Australia’s most wanted
Living large
Australia’s most dangerous and wanted crime bosses have organised themselves into a cartel earning an estimated A$1.5 billion (NZ$1.6 billion) a year by smuggling drugs past the nation’s borders with the help of corrupt government officials and border insiders, the nation’s peak criminal intelligence agency believes.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission says nine men, drawn mostly from Australian bikie gangs and Middle Eastern crime syndicates, make up what the agency has named the ‘‘Aussie Cartel’’.
The nine have been confidentially designated by the intelligence agency as Australian priority organisation targets after an assessment that they pose the gravest organised crime risk to the nation.
The cartel’s members are ‘‘the baddest of the bad’’, according to the commission’s chief executive, Michael Phelan, in an interview with The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes.
He said they had ‘‘significant influence over OMCGs [outlaw motorcycle gangs]’’ in Australia and presented ‘‘major threats to the integrity of our justice system and other government institutions’’.
Phelan said the nine were all Australian and shared supply routes and any corrupt networks they had. He estimated they were responsible for ‘‘about one-third of the drug importations into our country’’.
State and federal policing agency sources said the cartel had formed unprecedented alliances between formerly warring senior Hells Angels and Comanchero members to import drugs into Australia and to set up supply hubs in Thailand, giving the cartel direct access to the booming ‘‘Golden Triangle’’ drug precinct.
The nine crime bosses have also developed extensive methods of penetrating border security, known as ‘‘doors’’, giving them an unrivalled capacity to meet Australia’s market for drugs.
‘‘They share supply routes, they share logistic supply chains. They share among themselves the doors or the way into Australia. They share any corrupt networks they may have here to swap information to each other,’’ Phelan said.
When asked if the cartel was corrupting government institutions, Phelan said it was ‘‘extremely naive’’ to think it had not penetrated Australian law enforcement agencies.
Some official sources have confirmed that two members of the cartel in particular are believed to have government insiders in Australia and overseas in their networks.
Phelan confirmed federal law enforcement operations had been compromised by suspected leaks, but declined to provide specific details.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission estimates the cartel’s annual net profit to be A$1b, with revenues of A$1.5b.
Phelan also said the introduction to Australia of several encrypted phone platforms, including Ciphr, that were being used by thousands of Australians to engage in crime ‘‘certainly leads back to elements of the Aussie Cartel’’. Policing sources said the Australian distribution of an encrypted phone platform called Anon was also cartel linked.
The revelations – which extend to confidential law enforcement assessments that Australia’s premier airline, Qantas, has been infiltrated by criminals – thrust the issue of organised crime back into the spotlight.
Agencies are pushing politicians to support stalled port and airport security identity card legislation to prevent ‘‘trusted insiders’’ exploiting border security gaps. The laws are backed by the Coalition, but Labor claims they are flawed.
Agencies are also seeking new laws giving authorities greater access to ‘‘dark web’’ and encrypted communications platforms being used exclusively for crime.
Phelan declined to identify the members of the cartel.
But state and federal policing agency sources say they include Istanbul-based Hakan Ayik, Comanchero boss Mark Buddle (who lives in the United Arab Emirates), Hells Angels boss Angelo Pandeli (in Greece and the United Arab Emirates), Triad linked figure Michael Tu (Hong Kong), Mohamad Bousaleh (Dubai), George Dib (Lebanon) and Hakan Arif (Turkey).
An Adelaide bikie boss recently deported from Singapore and a Sydney logistics, port and transportation expert are also cartel members.