Operation Ironside: AFP’s Nigel Ryan reveals new AN0M hit list of organised crime targets

The AFP’s top cop has revealed who they are targeting next as part of the AN0M sting and warned Australia needs to treat organised crime like terrorism.

Australia needs to treat organised crime as a national security issue and take it as seriously as terrorism, one of the nation’s most senior police officers has declared.

Nigel Ryan, assistant commissioner of the Australian Federal Police’s crime command, said organised crime was responsible for multiple deaths, serious assaults and undermining the nation’s economy, yet was treated by the public with “casual indifference.’’

Mr Ryan said the Australian community should be “extremely concerned’’ about the impact of organised crime.

“We have done an extremely good job in terms of countering terrorism in this country and we have been extremely lucky, we have been well-protected by law enforcement in that regard,’’ he said.

“But if you look at organised crime, there’s a real casual indifference to the impact.

“There are people being assaulted, there are people being murdered, our economy is being compromised, our supply chain’s compromised and people don’t seem to give it much of a concern, which is concerning in its own right.’’

Nigel Ryan, assistant commissioner of the Australian Federal Police’s crime command. Picture: AFP

Terrorism in Australia is targeted by federal, state and territory police working together, and backed up by the nation’s intelligence agencies.

By contrast, state, territory and the federal police often work independently when tackling organised crime figures or specific syndicates.

Last month, organised crime took a heavy hit when 4500 state, territory and federal police officers raided homes across the country, arresting almost 300 people on a range of drug-trafficking and money-laundering offences.

The charges came as part of the three-year AFP-led investigation known as Operation Ironside, in which police secretly tracked the communications of alleged organised crime figures in Australia and overseas through the use of a Trojan horse encrypted app known as AN0M.

Mr Ryan, who led Operation Ironside, said the investigation had given police greater insight into the sheer scale of organised crime in Australia, including the activities of bikies, the Mafia, ethnic crime gangs, corrupt figures in the nation’s supply chains, and international drug-trafficking syndicates.

Criminal syndicates targeted under AFP-led Operation Ironside, specifically Operation Rega EC. Picture: AFP

The AFP said the investigation had seen police disrupt 21 murder plots, seize more than $50 million in dirty cash and four tonnes of drugs and take possession of more than 130 firearms including assault rifles and machine guns.

The enormous quantities of drugs, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would have resulted in numerous deaths by overdoses, traffic accidents and drug-fuelled violence.

The AFP’s 2021 biannual drug priority guide states that between 1997 and 2018, there were 3265 deaths in Australia where drugs known as amphetamine-type stimulants were involved.

The data, obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, also shows 824 deaths in that period were directly attributed to the use of amphetamine-type stimulants.

By contrast, terror-related violence in Australia has been suppressed to the point it has resulted in fewer than 10 deaths on Australian soil over same period.

A number of potentially deadly plots were disrupted by law enforcement agencies.

“People are quite rightly fearful of terrorism but I think we should be equally fearful of the impact of organised crime because of what it is doing in our communities,’’ Mr Ryan said.

“People are being assaulted, people are being killed, the legitimate economy is being affected and our supply chain is being compromised.

A firearm seized during Operation Ironside. Picture: Queensland Police

“I really think it’s time the community should look at organised crime as a national security issue in its own right as we would with terrorism.

“My concern is really about protecting the community … making sure that police are doing their very best with what we have in a collaborative manner so we can put as much pressure on the criminal environment as we can.’’

Mr Ryan said the arrests which have flowed from Operation Ironside were just the start, with police expecting to spend months analysing the 25 million messages sent over the platform, and years prosecuting those charged.

“The arrests you’ve seen are a very small percentage of the target packages that we have looked at so far,’’ he said.

Police would now focus on bringing to justice crime figures who were living offshore and directing criminal activities in Australia.

Trusted insiders – people working in freight forwarding, at airports, sea ports and elsewhere in the nation’s supply chain – were also being targeted.

Police make an arrest in Glenroy, Melbourne, during Operation Ironside.

“The platform has identified a number – I am talking dozens – of trusted insiders who are compromising our supply chains and they’re going to be a primary focus for us in the interim,’’ Mr Ryan said.

“They are in the supply chain, so logistical type jobs, transport, you’ve got people on wharves, in airports, you’ve got lawyers, you’ve got financiers, those types of things. There’s accountants. There’s facilitators as well as those that sit within the supply chain itself from a logistical point of view.

“We have a list (of people). The list is quite extensive, so we will work our way through.

“We’ve already got the evidence so those people are probably fairly nervous knowing we are tracking them down and putting briefs of evidence together to put them before the courts for what they have done.

“The important focus will be on the trusted insiders because we need to remove them from the supply chains and also concurrently the offshore targets, some of the Mr Bigs of organised crime, it’s very important for us to be able to either arrest them or disrupt them or take them out of business.’’

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Originally published as Operation Ironside: AFP’s Nigel Ryan reveals new AN0M hit list of organised crime targets