OFF TJHE WIRE
BY: Nick Mckenzie
smh.com.au
Police secrets leaked to bikies
NSW and Victorian authorities have launched an investigation into claims police officers are leaking information to bikie gangs.
THE leaking of highly sensitive NSW and Victorian police intelligence to outlaw bikie gangs is compromising state and national organised crime investigations and potentially endangering the lives of informers.
The Herald can reveal that the NSW Police Integrity Commission and the Office of Police Integrity in Victoria are conducting separate inquiries into suspicions that officers are leaking the information. In some cases, the leaks have seriously damaged investigations. The revelations will embarrass both police forces, which have spent several years and considerable resources to improve information security.
With the growing number of cross-state investigations into organised crime, leaks of information from police in one state can have significant impacts on national inquiries.
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| Gangs are spending thousands on countersurveillance. |
The Herald investigation found one NSW chapter of a national bikie club had obtained technology to intercept police communications, and access to secret codes to break encrypted police communications.
In another development, it is understood a bikie group is trying to buy a $700,000 phone interception device from the Middle East that could allow it to tap nearby phones, including those of police officers.
Senior bikie figures have also been given information about the contents of one of the most secret documents held by a police force - a joint state and federal law enforcement organised-crime target list.
The lists are meant to be among the most highly protected documents in Australian law enforcement. The leaking of its contents would alert crime figures they were being investigated.
The PIC probe has been running since 2010 and is investigating how sensitive police intelligence reports and profiles have found their way to members of outlaw clubs.
The Herald can reveal the PIC probe after agreeing to its request to withhold publication for several months.
The NSW files have sometimes been leaked within days of being created, allowing the targets of investigations to pre-empt police activity.
At least twice, bikies or their associates have shown law enforcement officials the reports that have been leaked to them and claimed to have paid several thousand dollars for each report.
In a separate incident 18 months ago, NSW detectives who raided the house of a suspected criminal figure closely linked to the Rebels boss Alex Vella found police files about the man.
Figures linked to the outlaw groups Notorious and Comanchero are also believed to have received leaked information.
Police and anti-corruption investigators in both states have had some success in identifying those leaking information, despite the difficulty of investigating law enforcement officials.
In 2009 a civilian intelligence analyst for the NSW gang squad, Terry Gregoriou, was charged over the leaking of intelligence reports by the Australian and NSW crime commissions, and internal police reports.
Gregoriou, who was convicted last December, was accused of giving the reports to a friend with links to the Comanchero motorcycle club.
In Victoria, a man with close links to the Hells Angels, Sunny Otene, was recently convicted for lying to the OPI about his role in sharing the contents of some of the files leaked from the state surveillance squad in 2008.
Victorian authorities are also investigating claims that the alleged organised crime boss Mohammed Oueida was tipped off about an impending police raid of up to five properties linked to his syndicate. A senior police officer said police discussed moving the raids forward after learning of the tip-off.
In April, when Victorian detectives and federal police eventually raided properties linked to Mr Oueida, they were accompanied by anti-corruption detectives.
Mr Oueida, who was later charged with serious drug offences, has been associated with suspected leaks from the Victoria Police since 2008, when documents from the force's surveillance unit were leaked to him and other suspected criminals.
About the same time, Mr Oueida is suspected of receiving information from a corrupt law enforcement officer from which he could identify a police camera hidden outside his factory.
In a statement to the Herald, the OPI director, Michael Strong, said: "Leakage of confidential information is a serious inhibitor to effective law enforcement and continues to be a major concern to OPI."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/police-secrets-leaked-to-bikies-20110718-1hlqx.html#ixzz1SVyPSlFZ
