Drug gangs infiltrate police, customs to aid trafficking through our ports
Organised crime cartels have compromised the nation’s maritime security by placing family members inside police and customs to facilitate their trafficking operations, a secret report reveals.
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Organised crime cartels have compromised the nation’s maritime security by using family members working for various agencies, including police and customs, to help traffic mass consignments of drugs through our ports and wharves.
An Australian Federal Police “highly protected” intelligence report seen by True Crime Australia has flagged the industry “vulnerability”, with weaknesses along the import chain from logistics to transport, including brokerages and trucking groups.
But critically it has warned, gangsters have family or ethnic “clan” members working in law enforcement ranks, including the AFP, Australian Border Force and state police, who are potentially “sleeper” agents waiting to assist with illegal imports.
Those figures were either blood relatives or very close associates from the same historic clan, notably from Balkan nations, standing over “next generation” extended family members to enter the criminal world as crime “enablers”.
“The effective succession plans for the continuation of ‘the business’ provides a seamless network for importation,” the report concludes, adding that, in some instances, family could have been placed in key careers to facilitate imports and money laundering.
It also notes the “significant risks to Australia’s national security” posed by the maritime-related trafficking of biotechnology or weapons for criminal or terrorism purposes if not exposed and prosecuted.
Two recent AFP covert intelligence-led operations identified customs brokers with systems access and the owner of a trucking company with port access that highlighted “entrenched infiltration of logistics and transport industry by Balkan organised crime”, while another looked at the corruption of whole cargo ships and crews to move drugs between nations. A fourth reviewed Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCG) and law enforcement links.
The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI) has been involved in the internal corruption detection within the ranks of the AFP, Australian Border Force (ABF), Home Affairs and other Commonwealth agencies.
The multi-agency Joint Task Force Polaris was created in July 2010 to target not just the waterfront, but the whole supply chain, from the source of the import to its arrival, clearance and dispatch to owner, legitimate or otherwise. It was shut down do to budgetary restraints.
In 2018, ACLEI investigations included an ABF officer at an airport allegedly improperly disclosing sensitive information that was relayed via family and via text to an OMCG member, warning him he was on a federal watchlist. The year before a former ABF and NSW Police officer was arrested after allegedly paying another senior officer $100,000 to help a family-run tobacco smuggling operation.
Originally published as Drug gangs infiltrate police, customs to aid trafficking through our ports
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