Latest / The Morning Edition / Airtasker of the underworld, offshore gangs and the uniquely Australian crime

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Airtasker of the underworld, offshore gangs and the uniquely Australian crime · The Morning Edition

• 0:03
  S1: When you think of organized crime, a picture may come
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  S1: to you of robbers meeting in dark warehouses to hash
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  S1: out a clandestine heist or burner phones used and then
• 0:13
  S1: chucked in the bin in order to avoid being detected.
• 0:17
  S1: If only because criminals have become increasingly tech savvy and elusive,
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  S1: according to our leading criminal intelligence commission. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris,
• 0:28
  S1: and you're listening to Morning Edition from The Age and
• 0:31
  S1: The Sydney Morning Herald today, investigative reporter Marta Pascual Juanola
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  S1: on how the underworld is now using apps and children
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  S1: to do their dirty work. It's April the 27th. Marta,
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  S1: welcome back to the podcast.
• 0:46
  S2: Thank you for having me.
• 0:48
  S1: Okay. Well, you've just written that Australian authorities have said
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  S1: that organised crime in this country and the players in
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  S1: it are smarter and more tech savvy than ever. I mean,
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  S1: that's obviously not good news. So tell us first of all,
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  S1: how is that the case?
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  S2: Yeah. So look, this information comes by Australia's top intelligence agency.
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  S2: That's the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. And basically what they're
• 1:11
  S2: warning is that criminals, organised crime players here in the
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  S2: country are starting to weaponize financial technology as well as
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  S2: cryptocurrency and all kinds of new technology to be able
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  S2: to move faster, more efficiently and be able to launder
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  S2: money at an unprecedented scale. We're talking about creating pools
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  S2: of dirty cash that they can then funnel through the
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  S2: system really quickly, move that money offshore at dazzling speeds,
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  S2: and then use that money to fund our activities, which
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  S2: might be like things like drug trafficking or weapons trafficking.
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  S2: Also to fund crimes like hiring, you know, murderers for hire,
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  S2: that kind of thing. So we're seeing that moving at
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  S2: a much faster pace. They're getting much smarter. And so
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  S2: the window that law enforcement agencies have to actually catch
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  S2: them in the act is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
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  S2: And so it's becoming more challenging to actually be able
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  S2: to stop them doing what they're doing.
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  S1: Okay. And Chris Davey, the head of the Australian Criminal
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  S1: Intelligence Commission, or ASIC, he has said that the major
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  S1: players have also been increasingly based overseas. So tell us
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  S1: about that. Why is that happening?
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  S2: Yeah that's right. So Chris Davey, the national manager at
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  S2: the Acic. So what he said is that about 70%
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  S2: of all adversaries that Australia has are now based offshore.
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  S2: So those are targets in terms of organised crime. And
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  S2: so what we're seeing is that they increasingly moving outside
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  S2: of the territory in Australia here, because of the pressure
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  S2: from law enforcement that we have here onshore. And so
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  S2: what they're finding is that they're moving to third countries
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  S2: that might have lax regulations. You talk about, I think
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  S2: you spoke about access to world class technology and communication
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  S2: systems while living in what's like a third world country
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  S2: in terms of rules and governance. So that allows them
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  S2: that freedom to be able to operate with less scrutiny
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  S2: and to be able to direct everything from afar. And
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  S2: so what that means is it's an arm's length type
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  S2: situation where they can outsource their activities to other people
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  S2: on the ground while being less exposed to the heat,
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  S2: like coming from police. Both federal and state here in Australia.
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  S2: And so a great example of that is the tobacco kingpin.
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  S3: A business owner who's Glenroy shop has been firebombed three times,
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  S3: says underworld kingpin Kaz Hamad continues to control Melbourne's illegal
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  S3: tobacco trade from behind bars in Iraq. The man believes
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  S3: he's being targeted for cooperating with police.
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  S2: He's been causing all kinds of mayhem here in Victoria.
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  S2: There's been hundreds of firebombings. There's been murders that have
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  S2: been connected to his operations to control the illicit tobacco trade.
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  S2: And so he's been based out of Iraq for a
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  S2: long time after being deported from Australia after serving a
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  S2: prison sentence for heroin smuggling. And so what he's been
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  S2: doing is being based out of Iraq and directing everything
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  S2: from afar, through encrypted communications and through a network of
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  S2: lieutenants that he's got here on the ground in Victoria.
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  S1: You've also written about the way this technology is being
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  S1: used and playing out in the syndicates controlled by people
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  S1: like Kaz Hamad, because there was talk of an app
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  S1: being used where jobs would be issued, like almost Uber style. Right?
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  S2: That's right. It's like the airtasker of the underworld. So
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  S2: this sort of came into play around 2024. And basically
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  S2: it's sort of like a yeah, like an airtasker you
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  S2: just post, look, I need someone to come and firebomb
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  S2: a business. This is the address, this is the time frame.
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  S2: And so people can literally say, yeah, I've got the
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  S2: right person for that, or I'm the right person for that.
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  S2: And booking a job that way where you have like
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  S2: a crime boss that doesn't actually need to know or
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  S2: even be connected to the foot soldiers that are actually
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  S2: carrying out a lot of that dirty work. So that
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  S2: also gives that sort of degrees of separation when it
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  S2: comes down to prosecution being like, well, they actually had
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  S2: never spoken before. They actually never spoke directly. And so
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  S2: it's just becoming this much more complicated space where they
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  S2: actually being really smart about the way that they use
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  S2: technology to facilitate a lot of this criminal offending.
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  S1: And I mean, it's not just the technology, is it, either?
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  S1: Because we also know that the head of the Australian
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  S1: Criminal Intelligence Commission said that children were more and more
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  S1: being recruited by these gangs. So how much is this
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  S1: happening and why?
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  S2: Yeah, look, it's happening across the board, almost like a pipeline,
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  S2: I guess, in terms of like recruiting children as foot
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  S2: soldiers to join into those syndicates. Traditionally, children tend to
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  S2: age out of offending. So when they hit their 20s,
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  S2: like mid-twenties, sometimes they drop off and go back to
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  S2: sort of living reasonably normal lives. But what we're seeing
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  S2: is that those syndicates are tapping into those underage kids,
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  S2: because effectively, what it means is that they're getting lesser
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  S2: sentences because of the way that the law operates here
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  S2: in Australia and the justice system. And they also draw
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  S2: less attention from authorities because, you know, police will be
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  S2: probably less likely to stop a kid, you know, on
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  S2: his way from a train station than some like, you know,
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  S2: two metre tall guy with like, big muscles and tattoos
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  S2: all over his body. And so there's like this sort
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  S2: of element of them being a lot less obvious, but
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  S2: also attracting much lower sentences and being cleanskins, which means
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  S2: they don't have any criminal record and therefore they're more
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  S2: likely to be released on bail. They're also very gullible,
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  S2: and a lot of that is also happening online, and
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  S2: we've seen that happen previously as well. Kassam himself came
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  S2: from a street crew, was recruited at a young age.
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  S2: And so the gullible and they'll do it for very
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  S2: little money. Some of those firebombings were, you know, they
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  S2: were getting paid as little as a few thousand dollars
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  S2: to just go and burn down a shop. So it's
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  S2: a lot of money for a kid, but very little
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  S2: money for a crime boss. So it just value for money.
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  S1: After the break.
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  S2: The scale and the violence that we're seeing in Australia
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  S2: is uniquely Australian.
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  S1: And so this new picture of organised crime that you've
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  S1: written about that we're seeing here in Australia, the technology, cryptocurrency,
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  S1: the lack of real cash, which is enabling people to
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  S1: funnel just massive amounts through digital means. Does all of
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  S1: this reflect what's happening in crime globally, or is there
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  S1: something uniquely Australian about it?
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  S2: Look, I think in a lot of ways it's global
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  S2: in the sense that I think crime syndicates are becoming
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  S2: more and more transnational. Some of the syndicates that we've
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  S2: got here have connections to syndicates in Latin America, North America,
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  S2: in Southeast Asia. And so they all connected and sort
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  S2: of following in on all those strands. So they're using
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  S2: technology to be able to operate more effectively. We've seen this,
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  S2: for example, in Southeast Asia, there's a lot of scam
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  S2: farms where like the scammers are now using AI, for example,
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  S2: to look differently, to be able to catfish prospective victims
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  S2: in like video calls. Those filters have become so good
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  S2: now that these people can touch their face and move
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  S2: and the filter doesn't move away like the old Instagram
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  S2: story filters, like the dog filter and whatever, where you
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  S2: turn your head around and all of a sudden your
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  S2: face would be in the other end of the room.
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  S2: These are really, really, really good filters, like really good
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  S2: technology so that we're seeing across the board what I
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  S2: think is uniquely Australian, for example, is the illicit tobacco problem.
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  S2: I think that's created because of the high prices here
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  S2: in Australia. And even though other countries have similar problems
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  S2: in a black market with tobacco, the scale and the
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  S2: violence that we're seeing in Australia is uniquely Australian.
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  S1: And so if all of these problems are relatively new,
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  S1: do you have any information on whether our enforcers here
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  S1: are agencies which are there to crack down on it?
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  S1: Are they across it? Like are they developing new skills,
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  S1: new talent pools to crack down on this? Or is
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  S1: this just their new challenge that they have to come
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  S1: up to speed on?
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  S2: I think it's definitely a challenge. And I'm Chris Davey
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  S2: at the ICAC, the national manager that we were just
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  S2: talking about. He was very open about it, that it's
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  S2: becoming challenging, that it's a source of concern. So I
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  S2: think there's a lot of effort that's going on behind
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  S2: the scenes to actually upskill a lot of our law
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  S2: enforcement agencies to make sure that they can keep up
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  S2: with this kind of offending, and also in terms of
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  S2: bolstering things like our financial All institutions and that kind
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  S2: of thing to try to crack down on the money
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  S2: laundering side of things. Because we had a case recently
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  S2: in Queensland, for example, where a security company was using
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  S2: armoured vehicles to transport cash from different parts of Australia
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  S2: to to launder it through a network of bank accounts. Cryptocurrency.
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  S2: We're talking about $190 million in transactions being investigated. And
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  S2: basically they were able to mix dirty cash with clean cash.
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  S2: And then finally through these financial institutions as well as
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  S2: crypto sites. And then they were able to like use
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  S2: that money and put it through legitimate businesses like sale
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  S2: promotion companies, car dealerships, that kind of thing, and then
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  S2: flood it back into the market. And so you're talking
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  S2: about like literal piles of dirty money getting picked up
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  S2: by couriers around the country and then taken on, on
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  S2: flights back to Queensland. So it's incredible the scale of
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  S2: what we're seeing. So I think there's a lot of
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  S2: efforts that are going towards from a regulatory point of view,
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  S2: but as well, from a law enforcement technique sort of
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  S2: point of view. But they always very cagey about this
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  S2: kind of thing. They don't like talking about investigative techniques.
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  S2: They don't want to tip people off elsewhere, like criminals
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  S2: off about what they're doing. But I think it's definitely
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  S2: a source of concern and something that they increasingly are doing.
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  S1: And I'm so curious, because you've been reporting on criminals,
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  S1: it has to be said for quite a while. So
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  S1: was there anything that really surprised you that you learned
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  S1: about in this space? You know, perhaps it's the airtasker
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  S1: stuff that kind of drives me wild because Airtasker is
• 10:35
  S1: you think of innocent tasks, you know, like hiring someone,
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  S1: a teenager or someone in their, in their early 20s
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  S1: to hang your pictures or something. But that's not what's
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  S1: happening here.
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  S2: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely one of the things that surprised
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  S2: me the most. And it's right. It's not, you're not
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  S2: looking for someone to come and clean your gutters. You're
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  S2: looking for someone to go and shoot someone or someone
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  S2: to go and, you know, commit an act of extortion.
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  S2: And so I think it's, it's quite incredible how they're
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  S2: weaponizing that because like a lot of the time when
• 11:01
  S2: we think about cryptocurrency, we associate that with like money
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  S2: laundering and criminal syndicates. Same with like online casinos and
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  S2: all that kind of stuff that it's notorious for being,
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  S2: you know, connected to that kind of underworld. But when
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  S2: it comes down to something so innocent, I guess, in principle,
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  S2: to be sort of like transformed into what's effectively like
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  S2: a yeah, murder for hire type platform. It's incredible. And
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  S2: they also stockpiling weapons so that they can dispatch them
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  S2: in an Amazon warehouse style. So they'll just have safe
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  S2: houses full of weapons stockpile so that people can get
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  S2: them on demand. They very clever in the way that
• 11:37
  S2: they approach it, which is really concerning. So those are
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  S2: the kind of things that I find the most fascinating
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  S2: is how inventive they are and how they immediately, the
• 11:46
  S2: moment that police crack down on something, they find a
• 11:48
  S2: way around it.
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  S1: And just one question of clarification for anyone out there
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  S1: who's actually been using Airtasker to sort of get people
• 11:55
  S1: to hang their pictures or clean their gutters, these people
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  S1: aren't actually on airtasker, are they? As you know, it's
• 12:00
  S1: actually a different app that's like this. Like you're not
• 12:02
  S1: going to hire someone to sort of, you know, get
• 12:04
  S1: rid of your boxes and you're accidentally getting an extortionist.
• 12:07
  S1: That's probably, I mean, I know you can't say for sure,
• 12:09
  S1: but do we know that that's not necessarily what's happening?
• 12:13
  S2: That's right. So this is a custom built sort of
• 12:15
  S2: replica almost of Airtasker is like grabbing the model and
• 12:19
  S2: like building like a black market app that sort of
• 12:21
  S2: mimics that with a different purpose. So you can rest
• 12:24
  S2: assured that if you're looking for someone to walk your
• 12:25
  S2: dog or mow your lawn, it's likely not going to
• 12:28
  S2: be a lieutenant as far as I can guarantee. Obviously,
• 12:31
  S2: there's always it's always open to, you know, you.
• 12:34
  S1: Don't know who you're getting.
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  S2: You never know what you're getting. And that's the other
• 12:36
  S2: thing people like, even if you're using the real airtasker,
• 12:39
  S2: you never know what you're doing. So be careful.
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  S1: Wow. Well, thank you so much for your time.
• 12:46
  S2: Thank you for having me.
• 12:57
  S1: Today's episode was produced by Josh towers. Our executive producer
• 13:01
  S1: is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa
• 13:04
  S1: Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow
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