Police seized $120m in cash, assets from criminals in Victoria

Police have seized more than $120m in cash and assets from organised crime in Victoria. Here is how they did it.

Police seized more than $120m in organised crime proceeds in Victoria in 2021-22. Picture: Supplied.

Police put a clamp on more than $120 million in organised crime proceeds in Victoria over 12 months in an escalating assets grab.

Vast amounts of cash made up a large proportion of $37.3 million in assets forfeited from criminals under court orders in the past financial year.

That figure was up from $23.1 million the previous year and included $27.7 million in cash and real estate worth $6.4 million.

Another $85 million in crime proceeds were restrained and will be the subject of court action for their permanent seizure, potentially funnelling big money into victim compensation.

$7.7m in cash was seized from properties in Port Melbourne and Brunswick West. Picture: Supplied.

Detective Insp. Jen Locke of the criminal proceeds squad told the Herald Sun there was plenty more pain ahead for criminals who were also losing heavy numbers of luxury cars and jewellery.

Insp. Locke said her office was actively looking for work, doing a daily sweep of new cases in which assets could be seized.

“We don’t miss an opportunity to take their ill-gotten gains,” she said.

The largest of the finalised seizures was a $7.7 million confiscation made after an investigation linked to the international Operation Ironside.

The money – along with a clandestine drug laboratory and weapons – was uncovered after raids on properties at Port Melbourne and Brunswick West in 2020.

Port Melbourne couple Kayla Rezuk, 31, and Baris Goktas, 34, were later charged with drug trafficking offences.

Another big claim was the $5.25 million found by Echo taskforce detectives stashed behind a false wall of a truck in South Melbourne.

Investigators had been tracking Michele Donato for hundreds of kilometres as he snaked his way from South Australia to Melbourne in December, 2020.

$5.26m in cash was stashed behind a false wall of a truck in South Melbourne. Picture: Supplied.

The officers knew they were onto a good thing.

It was another Ironside sting in which international police infiltrated the AN0M app, a supposedly surveillance-proof platform used worldwide by criminals to send messages.

Donato, 49, admitted he had “personal stuff” in the 2012 Mitsubishi Canter truck, after being pulled over on Dorcas Street at 9.38pm. He then pointed to his nose.

Officers quickly found two plastic containers and a small box containing 4.7g of cocaine. It had a purity of between 66 and 80 per cent.

But the real haul was hidden behind two pallets of coffee pods, concealed behind a fake wall.

There they found 11 brown cardboard boxes, each sealed with tape and labelled ‘Inghams Frozen Poultry’.

The boxes contained between $250,150 and $500,320 each and totalled $5,251,590.

Police believe Donato was in Melbourne to buy more drugs.

He pleaded guilty and received a two-year community corrections order and was told to complete 200 hours of unpaid community work.

In another elaborate case, detectives raided a Gippsland property in 2018 and discovered a manhole in a shed.

A Gippsland property had 25 shipping containers buried. Picture: Supplied.

It led to 25 shipping containers, each 20 foot long, joined together to create eight large rooms accessible from a main hallway.

In the underground lair at Tanjil Bren was a sophisticated hydroponic set-up, a large amount of cannabis plants weighing 453kg and two commercial-sized diesel generators.

Weapons were also discovered.

Cultivation charges, allowing police to seize the house were dismissed, but the DPP managed to obtain a civil forfeiture, which doesn’t need a conviction.

The property was handed over to the Attorney-General of Victoria in December last year and will be sold in the near future.

A raid on an apartment in Box Hill led to the forfeiture of $2.2 million under unexplained wealth provisions.

The target of that operation said he was holding the money for a friend.

Insp. Locke said each court case was handled by the Office of Public Prosecutions and enforced by the asset confiscation office of the Department of Justice

A manhole in a shed lead into a massive underground crime set up. Picture: Supplied.

She said taking money diminished the reason for being involved in such crime but the seizures hurt criminals on multiple fronts beyond depriving them of their wealth.

“They use that for their next criminal enterprise and to pay for their (legal) defence.” she said.

“The aim of the CPS is to enhance public safety through targeting serious, profit motivated organised crime – we are targeting the asset rich lifestyles of criminals, who often reach that position through immense community harm.”

Assistant Commissioner Bob Hill said asset confiscation was a crucial element in the battle against serious and organised crime.

“The aim of the scheme is absolutely to deprive offenders of the ability to continue their criminal activities – removing their access to proceeds of crime, deterring them from further engaging in criminal activity and disrupting their ability to use those assets to further fund criminal activity,” he said.

Police Minister Anthony Carbines said tip-offs and calls to Crime Stoppers had played a major role in dismantling crime syndicates and supporting victims of crime.

“These record seizures have hit criminal gangs where it hurts – the hip pocket – which reduces the incentive for people to engage in illegal and dangerous activities,” Mr Carbines said.