Operation Ironside uses AFP and FBI secret AN0M app to smash criminal underworld
A murder plot involving a machine gun at a cafe is among the crimes disrupted in a genius police sting that’s smashed Australia’s underworld.
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World Exclusive: Australian Federal Police disrupted a murder plot involving the use of a machine gun in a suburban cafe, Commissioner Reece Kershaw has revealed.
Speaking with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Sydney, Mr Kershaw said Operation Ironside, the police sting of the century revealed on Tuesday, had been able to foil an execution planned by organised crime figures.
“That particular case will come out later on where they were using a machine gun and potentially at a cafe where people would have been no doubt harmed,’’ he said.
“We were able to, with the co-operation of that particular state police force, take out that individual before they were able to do that.’’
Mr Kershaw declined to name the state where the plot occurred, citing future arrests and court appearances of those alleged to have been involved.
He said Operation Ironside had allowed the AFP to “inflict maximum damage to serious organised crime with devastating consequences to those who seek to do harm to Australians and Australia’s interests.’’
“Ironside has arrested and charged who we allege are some of the most dangerous criminals to Australia,’’ he said.
“We allege they are members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, Australian Mafia, Asian crime syndicates and serious and organised crime groups. We allege they’ve been trafficking illicit drugs into Australia at an industrial scale.’’
“We have arrested the alleged kingmakers behind these crimes. Prevented mass shootings in suburbs and frustrated serious and organised crime by seizing their ill-gotten wealth. As of today, we have charged 224 alleged offenders, including 525 charges laid. Shut down six clandestine laboratories and acted on 21 threats to kill, including saving a family of five. And seized 104 firearms and weapons and almost $45 million in cash.
“And these figures are likely to increase over the coming days. Collectively, these alleged offenders are facing jail terms that could run into hundreds of years and some of the charges they are facing carry life imprisonment. ‘’
Mr Kershaw said the communications captured by police from AN0M would come out in court and be available publicly.
“You’ll see that all they talk about is drugs, violence, hits on each other, innocent people who are going to be murdered …. It would be like, ‘I need 1000 kilos at this price’. Very brazen.’’
Mr Kershaw said he believed criminals would “turn on each other’’ as a result of the Ironside revelations.
And he urged fugitive Hakan Ayik, identified by police as one of the “influencers’’ used by police to get the AN0M app into the hands of the underworld, to give himself up to police, hinting he and his young family was in serious danger from other criminals caught in Ironside’s net.
“I think given the threat that he faces, he’s best off handing himself into us as soon as he can,’’ he said of Ayik, who has spent the past decade hiding out in Turkey.
“What you’re seeing is that he was one of the co-ordinators of this particular device. So he’s essentially set up his own colleagues.
“He’s a wanted individual.
“And my view would be the sooner he hands himself in and to look after his family … the better for him and his family.
Asked if Ayik was now a “marked’’ man, Mr Kershaw replied: “Probably, yes.’’
Prime Minister Scott Morrison used the success of Operation Ironside to put pressure on Labor over three pieces of legislation before the parliament, saying law enforcement needed appropriate powers and authority to do its job.
He said the operation had “struck a heavy blow against organised crime – not just in this country, but one that will echo around organised crime around the world.’’
“This is a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history,’’ he said.
He urged support for several pieces of legislation, including on cross-border access to electronic data, and new laws to better weed out suspected criminals holding jobs at ports and airport.
THE STING OF THE CENTURY
Australia’s underworld has been smashed by a genius police sting which tricked Mafia, bikie and global gang heavyweights into delivering their plans straight into the hands of detectives.
In the largest blow ever landed on organised crime in the southern hemisphere, more than 100 people have been charged, 3366kg of drugs and $35.8m in cash seized, 72 firearms confiscated and 1650 devices with the encrypted app Operation Ironside burst into the open.
Those numbers are expected to increase dramatically, with the operation reaching its apex this week with 4000 police raiding properties across Australia.
In an audacious three-year operation, Aussie federal agents were secretly monitoring a trojan horse app operated by the FBI being used by organised crime gangs to plan executions, mass drug importations, industrial-scale money laundering and gun running.
The gangs thought the app – AN0M – put them out of reach of police.
They had no idea the Australian Federal Police could read their messages as they were being sent.
Police will allege senior Australian Mafia figures, feared bikies and members linked to South American drug cartels, Asian Triads and Middle Eastern and European criminal syndicates have been exposed by the sting – the largest in Australian history.
Police say they foiled 21 murder plots, while the trafficking of billions of dollars worth of drugs into Australia, money laundering and gun running were all exposed by the covert operation.
Among those taken into custody was Emmanuel Vamvoukakis, the 40-year-old Sergeant-at-Arms at the NSW south coast Comanchero, who was arrested in a dramatic early morning raid which saw the front door of his home blown off.
In scenes repeated across the country on Monday, other high-ranking bikies as well as suspected drug importers were arrested.
“Today, Australia is a much safer country because of the extraordinary outcome under Operation Ironside,’’ AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said.
“It highlights how extraordinarily effective the AFP is when it works with local and global partners, and takes its fight against transnational organised crime offshore,” he said.
Raids on AN0M users were being carried out across the globe overnight, including in the US, UK, Germany and the Netherlands, while in Australia heavily armed tactical police drawn from across Australia and New Zealand carried out 336 search warrants across every mainland state.
In an operation worthy of a Hollywood script, police were able to crack the nation’s criminal underbelly wide open after intercepting, descrambling and reading 25 million messages sent on the AN0M devices.
An unassuming AFP tech guru who hatched the plan over a few beers with FBI agents back in 2018 worked out how to crack the encrypted messages while sitting on the couch in the loungeroom of his Canberra home a few months later.
The Australian Federal Police then planted the devices with the pre-loaded AN0M into the hands of criminals by using several key criminal “influencers” – Australia’s Mafia Man, and Sydney fugitive Hakan Ayik, who is hiding out in Turkey.
Police say Ayik and Mafia Man convinced their associates to use the devices, a move which gave police real-time access to every message, photograph or voice-message sent.
More than 11,000 people, including 1650 in Australia, used AN0M devices, unaware the Australian Federal Police was eavesdropping on every murder, drug importation and crime they discussed.
“These criminal influencers put the AFP in the back pocket of hundreds of alleged offenders,” Mr Kershaw said.
“Essentially, they have handcuffed each other by endorsing, trusting AN0M and openly communicating on it, not knowing we were watching the entire time.”
Detective Superintendent Des Appleby, a 30-year veteran of the Australian Federal Police, said the culmination of Operation Ironside was “the biggest thing I have ever seen”.
“No other job in Australia has ever got to this size,” he said.
Detective Superintendent Appleby said it would be “breathtaking” for the underworld to find out police had been secretly listening to their deepest secrets for almost three years.
“I think they’ll be shocked to their core that they’ve been stooged this badly. All their thoughts and plans, schemes, and they’re all in the hands of the police.”
News Corp Australia can reveal:
■ Previously untouchable underworld figures and drug lords have been ensnared by AN0M, which gave police invaluable information on their activities.
■ Bikie gangs and criminal syndicates who claimed to be public enemies were doing secret side-deals behind the scenes, making a mockery of their pledges of loyalty and brotherhood.
■ The Comanchero and Lone Wolf outlaw motorcycle gangs were hit hard, with dozens of members and associates arrested.
■ The audacious idea for law enforcement to plant an encrypted device into the underworld was developed over a few beers when two AFP agents were overseas meeting with FBI officials in early 2018.
■ The legacy of Operation Ironside will be felt for years, with police now working on hundreds of criminal charges, seizing tens of millions of dollars in assets, and warning those who used the devices they could expect a knock on the door.
■ The investigation started with three AFP agents working in a windowless office but became so large in recent weeks the AFP shut down large parts of its business except child protection and counter-terrorism.
Detective Superintendent Appleby said Operation Ironside was “60 operations all in one”.
“It involves hundreds of investigators around the country, AFP, state and federal (police), the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, enormous surveillance resources, all the support areas all working on it,” he said.
“There are thousands of people involved in the resolution.”
He said the key to its success had been gaining access to the communications that the criminals had believed were secure and out of reach of law enforcement.
“These people are co-ordinating drugs shipments, murders, assaults on people, money-laundering and they do it in an industrial capacity, it’s just huge,” he said.
“The AFP has been interested in encrypted platforms for 14 years so it’s been working very hard at getting itself to the point where we can actually do these sorts of things.”
AFP Commander of Investigations in NSW Kirsty Schofield said Operation Ironside had shown the sheer volume of illicit drugs being smuggled into the country was “staggering’’ and NSW was at the heart of it, with more than half of the nefarious activity in Australia uncovered on AN0M occurring in that state.
“We are definitely the ground zero of Ironside. It’s become really evident that the preferred location to land drugs in Australia is into New South Wales,’’ Commander Schofield said.
Police had identified 650 targets through Operation Ironside involved in crime in NSW alone, and were executing a staggering 210 search warrants across 85 homes and businesses.
The previous record was 50 search warrants in a single day.
“The scale of offending (identified) on Ironside is unprecedented,” she said.
“We have not seen this sort of activity before, or been aware of it.’’
The disruption to the underworld would be “game-changing’’ and the information obtained from the messages had provided police with unparalleled insight into how the underworld operated and who was involved, she said.
Detective Superintendent Appleby said those who were spruiking the AN0M devices did not know they were being controlled bylaw enforcement officers.
“That’s the deviousness of what we’ve been doing. The criminals have actually been advocating the virtues of our thing not knowing that it’s actually a police thing.”
He said the impact on organised crime would be profound.
“It will shatter their confidence in encrypted apps,” he said.
“They’ll have to essentially go back to the old school, which is passing notes to each other through trusted people.
“In the old days they would go for a walk in the park and make sure they weren’t carrying any devices or things. We had criminals standing in the surf and talking off Bondi Beach.
“So they’ll go back to that sort of stuff. It’s harder, slower.”
Do you know more? Email us at crimeinvestigations@news.com.au
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