Nigel Ryan: Real time crime busts are just the start to stop the coffins

The AFP’s world-first operation will cut the head off the snake of some crimes but there are other serpents striking Australia, the AFP’s Nigel Ryan writes.

Opinion: Police see a lot of evil in Australian suburbs and too often it is fuelled by illicit drugs.

Wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers – our nurses, teachers, paramedics and police – are assaulted or dying because of fists triggered by drug blowouts or a loaded gun behind the wheel of a car.

You don’t have to be a police officer to have a visceral reaction to seeing a coffin of a child, whose unfortunate curse was having neglectful, abusive, addicted parents.

For the past decade, transnational serious organised crime has flooded our suburbs with illicit drugs and guns.

Pop culture immortalises crime figures but they are nothing more than harbingers of death. They exist only for greed, which bankrolls more serious crime, generating terrible violence.

Technology has enabled criminals to go dark and evade law enforcement.

Phone taps don’t work for encrypted communication platforms.

But because of the extraordinary efforts of the AFP and its international law enforcement partners, some of the untouchables are facing arrest.

For almost three years, the AFP has been running a covert investigation named Operation Ironside.

Assistant Commissioner of Crime Command Nigel Ryan. Picture: Supplied

The AFP and FBI have secretly worked together on an encrypted platform that is run by law enforcement, allowing us to see what criminals are planning in near real time.

The platform, sold on the black market, could send messages, distort voices or take videos – nothing else. Only another person with the same app could receive communications.

The device was planted into the criminal underbelly, which vouched for it, giving criminals the confidence they were beating police.

Ironically, the AFP was sitting in their back pocket. Crime influencers have unwittingly put handcuffs on criminal networks, and for the next four years, there will be enough intelligence to arrest some of the world’s biggest criminals targeting Australia.

However, this is just one platform and transnational serious organised crime groups are using encrypted communication platforms 20-times bigger than the app developed under Ironside.

The long arm of the AFP is now longer because of its world-first operation – and we will cut the head off the snake of some syndicates – but there are many other serpents striking Australia.

And this means law enforcement are missing the tonnes of poison and guns being siphoned into the country.

This truly has been a global effort and reinforces the AFP’s partnerships and goodwill it has with international law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and Europol.

And at home, state and territory police have been invaluable in providing key support during a week of overt action.

The AFP today acknowledges the hard work and partnerships of the agency but the broader job of defeating transnational serious organised crime is far from done.

The AFP will never give up because the alternative is many more coffins.

Originally published as Nigel Ryan: Real time crime busts are just the start to stop the coffins