Cops bust market gardens

A SOPHISTICATED crime syndicate allegedly “shanghaied” foreign nationals to work in squalid conditions for a Perth market garden company.

A SOPHISTICATED crime syndicate allegedly “shanghaied” foreign nationals to work in squalid conditions and at exploitative rates for a Perth market garden company that operated as a front for a money-laundering business.

Police continued to search properties and gather evidence in Perth and eastern Victoria yesterday after 550 law enforcement agents from nine state and federal agencies executed dozens of warrants on Saturday after a 12-month investigation.

They were trying to ascertain the extent of a network of companies that police claim had been operating as an organised crime network for about 10 years, using its illegal activities to support legitimate businesses.

One company is believed to have provided construction ­services to the West Australian government.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection was assessing some of the 180 foreign nationals, including children, taken in for questioning by police after the raids and sent to Northam’s Yongah Hill detention centre, 100km northeast of Perth.

Police have said they were likely to be workers at the market gardens and came from three or four different countries, all believed to be Asian.

WA Police Minister Liza Harvey said workers had been treated shockingly: “How they’ve been exploited, as I understand it, is they’ve been shanghaied into working at low rates and in conditions other Australian workers would never tolerate.

“There will be, out of this investigation, a lot of horrified Western Australians and Australians who have had no idea that they have been eating fruit and vegetables and buying product from a company that has exploited so many people.”

Police said the main focus of their operations — Project Tricord and Operation Polo — was money-laundering.

The Perth raids focused on one of the state’s largest tomato producers.

About 4am on Saturday, police smashed down heavy metal gates at a walled compound, which had about six buildings in it, in the semi-rural suburb of Carabooda, on Perth’s northern fringes.

Across Perth and Victoria, officers seized a “significant” amount of illegal firearms, cash and computers. No one had been charged as of last night.

Former executive officer of Vegetables WA Jim Turley said he did not think the raids would cause a shortage of tomatoes or a spike in prices.

The farm in question had been the subject of previous allegations of squalid living con­ditions for its workers.

Acting Detective Superintendent Chris Adams, operational commander of the investigation, said he believed the raids had made a significant dent in money-laundering operations.