Former Border Force chief warns of London-style attacks in Australia
THE former chief of the Australian Border Force Roman Quaedvlieg fears Melbourne and Sydney are not far away from experiencing terrifying crime sprees like those being seen in London.
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THE former chief of the Australian Border Force Roman Quaedvlieg fears Melbourne and Sydney are not far away from experiencing terrifying crime sprees like that being seen in London as he reveals he is taking legal advice on his acrimonious departure from his high-profile job earlier this year.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Herald Sun, Mr Quaedvlieg maintained he had done nothing to justify being sacked from his $618,000-a-year job as commissioner.
Mr Quaedvlieg, who has three decades’ experience in law enforcement, said he feared Melbourne could soon see moped muggings, acid attacks and more knife crime.
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He was fired in March after being placed on leave for months while an investigation was carried out into how his partner received a job at Sydney Airport.
“I strenuously denied the allegations from the outset and I maintain that position,” Mr Quaedvlieg said.
“I’ve sought and recently obtained legal advice which I’m assessing and therefore it would be imprudent for me to comment publicly on the circumstances of my departure from the role as ABF commissioner.”
Mr Quaedvlieg is now taking his time to decide his next career move. His law enforcement career began in Queensland in the 1980s.
He went into work undercover, infiltrating crime syndicates before later becoming a surveillance officer.
Based with what was formerly the Australian Crime Commission in Melbourne in the early 2000s, Mr Quaedvlieg spent four years working on the underworld killings.
His dangerous work undercover assisted Victoria Police’s Taskforce Purana.
After that, Mr Quaedvlieg moved into the Australian Federal Police before he was named the first Australian Border Force commissioner in July 2015.
The law enforcement expert believed crime trends seen in Europe, in particular London, could soon be replicated in major Australian cities.
“I have been tuned into the issue of crime in Melbourne for a while now,” Mr Quaedvlieg said.
“Melbourne and Sydney are early adaptors of crime trends from overseas. This is more about methodology than volume crime.”
Mr Quaedvlieg believed police in Melbourne should be ready to react to dangerous new trends developing in London.
“Acid attacks are an example. If you had 10 acid attacks in Melbourne over 12 months from a statistical perspective that’s not much,” he said.
But Mr Quaedvlieg believed the effect such attacks would have on the public psyche would be huge.
“The idea of an acid attack in a Melbourne nightclub is terrifying,” he said.
Such attacks, which have happened in London in recent times, would be relatively simple to carry out.
“In Australia we have been adoptive of overseas culture, it’s an effect of the intersection of globalisation and the internet,” Mr Quaedvlieg said.
“Crime is no different and the lag is much shorter than it has been in the past.
“Moped crime (where criminals rob victims before speeding away) and the escalation of knife attacks in London will get picked up in Australia quite quickly.
“It just takes one person in a gang to say, ‘That’s a good idea’. One person does it and then there is copycat behaviour.”
Mr Quaedvlieg believes the road network in Melbourne CBD would make moped attacks a possibility.
“It would be easy for them going through the lanes, through the middle of the city,” he said.
“I suspect it won’t be too long before we see these things.”
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