the Davis formula? The edge in making the big shift: The path will be much smoother, predictable, and less nerve-rattling that sticking with a huge over-weighting in U.S. stocks. Of course, Davis recommends rebalancing gradually, and funding as much of it as possible with fresh savings and reinvestment of dividends and high interest payments from fixed income assets. Davis is no fan of cryptocurrencies Davis isn't recommending crypto investing as a means of boosting your returns at a time when U.S. stocks won't come close to matching their past performance. 'I got into this business around the time of the era,' he told me. 'Anything with a behind it went to the moon. Some were actually really good businesses, however the majority were not. Good things can come out of crypto like blockchain, and that technology can reduce costs in the financial sector and improve speed, so we think there are some good fundamental components to it. But to us investing in Bitcoin is speculation.' For Davis, Bitcoin offers none of the advantages of traditional investments that generate interest payments, or earnings that feed capital gains and dividends. 'It's not investing in a cash flow generating business, it's not investing in bonds where you have a commitment to getting a coupon payment every six months, then principal at maturity,' he explains. 'It's basically looking to sell to someone willing to pay more than you did. And the whole idea that a limited supply of Bitcoin will drive up its value is questionable when you consider that there's an unlimited supply of new types of crypto that could be created. So I personally don't get it. Vanguard won't launch a Bitcoin fund. We just don't see it as a core part of an investment portfolio.' Davis grew up on an Army base near Nuremberg, Germany, the child of a father in an Airborne division and a German mother. As a kid, he mainly spoke German, including with his grandmother, and didn't live in the U.S. until age 7. 'When I go to Germany and speak the language, people can tell I've kept the Bavarian dialect,' he declares. He started at Penn State pursuing aeronautical engineering, but lack of skill in mechanical drawing forced him to switch—to a major in insurance. 'Penn State was one of the few schools that offered that unusual major,' he says. Davis went on to get an MBA at Wharton, and after a brief stint in a Merrill Lynch training program, got an offer from Vanguard that would require a move from Wall Street to the sleepy suburbs of Philly. Davis took the job in part because Vanguard was then a fast-growing shop, where he figured his chances of advancement would be better than at a huge bank or brokerage. He was especially attracted to Vanguard's highly unusual 'cooperative' model, where the funds––meaning the investors––are the shareholders. 'So because we have economies of scale where over time our revenues grow faster than expenses, we can rebate that money back to investors by lowering fees,' he says. Davis proudly notes that Vanguard has made 2,000 such reductions in its history, and especially that in February it announced the biggest decrease ever—a cut of $350 million across 68 mutual funds and ETFs in equities and fixed income. Vanguard's whole approach where the objective is to constantly lower fees is highly un-Wall Street. So is Davis's contrarian counsel to follow what the valuations and history tells us, to shift from stocks that are extremely expensive and whose prices can't grow to the sky, despite what the bulls are saying. It's a sobering, cautionary tale. But it's one that makes eminent sense. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Wire
14-07-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Overwatch Imaging Awarded Phase II SBIR by the U.S. Navy
HOOD RIVER, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Overwatch Imaging, a leader in automated airborne intelligence technology, has been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by the U.S. Navy (USN) to develop and demonstrate AI-enabled, automated imagery intelligence software for electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensor platforms. By reducing reliance on human operators to perform repetitive and focus intensive EO/IR functions, this solution will accelerate the flow of actionable intelligence while freeing operators to focus on more complex situational awareness and decision-making. Share Under the two-year Phase II effort, Overwatch Imaging will deliver a solution to automate sensor control, real-time AI-based image analysis, data-reduced intelligence packaging, and seamless integration with USN mission systems. The project will provide capabilities compatible across all USN aircraft that lower operator workloads, utilize existing systems and data, increase speed of intelligence delivery, and provide real-time situational awareness to tactical and strategic leadership. This solution will build on Overwatch Imaging's commercially available Automated Sensor Operator (ASO) software, expanding it for USN-specific, joint, and U. S. Coast Guard mission contexts and operational environments. The U.S. Navy published its Priority Technology Areas in a June memo with a goal of 'accelerating the adoption of emerging technologies that will allow us to outpace adversaries and ensure readiness in an unpredictable world.' The first priority listed in the memo is AI / Autonomy, which is noted as capable of 'enabling decision advantage and enhancing the ability of human-machine teaming.' Specifically, the AI / Autonomy Level 1 priority is for 'AI-driven solutions for real-time data analysis and automated decision-making to enhance operational effectiveness.' This work is perfectly aligned with the Navy's technology priority as it enables seamless integration of AI / Autonomy into its existing and new imaging systems, in time to make a difference against current and emerging threats. 'This award represents an important step forward in our efforts to deliver a scalable, mission-ready solution for Naval operations facing time-critical detection challenges,' said Greg Davis, Founder and CEO of Overwatch Imaging. 'By reducing reliance on human operators to perform repetitive and focus intensive EO/IR functions, this solution will accelerate the flow of actionable intelligence while freeing operators to focus on more complex situational awareness and decision-making tasks.' This award follows a successful Phase I research effort and reinforces Overwatch Imaging's role as a key innovator in defense-oriented autonomous intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) solutions.
1News
11-06-2025
- 1News
QLD men jailed over cocaine concealed in sneakers, food
Two Queensland men have been sentenced over a plot to import more than 100g of cocaine in a package of sneakers and food. An investigation began on June 6 last year, when Australian Border Force (ABF) officers examined an air cargo consignment that had arrived in Australia from Peru. Inside the shoebox they found 131g of a white powder hidden inside a pair of sneakers, with food items also filling the box. Forensic tests found the substance to be pure cocaine. The ABF reported it to the AFP, where officers seized the cocaine and replaced it with a substitute. ADVERTISEMENT Forensic tests found the substance was 103.2g of pure cocaine. (Source: AFP) The AFP then facilitated a controlled delivery of the item to a parcel collection point in Darwin on June 12. The following day two men, aged 35 and 36, were arrested when they attempted to collect the consignment. In May, the 35-year-old man pleaded guilty to attempting to possess a marketable quantity of an unlawfully imported border-controlled drug. His accomplice, 36, pleaded guilty on the same date to one count of aiding and abetting an attempt to possess a marketable quantity of a border-controlled drug. Both were sentenced in the Darwin Supreme Court yesterday, receiving three years' imprisonment and 18 months' imprisonment respectively. AFP superintendent Greg Davis said the AFP worked closely with ABF and other partners to stop criminals from smuggling illicit drugs into Australia. ADVERTISEMENT "While it might seem like a relatively small amount of cocaine, it has an estimated street value of more than AU$65,900 (NZ$70,980) and equated to hundreds of individual street deals of 0.2 grams," he said. "In 2022-23 there were 985 cocaine-related hospitalisations nationally, more than two each day on average." He said this put health systems under "immense pressure". 'The AFP, ABF and our partners are committed to stopping illicit drugs from entering Australia and inflicting harm in our communities."
West Australian
11-06-2025
- West Australian
Sneaker smuggling plot comes undone after cocaine found in hidden package
Two Queenslanders have been jailed for their roles in a plot to smuggle cocaine concealed in sneakers into the Northern Territory. The two men planned to import more than 100g of the drug using a shoebox filled with sneakers and food, the police claim. Pictures released by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Border Force show a white powder substance stuffed beneath the soles of a pair of sneakers. The package was initially intercepted in June 2024 when ABF officers found the 131 grams concealed bag of cocaine in an air cargo shipment from Peru. The AFP conducted a 'controlled delivery' of the cocaine at a parcel collection point in Darwin on 12 June 2024, where they arrested the two men who unwittingly attempted to collect the parcel – which had been substituted with another white powder. One of the men, 35, was sentenced to three years in prison, and must serve 15 months before being released on a 21-month suspended sentence. The other man, 36, was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment, and having already served six months will be released on a 12-month suspended sentence. Both men pleaded guilty to their charges in May last year. AFP Superintendent Greg Davis said the federal police had worked closely with the border force to stop criminals smuggling drugs across the border. 'While it might seem like a relatively small amount of cocaine, it has an estimated street value of more than $65,900 and equated to hundreds of individual street deals of 0.2 grams,' Supt Davis said. 'The AFP, ABF and our partners are committed to stopping illicit drugs from entering Australia and inflicting harm in our communities.' ABF Commander Tracie Griffin said that the jailing of the two men showed law enforcement agencies' determination to stop drug smuggling and to disrupt criminal syndicates. 'If you try to profit from the harm caused by illicit drugs, no matter how you attempt to hide them, the ABF and our partners will find you and bring you to justice,' Cmdr Griffin said.
