Old Akro
I would have thought that if the Merlin III was intended for drug running you'd put 350kg of drugs in it - not 35 kg and land & unload it somewhere remote.
My thoughts would be that some 300+kg of drugs was offloaded somewhere, even at Wollongong, but they were disturbed in the act and this is what was hurriedly left behind. Or perhaps the remaining 35kg was kept for personal use.