Ken ‘Slasher’ McKay thinks modern cops are ignoring organised crime

One of Australia’s most celebrated former cops has exposed the mistakes police are making that is allowing a “bucket load” of crime to happen.

Former top cop Ken “Slasher” McKay has blasted modern officers as being obsessed with “fad policing” and allowing organised crime to run rampant.

Mr McKay frequently clashed with police hierarchy with his outspoken views throughout his 37 years with NSW Police.

He was the first commander of the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOCS) and locked up some of the country’s most infamous offenders, including Bassam Hamzy, founder of the street gang Brothers for Life.

In his latest comments, to former NSW Detective Gary Jubelin on the I Catch Killers podcast, he spoke of his frustration at the disbanding of MEOCS and the South East Asian Organised Crime Squad.

Retired NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Ken (Slasher) McKay (right) pictured with Gary Jubelin for the I Catch Killers podcast. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“The Middle East Organised Crime Squad doesn’t exist anymore. But certainly organised crime does... and it’s flourishing from the people I speak to in the police force now. So you can’t take the focus from it, we tend to take the focus off rather than complete the task, you know, and again, I can understand that because we don’t have certain numbers,” he said.

“There would be a bucket load of Southeast Asian organised crime taking place as we speak.”

Mr McKay said it was impossible to know how serious a problem there is “if there is no focus on it”.

Brother For Life leader Bassam Hamzy was someone McKay helped put away.

“If you say we’ve don’t have a problem, because there’s no information to say we have a problem - that’s because you haven’t even looked for it.”

He claimed Middle Eastern and Asian crime had been “prioritised out the back door”.

“The only way to deal with organised crime is know what you’re dealing with - not just turn up and react to a problem,” Mr McKay said.

Mr McKay told the podcast police needed to follow their instinct, but they also required an “inkling to what is going on”.

“Otherwise, you’ll never know. So you have that option of doing nothing, and closing your eyes and [thinking] ‘this thing and that doesn’t exist’ but by having a real good look. It might frighten you what you find, but that’s the reality of it, you know, at least you’re finding the facts. And you can base your policing on facts.

Organised crime needs to be dealt with, according to Ken McKay. Picture: Christian Gilles

“I call it a fad policing as a fad we’re gonna call it this today and call it that tomorrow. And, you know, the more things change, the more things stay the same,” he said.

Mr McKay said it was brutally clear to many what is needed, and lashed the “do-gooders and the hierarchy that don’t”.

Mr McKay said local communities wanted MEOCS set up and were their greatest supporters until some “do-gooder, left-wing person in government says you’re ethnically profiling people”.

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Originally published as Ken ‘Slasher’ McKay thinks modern cops are ignoring organised crime