Organised Crime and Terrorism: Their Size, Extent and Threat

Organised crime and terrorism: Their size, extent and threat

Presentation to Year 12, Legal Studies Class,

Ryde Secondary College

Clive Small

November 2011

Opening observations

·  Organised crime is not a new phenomenon. To greater and lesser degrees organised crime affects all countries.

·  The extent to which it is a threat to a country is largely dependent on the extent to which governments

-  acknowledge the problem and aggressively tackle it,

-  are apathetic towards the problem and/or

-  are, to some degree at least, complicit.

Critical tipping points in the emergence of organised crime

·  In the late 1920s-30s the Calabrian mafia formed in the cane fields of Queensland; the razor gangs emerged in Sydney and Melbourne

·  The 1950s and ‘60s saw the increasing emergence of organised crime and violence in Melbourne; perhaps the most infamous being the Victoria Market murders.

·  In Sydney the gang war of the late 1960s saw organised crime transform with McPherson, Freeman and Stan Smith emerging as the big three

·  A few years later McPherson and Freeman invited Middle Eastern crime figures to share in the organised crime pie and mentored them.

·  The 1960s also saw the emergence of outlaw motorcycle gangs, though they were not to emerge as crime gangs for more than another decade

·  The late 1960s-70s also saw the explosion in the illegal drug trade, particularly heroin and cannabis and arguably, most notoriously Bob Trimbole’s transformation of the Calabrian mafia into a modern organised crime operation and his later membership of the Mr Asia syndicate, leading to multiple murders.

·  1974 we had the Moffitt Royal Commission into Allegations of Organised Crime in Clubs

·  Late 1970s we had the NSW Woodward Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking (various others commissions followed in the early-mid 1980s---Stewart, Williams.)

·  1984-5 saw another gang war in Sydney and the gradual change of leadership in gang bosses in Sydney

·  Mid 1990s Wood Royal Commission---impacts and opportunities

·  Late 1990s---explosion of middle-eastern crime and formation of new alliances.

·  In the late 1990s-early 2000s Melbourne also saw a gang war that has led to a new landscape in the state.

Size of the problem today---costs (ACC assessments)

·  ACC recently estimated organised crime costs Australia $15 billion a year. (This does not take into account the costs of policing it; the courts, jails, the costs to business, and the like.)

·  Several billions in drug money alone being sent offshore each year

·  Laundered organised crime money is invested and reinvested in Australia

·  In the mid 1990s the Queensland Advisory Committee on Illicit Drugs estimated 71 tonnes of cannabis was cultivated in Queensland each year. Its wholesale value was estimated at $283.6 million while its street value was estimated at $632.8 million. It was Queensland’s second biggest cash crop. Queensland was part of a national distribution network.

·  Recent seizures, eg, in 2007 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy – 14 million tablets, have had no identifiable impact on the drug market – no shortage and price increase.

·  Seizures are just part of the cost of doing business and are outweighed by successful importations.

·  Recently, the nephew of Ita Buttrose described cocaine use amongst his social set in the eastern suburbs as being "just like a glass of wine".

·  For every drug sold, at least a few cents of every dollar goes to organised crime

Some short stories---both humorous and serious,

demonstrating organised crime is not always that organised

Chris ‘Mr Rent-a-kill’ Flannery

·  A spoilt child.

·  Failed thief and robber – kept getting caught – Had to try something different – became a hitman.

·  Before a hit would listen to classical music and snort cocaine.

·  Murdered by his own bosses because he could not be controlled.

Michael Sayers

·  Melbournian. Mate of Flannery. Came to Sydney set up an illegal starting price bookmaking operation, also a drug trafficker and hopeless gambler.

·  Owed George Freeman and Danny Chubb large amounts of money and another bookmaker $120,000. At Double Bay as Sayers approaches Albert Tabone, Sayers is grabbed by two men, whisked away. Half an hour later returns with an empty suitcase saying the two men who abducted him were police and they had stolen both the money he owed Tabone and a kilo of heroin. One of the police was Flannery.

An argument over $2 grew to involve crime ‘godfathers’, the police commissioner, corruption, and an appearance before the District Court.

·  In 1977 one of Louie Bayeh’s brothers, Fred, was bashed when he entered a Kings Cross without paying the two dollar entrance fee. A fight with the bouncers followed and Bayeh’s brother lost.

·  When Louie heard about it he was not happy. He confronted one of the bouncers and bashed him. The bouncer was one of Saffron’s bodyguards.

·  Bayeh knew he was in trouble and wanted the problem settled. He went to Frank Hakim, the Lebanese Godfather, who went to certain police at Darlinghurst, but they couldn’t help.

·  Hakim then went to the Police Commissioner, Merv Wood, who spoke with Saffron, who wanted Louie punished and he was charged.

·  Three years later Louie says he pleaded guilty to a broken down charge of malicious wounding and was placed on a bond. He paid $6,000 to police for his lenient treatment.

·  What had started out as a failure to pay a two-dollar cover charge had dragged in people at the highest levels of both the police and organised crime.

Shayne Hatfield and Tom

·  Shayne Hatfield was a vicious and violence criminal. He was drug distributor and in the 1990s headed a widespread drug network in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

·  By 2000 Shayne Hatfield’s partner was Tom – a pseudonym given by law-enforcement authorities.

·  Once Tom kidnapped another dealer who had ripped off his South Australian bikie drug suppliers and put him in a car for delivery to the Adelaide gang. Tom told a court that he never saw the drug dealer again but that he didn’t consider it a kidnapping because ‘He never asked to get out [of the boot].’

·  Arrested several times, Tom bribed police in the ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ to reduce or beat the charges and at other times bribed them for information they might have had about his activities or the activities of his associates.

·  Over six months Hatfield and Tom sold 200 kilograms of cocaine.

·  Hatfield and Tom made around $30 million cash. Of that they paid the importer, Aunty, $24 million and kept about $6 million for themselves.

·  Tom is an indemnified witness who kept around a million dollars that he made ‘honestly’ through gambling.

So who is ‘Aunty’?

·  ‘Aunty’ is a Colombian woman in her fifties who came to Australia with her family in the 1980s. She is the face of a syndicate that has been operating for almost two decades. Her husband stays in the background but has the necessary power and influence with Colombian cocaine barons.

·  The syndicate imports around half a tonne to a tonne of cocaine every eighteen months. It is estimated to have carried out at least ten and possibly as many as fourteen importations (totalling between 10 tonnes of the drug).

·  The cocaine is sold in bulk, primarily to networks in Sydney, but it also makes its way to other state capitals.

·  The retirement of some distributors and the arrest and jailing of others enabled an eastern suburbs professional surfer and dealer Shane Hatfield to progress up the drug chain. By the early 2000s he was dealing directly with Aunty.

·  Aunty has no criminal record. She is currently in ‘retirement’ and runs several business including a financial investment company.

Darwiche and Razzak crews and the Telopea Street Boys – their drugs and guns networks---the United Nations of the drug trade

·  The Darwiche and Razzak crews and Telopea Street Boys, all Muslim Lebanese, but their drug and weapons networks looked like the United Nations – they were not limited by race or religion and included Caucasian Australians, Greeks, Pakistanis, Chinese, Turks, Philippinos, Italians, Vietnamese, 5T gang; outlaw motorcycle gangs, and licensed gun dealers. The purchase of rocket launchers – nine of which are still on the streets – were stolen from the Australian Defence Force by Shane Della Vedova.

·  Examples of miss hits – shooting up the wrong apartment block; shooting up the wrong car, running into a parked car while driving away from a drive by.

·  The rollover who was driving a Lambourgini and having his lawns mowed.

Some findings on terrorism and terrorists

·  Around 200 attacks (in Australia or against Australians overseas) going back to the mid 1960s have been identified.

·  Despite around 150 of these terrorist acts occurring between 1966 and 2001 there was very little legislative action. Since 2001 there have been more than 50 separate pieces of terrorist related commonwealth legislation and 40 pieces of state legislation.

·  Around 2000 changes began to emerge with Australian based individuals and terrorist groups training overseas and undertaking attacks in other countries. This was paralleled with an increase in attacks within Australia.

·  Many terrorists were

o  small time criminals

o  funds for their acts were raised from relatively small time criminal activities

o  quite a few were relatives of known middle eastern crime groups or families

o  a number converted to radical Islam while serving time in jail

o  jails are a major place of recruitment for radical Islam – this is a worldwide pattern.

·  In one case we found a terrorist who later rolled had been receiving social security benefits when convicted in 2002 of fraud he was living in a luxury townhouse and employed a butler.

The problem is political

·  Political apathy to the problem

-  The Moffitt Royal Commission---despite the findings little action

-  Justice Athol Moffitt later pointed to political wrangling, point scoring and buckpassing as the reason (eg Costa and Carr on guns – porous borders)

-  Justice Woodward – Four Corners interview in 1986 – treated by the government as a Claytons’ royal commission to satisfy the public.

·  Lack of genuine books and investigative journalism on the broader problem

·  The main points:

o  Australia’s federal system of government and Constitution creates turf wars and poses the question, ‘Who is responsible for organised crime and for what aspects of it?’ There has been a long tradition of rivalry and blame-shifting. In the case of organised crime, jurisdiction belongs primarily to the states rather than the commonwealth. There is little incentive for the Australian Federal Police to devote valuable resources to areas that are low on their internal list of organisational priorities. The same questions that undermine commonwealth-state co-operation also bedevil interstate investigations: Whose turf? How much is it going to cost? Who pays? Who gets the credit? Who gets the blame if something goes wrong? The ability to overcome this tradition will be the real measure of Australia’s seriousness in the fight against organised crime and terrorism. Arguably this is the most fundamental challenge facing the investigation of organised crime in Australia.

o  In a culture focused on future elections, ongoing financial support, and repayment of past debts, politics carries more weight than principle.

o  Flow on implications for police – focus is quick arrests, reduced costs, etc.

o  When it comes to organised crime, Australian governments have said much and achieved little.

Spin over substance and political buckpassing: a few examples

·  At one point the NSW Police Minister, Michael Daley, announced 16 kilograms of cocaine was seized in NSW in the first nine months of 2009, compared with 9 kilograms in the whole of the previous year. What he did not say was that in just six months in 2004, the violent eastern suburbs criminal Shayne Hatfield and his offsider ''Tom'' between them sold 200 kilograms of cocaine.

·  The seizure in Melbourne of 15 million ecstasy tablets had little or no impact on the Australian market. AFP said the group was responsible for 60 per cent of ecstasy trafficked on Australia’s east coast. The seizure and its cost was more than covered by successful importations.

·  After the fatal bikie bashing at Sydney Airport, the State Government rushed to announce 975 people had been charged by police during a two-year crackdown on bikie gangs. However, just nine were charged specifically with being members of a criminal gang, and only 40 were charged by the Gang Squad. Most charges were laid by local police for traffic offences, breaching bail, and property and street offences.

·  As gang violence raged across south-western Sydney early this decade, the Carr government blamed the Commonwealth for the number of illegal guns. "There's no point our police chasing their tails on Sydney streets trying to get handguns off those streets," then police minister Michael Costa said, "if the Federal Government is letting down the side by not dealing with the question of the source, and that is the illegal handguns that come across our porous borders." However, most of the handguns used in these crimes had not been illegally imported, but had been stolen from licensed gun dealers; they were a state responsibility.

·  The NSW Government isn't the only one guilty of duping the public on organised crime. In South Australia, the Premier, Mike Rann, declared in 2005 that a four-year crackdown on bikies had resulted in almost 3000 arrests, the seizure of 300 firearms, large quantities of cannabis, amphetamines, ecstasy and fantasy, and assets worth $2.7 million. Capturing 300 illegal guns in four years might have struck South Australians as less of a triumph had Rann mentioned that more than 500 weapons, including handguns, were stolen in a single home invasion of a firearms dealer north of Adelaide in 1999.

A final word

In February 2001 the Toronto Post newspaper ran the following job advertisement. It read:

Having successfully completed a ten year sentence, incident-free, for importing 75 tons of marijuana into the United States, I am now seeking a legal and legitimate means to support myself and my family.