FEDERAL police had last night arrested and charged four people in simultaneous raids across Australia related to the Bali Nine drug smuggling syndicate.

About 50 agents went to 14 homes including Greenacre, Lidcombe, Peakhurst and Kings Langley in Sydney, and addresses in Brisbane yesterday.

A 24-year-old Sydney man was arrested and charged with conspiring to import heroin between August 2004 and April 2005.

A 22-year-old man and two women, 21 and 19, were also charged in Brisbane.

A fifth person, believed to be a Brisbane man, was also held and was expected to be charged.

An AFP investigation into the Sydney man, due to appear in Parramatta Bail Court today, found he had made numerous trips to Bali in the past nine months.

Some of the arrests were based on telephone numbers found in mobile phones confiscated from some of the Bali Nine.

But the AFP also had some others under surveillance for some time.

Police have confiscated computers, travel documents and mobile phones and agents also found tape similar to that used by some of the Bali Nine to attempt to smuggle drugs.

More charges were expected to be laid soon.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty would not comment on a link with the nine Australians arrested in Bali last month.

"The information that led to these arrests came from work with the Indonesian National Police," Mr Keelty said.

"It is new information that came directly out of our investigation being conducted in Bali.

"The other development is we now have very strong leads both in Indonesia and Australia to where the heroin came into Indonesia from."

Last month, nine Australians were arrested in Bali accused of trying to smuggle more than 8kg of heroin into Australia.

Five of the nine were arrested at Denpasar airport – four allegedly with packets of the drug strapped to their bodies.

Four other Australians were arrested during a raid on a Kuta hotel.

All nine face a possible death sentence.

Meanwhile, Mr Keelty yesterday said police had made links between a Nepalese drug dealer shot dead by Indonesian police last month and the supplying of drugs to the Bali Nine.

FOUR arrests linked to the Bali nine proved they were part of a larger international drug syndicate, police said yesterday.

The network smuggled heroin into Australia at least three times before the Bali bust, federal police chief Mick Keelty said.

Yesterday's arrests came after 50 officers raided more than a dozen homes in Brisbane and Sydney.

Two women, 21 and 19, and a 22-year-old man were arrested in Brisbane. The elder woman is believed to be a New Zealand citizen.

A 24-year-old man was arrested in Sydney.

They face charges of conspiring to import heroin into Australia between last August and April this year.

Mr Keelty said the four had all travelled to Bali and more arrests were expected.

Information leading to the arrests came from the Indonesian probe into the Bali nine, who are facing the death penalty accused of trying to smuggle 8kg of heroin to Australia.

"The sort of material that the search warrants resulted in was material that is linked to the Bali nine," Mr Keelty said.

"The wrappings and other material that were used by the Bali nine, we've found now similar wrappings indicating previous importations into Australia.

"Also other travel documents and records were seized today."

Mr Keelty said the latest arrests were significant because they proved the AFP's earlier theory that the syndicate was large and had been operating across at least three countries for some time.

"What we will now be alleging is that the arrests that took place in Bali were not over a one-off incident."

He said the AFP and Indonesian police now had strong leads on the heroin's origin, believing it was from Burma.

This meant there were Mr Bigs above the Bali nine, but he did not rule out that at least one of the Bali nine also had a major role.

"We are still working upstream on the Mr Bigs, but one of the things that have to be remembered here is some of the Australians obviously have had a major role in this and it may well be that at least one of the Australians charged in Bali may turn out to be the principal organiser," he said.

Mr Keelty said the AFP was still looking into passports used by the Bali Nine. The Herald Sun revealed last week that alleged ringleader Myuran Sukumaran once worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs' passport office in Sydney.

The AFP's senior agent in Bali Bruce Hill said the latest arrests were a direct result of interrogations of the Bali nine.

"What I can say is that this is a very well-organised, international drug syndicate," he said.

Mr Keelty confirmed that Nepalese citizen Man Singh Ghale, shot dead by police in Jakarta late last month during a raid, appeared to be involved in the syndicate.

"We are still unclear as to what role that person had, but clearly we still have to work back to the origins of the heroin which are more likely to be out of Burma," he said.

MOBILE phones seized from the Bali Nine helped lead federal police to make the first Australian arrests yesterday, with four people accused of at least three previous successful heroin runs into the country.

More than 50 federal agents and Customs officers took part in 14 raids in Brisbane and Sydney yesterday morning based on police interrogations of the accused Bali heroin smugglers and numbers extracted from their phones.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said the international syndicate believed to be behind the operation had been running drugs between Indonesia and Australia for "some time".

Unlike their alleged accomplices in Indonesia, who are facing the death penalty, the Australians and one New Zealander arrested yesterday have been charged with conspiracy to import narcotics, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $750,000 fine.

Three of the four were from Brisbane: a man, 22, and two women, 19 and 21. Also arrested was a 24-year-old man from Sydney.

Police seized valuable evidence pointing to earlier alleged heroin-smuggling operations and believe they have now linked the syndicate to a Nepalese man who had been wanted internationally for drug smuggling and was killed in Jakarta by Indonesian police last week.

"We now have very strong leads, both in Indonesia and in Australia, leading to where the heroin came into Indonesia from. We're working with the Indonesian National Police to follow down those leads," Mr Keelty said.

"The sort of material that the search warrants resulted in was material that is linked to the Bali Nine.

"The wrappings and other material that were used by the Bali Nine, we've found now similar wrappings, indicating previous importations into Australia, through the search warrants that were executed today.

"There are also other travel documents and records that were seized today."

Mr Keelty said it also now appeared one of the Bali Nine was the principal organiser - possibly the man Indonesian police believe is the kingpin, Myuran Sukumaran.

"It may well be that at least one of the Australians charged in Bali may turn out to be the principal organiser," he said.

Asked if he expected more arrests, Mr Keelty replied:

"I do.

"We're still working upstream on the Mr Bigs, but one of the things that has to be remembered here is that some of the Australians obviously have had a major role in this," he said.

The lead AFP agent investigating the syndicate in Bali, Bruce Hill, said the investigation was close to making arrests at the top of the supply chain.

"We have a number of inquiries internationally with other law enforcement agencies," Mr Hill said.

"It's quite a large syndicate operating in the international area, so the syndicate itself could have been operating for many, many years," he said.

Four people accused of being part of an international heroin smuggling ring linked to the Bali nine have been arrested in raids in Sydney and Brisbane.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) claim the arrests prove the nine Australians being held in Bali are part of a larger, international syndicate, and that their alleged drugs mission was not a one-off.

And they admit some of the syndicate's previous attempts to smuggle drugs into Australia have been successful.

Friday's arrests came after about 50 officers executed 14 search warrants in Sydney and Brisbane, AFP commissioner Mick Keelty said.

He expects further arrests.

Two women, aged 21 and 19, and a 22-year-old man will face court in Brisbane on Saturday charged with conspiracy to import heroin into Australia between August 2004 and April this year.

A 24-year-old Sydney man will face court on Saturday on the same charge.

The 21-year-old woman is a New Zealand citizen but the others are Australian.

Mr Keelty alleges the syndicate under investigation had successfully brought in three shipments of heroin, while the four arrested had allegedly travelled to Bali before.

Information leading to the arrests came from the Indonesian police investigation into the nine Australians arrested in Bali, who are facing the death penalty for drug smuggling.

"The sort of material that the search warrants resulted in was material that is linked to the Bali nine," Mr Keelty told reporters.

"The wrappings and other material that were used by the Bali nine, we've found now similar wrappings indicating previous importations into Australia through the search warrants that were executed today.

"Also other travel documents and records were seized today."

Mr Keelty said the arrests were significant because they proved the AFP's earlier theory that the syndicate was large and had been operating across at least three countries for some time.

"What we will now be alleging is that the arrests that took place in Bali were not over a one-off incident."

He said the AFP and Indonesian police also now had strong leads to the origin of the heroin, believed to come from Burma.

This meant there were Mr Bigs above the Bali nine, who would be investigated, but he did not rule out that at least one of the Bali nine also had a major role.

"We are still working upstream on the Mr Bigs, but one of the things that have to be remembered here is some of the Australians obviously have had a major role in this and it may well be that at least one of the Australians charged in Bali may turn out to be the principal organiser," Mr Keelty said.

He also confirmed that Nepalese citizen Man Singh Ghale, shot dead by police in Jakarta late last month following a raid, appeared to be involved in the syndicate.

"Obviously if the person was of Nepalese origin we are still unclear as to what role that person had, but clearly we still have to work back to the origins of the heroin which are more likely to be out of Burma," he said.

Tests are under way on heroin seized in Bali and Jakarta, while police are also checking for traces of heroin found in material seized in Australia on Friday.

The nine Australians arrested in Bali are accused of trying to smuggle more than 8kg of heroin into Australia.

Five of the nine were arrested at Denpasar airport - four allegedly with packets of the drug strapped to their bodies.

Four other Australians were arrested during a subsequent raid on a Kuta hotel.

Australian Federal Police failed to identify the alleged leader of the nine Australians arrested in Bali for heroin smuggling despite surveillance of them and their contacts in Australia, Bali police say.

Federal police's first knowledge of Myuran Sukumaran's alleged involvement was a Bali police report that he had booked into the Hard Rock Hotel with the man the federal police thought was the gang leader, Andrew Chan, 21.

"Sukumaran was not on the list of eight names the AFP gave us as a result of their surveillance in Australia," said a Bali police officer from the undercover team that watched the gang for 11 days before their arrests last month.

"The first we knew about him was through our surveillance of Chan who we followed from the moment of their arrival in Bali on April 6. When we saw them together at the Hard Rock, we asked, who is this man?"

The surveillance failure in Australia caused confusion about Sukumaran's role and importance and might explain why the federal police have not identified the syndicate's distribution network in Australia. The key was Sukumaran, 24, not Chan.

Chan was identified as the syndicate leader through surveillance that began in February at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where Chan worked.

It is believed police were tipped off by workmates who had refused his offers of all-expenses paid holidays to Bali.

They watched Chan and his workmates, Renae Lawrence, 27, Martin Stephens, 29, and Matthew Norman, 18, and another Sydney recruit, Si Yi Chen, 20.

They identified Tach Duc Thanh Nguyen, 27, as Chan's lieutenant in Brisbane, where Nguyen allegedly recruited Michael Czugaj and Scott Rush.

They missed Sukumaran, but have since identified him as a friend of Chan. They spent a lot of time together in what police now suspect were drug activities.

When Sukumaran turned up in Bali, police thought he was a Chan lieutenant and bodyguard.

A week after the arrests interrogators realised Sukumaran was the leader. The insight came from alleged couriers Lawrence, Stephens, Rush and Czugaj.

"It is clear that Sukumaran gave the orders and that Chan passed them on," said Lieutenant-Colonel Bambang Sugiarto, the head of Bali's narcotics bureau.