AFP investigators crack down on money launderers after FBI intel

The AFP have seized millions of dollars across the country during major investigations into money laundering syndicates, with some of the intel provided by the FBI.

Australia’s top cops have cracked down on money launderers who are using sophisticated schemes to move crime profits offshore for gangs and high-value criminals, seizing more than $5 million in cash and 500kg of drugs.

After US authorities successfully dismantled an international cocaine and money laundering hub as part of Operation Money Maker, Australian Federal Police followed intelligence from the FBI, busting 16 people involved in money laundering and organised crime syndicates across the country.

Cash seized during the AFP investigations. Picture: AFP

Throughout their investigations, which began in 2018, investigators and specialists from the AFP, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, Australian Border Force, and the NSW Police Force identified that more than $320 million of suspected proceeds of crime had been laundered from Australia to US, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Netherlands and Spain.

Through Operations Hermoor, Todorka and Vitellius the AFP gathered vital intelligence and seized $5 million in cash and more than 500kg of methamphetamine and cocaine.

AFP Superintendent Dean Chidgey said while people were being busted in Australia, the heads of the money laundering syndicates were overseas, and their tactics had evolved from cleaning money through a car wash business.

“It’s not like the traditional olden days of money laundering you see in gangster movies … where they would buy a business and launder funds through a pizza shop or dry cleaner,” he said.

AFP Superintendent Dean Chidgey. Picture: Sean Davey

“That’s an old methodology, the current money organisations don’t care about ethnicity or familial line or which outlaw motorcycle group they are working for, they provide a service.”

Supt Chidgey said daigou operations had been identified as one of the key ways money was being laundered by crooks and moved offshore.

Daigou, which translates to “surrogate shoppers’’, are legal businesses that operate by sending personal shoppers into Australian stores and supermarkets to bulk buy high-value items such as baby formula, expensive jewellery and designer handbags, which are sent overseas for resale.

While they are often legitimate businesses, the AFP has discovered some are buying their goods using cash generated through criminal undertakings.

Through Operation Todorka, the AFP discovered two Sydney men allegedly funnelling millions of dollars from the sale of drugs through a daigou business on behalf of their alleged criminal clients.

A bag with avocados on it ...

... was filled with cash.

Last August, Wang Wuchen, 37, of Carlingford, was arrested in Auburn outside a Chinese daigou business, while Ma Jiyuan, 40, of Dundas Valley, was arrested leaving a pokies pub in Ermington.

It was alleged the two Sydney men funnelled millions of dollars from the sale of drugs through the daigou business on behalf of their alleged criminal clients.

Both men have since pleaded guilty to the charges against them and are due to be sentenced in the NSW District Court next year.

Supt Chidgey said money moved offshore through these laundering schemes was not deposited into Australian bank accounts, meaning it could not be tracked.

“It’s prolific, what we know is considerable, there are potentially billions of dollars a year of criminal drug proceeds being laundered offshore,” he said.

“We’re all going to work, working our butts off to put our kids through school driving a Holden Commodore and you’ve got these crooks driving Ferraris in houses on the water and that’s where it should resonate, there’s a real flow on effect.”

Through Operations Hermoor, Todorka and Vitellius the AFP has seized $5 million in cash. Picture: AFP

Operation Hermoor was the AFP’s first major money laundering investigation sparked by intel from the FBI’s Operation Money Maker, followed by Todorka and Vitellius.

Operation Vitellius commenced in June 2020 as a result of intelligence surrounding a

suspicious consignment bound for Australia.

The organised crime syndicate allegedly cloned legitimate Australian companies without their knowledge and purported to be a person from that company in order to facilitate the importation of goods which concealed border controlled drugs.

So far nine people have been sentenced for their roles in the syndicates. The six people charged as part of Hermoor were all charged with money laundering offences, with four of them also charged with tobacco importation.

They received a combined total of eight years and three months’ jail. Two men and one woman charged with money laundering offences have been sentenced as part of Operation Todorka. They received a combined total of 5 years and two months’ imprisonment.

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