Syndicate allegedly bribed ABF officers to smuggle drugs into Australia

BORDER Force official Craig Eakin (pictured) is among those arrested as part of a series of raids targeting organised crime in Australia and the Middle East this week.

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THEY stopped two million ecstasy tablets and 80 bricks of cocaine hitting our streets this week.

But it was laying charges against members of the infamous Jomaa family and locking up their allegedly corrupt operatives inside Australian Border Force which has given the greatest joy to the federal police in charge of Operation Astatine.

A man arrested in relation to Operation Astatine. Picture: AFP

Alleged kingpin of the crime syndicate, 47-year-old Koder Jomaa was arrested in Dubai on Tuesday as his brothers Ali Jomaa, 42, and Abbas Jomaa, 54, were taken into custody in Rockdale in Sydney’s south. They have both been charged with offences relating to drug importation, directing a criminal group, conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and smuggling.

ABF team leader Craig Eakin, 42, and former border cop-turned NSW Police employee Johayna Merhi, 41, were also arrested in Sydney.

Craig Eakin is arrested by police.

Eakin, pictured, spent almost 20 years with the Border Force.

The pair allegedly used their decades of customs expertise to create a porous border for the Jomaa family.

Koder Jomaa, pictured in Dubai, was arrested earlier this week.

“The biggest part of this operation is who we’ve arrested and who we’ve taken into custody,” Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Guaghan said.

The Jomaa family has been on the police radar for a decade and, they allege, were planning to import 200kg of the drug MDMA which never made it here.

Assistant Commissioner Guaghan would not name Koder Jomaa in today’s press conference to protect extradition proceedings under way in Dubai but said police claim the 47-year-old arrested there was the group’s criminal mastermind.

“We’ll allege this man was actually the head of the syndicate,” Assistant Commissioner Guaghan said.

He quit Sydney for Dubai three years ago after the collapse of his marriage and swiftly set up a healthy eatery and delivery service Fit Food Kitchen in the exclusive Jumeirah Lake Towers.

“He is well known to law enforcement and previously thought he could flee from authorities and conduct his criminal enterprise off shore,” Assistant Commissioner Guaghan claimed.

Operation Astatine seized 80kg of cocaine during the raids.

Eakin, of Brighton-Le-Sands, was a 19-year veteran of the Australian Border Force before his arrest on Tuesday and ran a department responsible for pouring over paper work to detect suspect shipments.

He has been stood down without pay and charged with offences including smuggling, bribery, abuse of public office and assisting a criminal group.

Court papers state that between March 21 and Tuesday at Mascot, Eakin allegedly made unauthorised accesses to ABF data in a computer and passed on that information to a crime syndicate to help them sneak the contraband into Australia.

Merhi, from Hurstville, left border control in 2015 after a long period on leave and had taken up a cultural liaison role with NSW Police in recent weeks. She has been charged with conspiracy to bribe, smuggling, assisting a criminal group and dealing in proceeds of crime.

Police at the sceneof one of the raids in Sydney on Tuesday.

“Her association with the Jomaa family is well known, it’s been long established,” Mr Guaghan said.

Both Eakin and Merhi came to the ABF’s attention during a 2014 integrity review but they have lacked enough evident to charge them until now.

The Jomaa syndicate also allegedly imported more than 50 million illegal cigarettes.

Operation Astatine officers seized almost $750,000 in cash, about 80kg of cocaine and firearms in raids across the city on Tuesday.

Abbas Jomaa was arrested in the AFP raids this week.

They were unrelated to the Veyda raids which netted three direct relatives of Kings Cross club lord John Ibrahim who has not been charged with any offence.

Also arrested over the syndicate on Tuesday were 44-year-old David Reda of Arncliffe, charged with aiding the importations and being part of a criminal group.

Mascot man Tony Chidiac, 58, Mohamad Elkodhr, 51, from Edmondson Park were charged with smuggling and dealing in the proceeds of crime and 52-year-old Queenslander Keith Findley was charged with attempted possession.

Chidiac, Elkodhr and Reda were granted bail this week, while the rest remain in custody awaiting court hearing this month and next.