Operation Ironside: 48 South Australians arrested in organised crime raids

Dozens of South Australians caught up in the Operation Ironside sting have appeared in court.

Two conspiracies to murder, firearms offences, trafficking in huge quantities of drugs and being part of a criminal organisation are among the charges facing South Australians charged as part of Operation Ironside.

A total of 48 South Australians were arrested on Monday and Tuesday by federal and SA police as part of the sting – many of those faced court on Tuesday with some defendants video-linked into the Adelaide Magistrates Court from suburban courts.

Dozens more have been arrested since February last year as part of Operation Ironside.

Magistrate John Wells presided over 41 cases, and heard details of the separate arrests including that one of the accused had 16 phones in his possession, while during a separate raid at another man’s house police found $647,200 in cash in shopping bags.

The first of the latest South Australian arrests appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court about 11.30am on Tuesday, while the last of 39 accused to appear fronted court soon after 5pm.

The court was packed with criminal lawyers and barristers, leading Director of Public Prosecutions Martin Hinton QC to remark that “the majority of the criminal bar is in this room”.

A 35-year-old man charged with two counts of conspiracy to murder did not apply for bail and will return to court in July. Many more of the accused were also adjourned until the same date, while Mr Wells ordered home detention reports for three men who will each return to court next week seeking bail.

Matthew Thomas Cullen, 29, of Christie Downs was granted release on bail, but prosecutors asked the matter be sent to the Supreme Court for review in the coming days.

Mr Hinton told the court the arrests in South Australia come after the AFP were able to “intercept communications on an encrypted app”.

He opposed the release on bail for anyone who was connected to the app, while three people who were not alleged to have used the app were released on bail.

“It is a form of app, an app which you cannot get from the app store ... and you can only get it from an organised crime source,” he said.

“Once you download it on your phone, it disables your phone except for the purposes of the app and it can only then speak to another phone that has that app.

“The only reason to have it is organised crime, is to avoid until now detection by law enforcement agencies.

“It’s an encrypted code that this app uses, the AFP managed to unencrypt the code.”

He said prosecutors were busy compiling the vast amount of information from the AFP and asked for a three-week adjournment for that to occur, before any future court dates could be set.

“For all of these matters that come before your Honour today, we will be seeking the same application for the same reason,” Mr Hinton said.

He said some of the accused would be linked up with people who had previously been charged.

“We will need to join them up with other matters so there is quite a bit of messiness,” he said.

Glen John Smith, 32, Ethram Ronald Hughes, 24, both of Mawson Lakes, and Peter John McMillian, 27, or Rosewater, have all appeared accused of participating in a criminal organisation.

Other defendants expected to face court in the afternoon are accused of trafficking in large commercial quantities of a controlled drug, possessing illegal firearms, ammunition and silencers and a second conspiracy to murder charge.