A secret scheme that cuts jail sentences for criminals turning in firearms and explosives has led to fears offenders are planting caches as insurance as they anticipate being busted.
The location of the packages — known as hand-ins — are revealed if gang members are caught so they can receive a sentencing discount in a deal police, prosecutors and judges say helps protect the public and stem violence between organised crime groups by removing high-powered firearms and explosive weaponry from the streets.
Criminals are handing in high-powered weapons to have jail terms cutCredit: Aresna Villanueva
But police and legal sources say the number of hand-ins being negotiated has increased in recent years, raising concerns the process is now being manipulated.
In one example police found a machine gun, pistol and hand grenades carefully wrapped in plastic and hidden inside a storm drain, exactly where the notorious gangland figure said they would be.
The arsenal had been turned over by the head of a major Melbourne crime syndicate, who decided the risk of breaking the underworld code of silence was better than facing potentially decades in prison after being found guilty of drug trafficking.
The deal was secret but straight-forward. The boss, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police where the weapons could be found, and in exchange, a judge secretly reduced the sentence he would have otherwise received.
“These are guns in the hands of serious criminals and their associates we might not otherwise have found,” said a detective who investigates organised crime, who cannot be identified speaking about police operations.
“Yes, we have to do deals with some pretty bad people but these kinds of weapons still aren’t easy to come by so it can make a difference.”
In the case of the Melbourne gang leader, the judge called the surrender of the weapons a “valuable service to the community”.
“You will receive a not inconsequential discount on the sentences I would have imposed otherwise on account of this co-operation,” the judge said.
The secrecy of the process, which is conducted in closed courts and cloaked in suppression orders, means it’s impossible to know how often it is used.
The intense secrecy is required because these deals straddle a fine line in the underworld where any cooperation with police is considered a breach in the code of silence.
“The justification for those who do it is that they are only handing over their own weapons. The guns aren’t going to implicate anyone else in a crime, they’re not providing information about anyone else,” the police source said.
The fact it is just “one-off” informing is still risky enough to the criminal doing the hand-in that they are almost always conducted in secret court hearings and never disclosed in sentences when handed down in public.
But the reality that months, even years can be cut from a jail term by doing a “hand-in” has become common knowledge in the underworld with suspicions that stashes are being planted, anticipating one day being caught or organised by their associates after a suspect is arrested or convicted.
“It’s pretty much accepted, pretty much an open secret now that a game is being played,” a senior government legal source said.
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said that sentencing decisions were ultimately “a matter for the courts” but that hand-ins were well-known to law enforcement here and overseas as a technique criminals use to attempt to influence sentencing.
“Generally speaking, it is considered an acceptable form of insurance by criminals in the event they are caught. However, depending on the circumstances, it could lead to some of these items being planted in places where they form a risk to the general public if accessed.”
The judiciary also appears to be recognising that while hand-ins can have a positive result, they can also be a form of manipulation of the justice system.
In 2021, when underworld figure Omar Tiba was being sentenced for a drive-by shooting, he was told that handing in a “number of weapons” had limited value because the identifying marks had been removed and he had admitted “no-one would be upset by their surrender”.
“None of them could be linked by police to any crimes. For all I know, the weapons could have been acquired by your family solely for the purpose of trying to “buy” a sentencing discount,” Justice Christopher Beale said in the Supreme Court judgment. He also refused to suppress Tiba’s name.
A spokesman for the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions said cooperation like hand-ins means an offender is entitled to a sentencing benefit because it provides a community benefit, demonstrated remorse or indicates an offender’s prospects of rehabilitation.
“However, the Court of Appeal has held [in 2022] that where the surrender of weapons does not lead to any investigation or prosecution, the sentencing benefit arising from the offender’s cooperation may be necessarily limited.”
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and Australian Federal Police declined to comment.
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