How Roman Quaedvlieg caught a mafia boss while working undercover

As an undercover officer, Roman Quadevlieg infiltrated mafia families in Australia. This is how he exposed them. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST.

“You’ve got me”.

That was how a mafia boss reacted when he saw undercover cop Roman Quaedvlieg walk into the interview room.

The former Australian Border Force Commissioner had been working for months undercover, looking after drug crops across outback Queensland.

Following a series of raids, the Griffith mafia boss was taken to a police interview room where he was quizzed about the sophisticated drug trafficking operations.

“He denied anything to do with the allegations that be put to him. In fact, he denied ever having been in Queensland for more than 20 years,” Mr Quaedvlieg told The Mafia’s Web podcast.

But part way through the interview, Mr Quaedvlieg walked into the room.

Roman Quaedvlieg worked undercover with the mafia before going on to become Australian Border Force Commissioner Pictures: Jack Tran

Quaedvlieg spent several months as an undercover cop infiltrating the mafia, and looking after marijuana crops in Queensland.

“We had a word worked out, which was my cue, which was sort of a key word,” Mr Quaedvlieg said.

“And when the word was spoken, I walked through the door and the detective said, I would like to introduce you to one of my colleagues, Detective Sergeant Quaedvlieg, and I walked in the door and he looked at me and he hung his head and he goes, You’ve got me? Because he knows pretty hard to deny anything at that point in time.”

The successful sting focused on drug crops near St George, 500km west of Brisbane.

Struggling farmers there had been seduced into growing cannabis crops for the Griffith based mafia.

Once they were in, they couldn’t escape.

Mr Quaedvlieg was introduced into the mafia world by a middleman who would target the struggling farmers and act as a go-between.

Quaedvlieg as an undercover cop in Queensland. Picture: Supplied.

Quaedvlieg on one of his many undercover jobs.

“The modis operandi of this particular crime family was if they did it once then they had the farmer on the hook,” he said.

“And they would continue, despite the farmers protestations, to grow marijuana crops on his land, because they had him by the short and curlies.”

Mr Quaedvlieg became entrenched in the mafia world and spent months monitoring, or “sitting” on marijuana crops in outback Queensland.

He ended up becoming a supervisor for major marijuana crops.

“We drove out inspected the property, we then spent a couple of days preparing the ground, laying the irrigate, replaying the irrigation piping, which the farmer had already bought, setting up the water supply, and then working through the mathematics of how many plants we could grow,” he said.

Media reports of the arrests linked to Quaedvlieg's undercover work.

Anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, who disappeared from Griffith in July 1977.

“Once that was done, an order would be placed and it was placed to Griffith. A week later, a truck full of seedlings, were brought up 7000 seedlings are brought up into the crop and planted.”

The sting led to a series of arrests, but didn’t crack the mafia wide open.

“To my point about him being old school, he never gave anyone else up,” Mr Quaedvlieg said.

Episode two of the Mafia’s Web podcast also looks at the disappearance of prominent anti-drugs crusader Donald Mackay.

Mr Quaedvlieg revealed that during his undercover work a mafia boss had told him that there had been heated debate about whetherto assassinate Mr Mackay, who was a well known furniture store owner and aspiring politician in Griffith, NSW

Mr Mackay’s remains have never been found, despite repeated searches, and the Griffith mafia was blamed for his disappearance

Originally published as How Roman Quaedvlieg caught a mafia boss while working undercover