Organised crime ‘just as bad as terrorism’
AUSTRALIA needs to treat organised crime as a national security issue and take it as seriously as terrorism, one of the nation’s most senior police officers has declared.
Nigel Ryan, assistant commissioner of the Australian Federal Police’s crime command, said organised crime was responsible for multiple deaths, serious assaults and undermining the nation’s economy, yet was treated by the public with “casual indifference.’’
Mr Ryan said the Australian
community should be “extremely concerned’’ about the impact of organised crime.
“We have done an extremely good job in terms of countering terrorism in this country and we have been extremely lucky, we have been well-protected by law enforcement in that regard,’’ he said.
“But if you look at organised crime, there’s a real casual indifference to the impact.
“There are people being assaulted, there are people being murdered, our economy is being compromised, our supply chain’s compromised and people don’t seem to give it much of a concern, which is concerning in its own right.’’
Terrorism in Australia is targeted by federal, state and territory police working together, and backed up by the nation’s intelligence agencies.
By contrast, state, territory and the federal police often work independently when tackling organised crime figures or specific syndicates.
Last month, organised crime took a heavy hit when 4500 state, territory and federal police officers raided homes across the country, arresting almost 300 people on a range of drug-trafficking and money-laundering offences.
The charges came as part of the three-year AFP-led investigation known as Operation Ironside, in which police secretly tracked the communications of alleged organised crime figures in Australia and overseas through the use of a Trojan horse encrypted app known as AN0M.
Mr Ryan, who led Operation Ironside, said the investigation had given police greater insight into the sheer scale of organised crime in Australia, including the activities of bikies, the Mafia, ethnic crime gangs, corrupt figures in the nation’s supply chains, and international drug-trafficking syndicates.
The AFP said the investigation had seen police disrupt 21 murder plots and seize more than $50 million in dirty cash.