UNDERCOVER COP
What it’s really like to be one
Keith Banks had only been in the police force for a couple of years when he decided his interest lay in working undercover. It was the 1980s – the most corrupt era in Queensland’s police history – and Banks, then aged 21, infiltrated the drug scene without training, background intelligence or partner. In his newly released memoir, Drugs, Guns & Lies, the now retired and highly decorated police officer writes about how he prepared to go undercover for the first time, with a few wardrobe changes ...
My first morning of undercover, I was confronted by a problem I hadn’t anticipated. I didn’t know what to wear.
The street-level dealers I’d arrested never dressed neatly – it was always flannelette shirts, army disposal jackets, dirty jeans, singlets. I didn’t own any of that stuff. After rummaging through my wardrobe like a teenager before his first ever date, I decided on a T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans and my runners. I’d been on leave for a week and started a beard, but when I looked at myself in the mirror I saw a cop on his day off.
I combed my hair and went into the kitchen where my housemate, Giblet, was eating breakfast in his police uniform. He raised an eyebrow.
“Those UC guys seem a bit feral to me, mate.” “I think it’ll be cool.” I was still thinking about Ian, who looked just like his targets, who’d slipped into their circle and taken them down.
Giblet made a non-committal noise and pushed a forkful of fried egg into his mouth.
“Just don’t bring any bloody druggies around here,” he grinned.
A few detectives were milling around in the Drug Squad offices the next morning, definitely not undercovers. I made myself a coffee and started chatting to one of the secretaries. Half an hour later a young man walked in. He was a bit older than me with a wiry build, wearing old jeans, desert boots, and a flannel shirt over a once-white T-shirt. His long hair was messy and accompanied by an unruly beard.
“You must be Pete,” I remarked. “Keith.”
We shook hands.
“Ando told me you needed a bit of roughing up.” I shrugged. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you sorted out.”
He took me over to a cardboard box stuffed with number plates. I spent a few
“Share a joint, they’ll like you”
– PETE
minutes rifling around in there, trying to find a couple of matching sets. Next, I was taken upstairs and issued with a .25 automatic pistol. Finally, Pete handed me a few hundred dollars from the imprest account. It had all been photocopied and accounted for.
With all that done, I was a fully kitted covert agent.
Over the afternoon he told me about jobs he’d done and how to speak to dealers, varying from street level to those trafficking in pounds of dope or ounces of heroin and other powders.
“Low-level guys want to be your friend. They want to have a beer, have a chat. That’s easy. Share a joint, they’ll like you.”
“I didn’t think we were meant to smoke.” “Good luck then. You don’t have to use powders – you f--king should not use powders – but you’re going to have to smoke.”
I didn’t believe him, but didn’t say so.
I wasn’t going to be smoking pot. “What about the higher-level dealers?”
“See, it’s different. In some ways it’s easier. They’re all business. They don’t want to chat about your missus or the footy, you don’t need to spend hours hanging out with them. But they carry, and they’re not afraid to hurt you.
“The main thing is that, no matter who you’re talking to, you gotta know what you’re going to make. They’ll ask. They want to know how much you’re selling for, how many times you’ll step on it.” “What’s that?”
“Cutting it. Mixing in laxative or baby powder to sell more grams.”
Pete kept talking, explaining the esoteric rules and behaviours of the drug world. I’d thought I was pretty tough but listening to him talk about being interrogated, negotiating his way out of bashings, and meeting heroin dealers alone in carparks or alleyways frightened the s--t out of me.
I couldn’t imagine him ever being in uniform and doing routine police work. He looked and spoke as if he was born undercover. I absorbed his body language, his mode of speech, the way he revelled in straight people around us avoiding eye contact with him. He’d put his feet up on the chair beside him with a casual air of entitlement and hold eye contact with passers-by until they dropped theirs. He had an air of menace that I wanted to develop.