One of the biggest breakthroughs in World War II did not involve a shot being fired or a bomb being dropped – it came from a group of British boffins who cracked the Nazi’s secret Enigma code system.
In what prime minister Winston Churchill referred to as the “Golden Eggs”, the capacity to know the enemy’s plans shortened the war and saved thousands of lives.
Victoria’s Chief Commissioner Mike Bush wants to use his version of Golden Eggs – the capacity to break into the encrypted apps used by organised crime cartels to recruit, order gangland hits, and task kids to firebomb businesses and homes.
For that, he needs experts and sophisticated spy hardware that will be part of a $150 million package to be used to set up the Organised Crime Command.
We know this strategy works – a three-year international police sting operation using the underworld ANoM app allowed police to harvest 27 million encrypted messages from 12,000 phones used by 300 criminal syndicates in 100 countries.
Decades ago the greatest tool in the police kit was telephone intercepts. Now only the dumbest crooks talk on the phone.
In the last few days, Bush has been selling his model to tackle organised crime. But is it really that new?
We will come to that.
Instead of concentrating on individual crimes, he wants to gather intelligence to tackle the cartel leaders, many safely hidden away in the Middle East.
Even if you can’t get them, the idea is to create such disruption that the syndicates fragment and die.
The chief commissioner knows he has to sell the changes to his troops, and for this he will take personal responsibility.
We know this from an insightful interview he did years ago when he was New Zealand’s commissioner.
“Seeing senior leaders within that group championing the operating model of change makes a massive difference … My rule of thumb is – and I got this from others, so it’s not my own rule – you need to dedicate at least 60 per cent of your time inside the organisation to driving a transformation.”
Bush is in an ideal position to drive change – he is a one-term, five-year chief commissioner. He does not need to go lightly in the hope of being reappointed.
To understand organised crime, you must first know the rules.
Rule One. Where there is a demand there will be a supply. Organised crime lives in an amoral market. If you want it, they’ll get it.
Rule Two. Organised crime thrives when there is not the political will to fight it. Corruption in the Big Build was ignored for years because of the fear of political consequences. The illicit tobacco market was created because the federal government massively taxes legal brands.
Rule Three. Syndicates cannot expand without the backing of lawyers, accountants and financiers who invest and launder the proceeds.
Rule Four: We get the crime landscape we deserve. Networks become wildly profitable providing us with the drugs, prostitutes and cheap cigarettes we crave.
The other day, authorities seized $50 million of cocaine – it hardly made a headline.
Rule Five: Organised crime will use violence to protect and expand its share of the market. We now wake up to hear weather, traffic and the overnight arson reports.
Rule Six: Crime syndicates can infiltrate and dominate legitimate industries, by providing cheaper options, using laundered funds while failing to pay tax. Illegal refuse tips are an example.
Forget the concept that there is a war against organised crime because that implies there will be a winner. See Rule One – where there is a demand there will be a supply. As long as we want to snort cocaine, someone will import it.
Forget the idea that police have more resources than crooks. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates the cost of organised crime to be around $70 billion a year. Victoria’s share is, at the very least, $17.5 billion. (This does not include the estimated $15 billion creamed off the Big Build).
The Victoria Police budget is $4.68 billion.
Bush says: “We want to simultaneously deprive them of their liberty and assets.”
Cartel bosses such as Tony Mokbel, George Marrogi and Kaz Hamad have been able to pull strings from inside prison because they controlled the wealth. Take the money, take the power.
Bush has been promised tough unexplained wealth laws. If you haven’t had a job for five years, have a criminal record, drive a Lamborghini and own two apartments in Noosa, it is probably fair you answer a few questions about your canny financial planning.
The state government has committed $150 million for the Organised Crime Command over four years. The model has 151 experts and support staff – including code breakers, analysts, lawyers and forensic accountants. Expensive but necessary.
At the completion of that term, and with the right asset-seizure laws, investigations into sophisticated crime cartels should be self-funding.
Over the border in NSW, the Crime Commission’s last annual report shows it seized $80 million ($22 million in unexplained wealth) and froze assets of $160 million.
The traditional way of tackling a crime cartel is to start at the bottom, make arrests, persuade soldiers to become informers, introduce undercover officers, follow suspects and bug their homes and telephones.
Now the soldiers (usually young men) are recruited via encrypted apps using online criminal employment agencies. This means the offenders carrying out the firebombings, bashings and organised car thefts don’t know who they are working for.
For decades organised crime syndicates were portrayed as octopuses – with each arm representing a profitable enterprise – drugs, prostitution, extortion, racketeering and corruption.
The trouble is, like an octopus, chop an arm off and it will grow back. To kill you must aim at the head.
Bush says it is pointless spending investigative resources on crimes that have been committed. “We need to get in front of the game. We can’t continue to chase our tail.”
‘Intelligence will be at the centre of what we do. We want to stop the next gang war before it starts.’
Mike Bush, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner
Police will establish the Intelligence Fusion Centre, gathering information for investigations into serious, organised and terrorism offences.
“Intelligence will be at the centre of what we do. We want to stop the next gang war before it starts.”
As I sat in the chief’s office to be told of this quantum leap into the future, my mind drifted (as it does with disturbing regularity these days), settling back in 1977.
The then-assistant commissioner Mick Miller announced the establishment of the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence to tackle organised crime headed by Fred Silvester (my father).
Miller gave him close enough to a blank cheque. “The size and staffing of the bureau will depend on Mr Silvester.” The final figure was 100, with analysts, surveillance experts, an undercover unit and detectives.
Bush knows there will be pushback as many police are change-averse. As did Miller with some squad detectives jealous of BCI’s resources.
It was quickly dubbed “Freddie and the Dreamers”.
It became the first law enforcement body in Australia to target outlaw motorbike gangs, develop jailhouse informers. It exposed a national network of prisoner supporters that had set up a series of safe houses for escapees, infiltrated armed robbery gangs, moved on corrupt lawyers and disrupted planned gangland hits.
Just as we have heard for years of allegations involving Big Build CFMEU corruption, back then there were similar allegations against the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation.
Information from BCI led to a police investigation, a judicial inquiry and the jailing of union boss Norm Gallagher.
One of the more lateral ideas to sweep up habitual burglars during a 1980 home robbery epidemic was knocked back because it would cost $40,000.
“It is proposed that this Bureau will establish an electrical repair business adjacent to the St Kilda area. Undercover police will circulate amongst the drug addicts in the area for the purpose of advertising that this business will purchase stolen property such as jewellery, television sets, audio and photographic equipment.
“All transactions will be video filmed, still photographed and audio recorded. At a pre-determined date [about six weeks after the shop was set up], all offenders will be dealt with at the same time.”
The trouble with generating intelligence is that you need to act on it. Does anyone seriously doubt that a cursory look at the hundreds of Thai massage shops throughout Victoria wouldn’t find a massive sex-trafficking business?
When Miller became chief commissioner he pushed for the BCI model to go national, knowing that organised crime doesn’t respect borders.
The Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence was established with the noble purpose of sharing information to all Australian law enforcement agencies.
What a joke – some white-anted the joint because they wanted their teams to make the headline-making arrests, and others because an efficient national body might dig up nasty skeletons.
The last thing crooked cops and politicians want is an independent body prepared to open the doors that have been nailed shut.
The ABCI was overseen by a management board consisting of state and federal police commissioners with the direction set by the chair. Not once was Mick Miller appointed to the lead role. Instead, the board voted in Queensland commissioner Terry Lewis – not once but twice.
From our partners
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
