“The vast majority of the cybercrime in the world,and particularly the ransomware,which is the most threatening to international security,comes from Russian-based,Russian-language cybercrime groups,” he said.

Two months after this masthead revealed ASIO had discreetly expelled from Australia members of an entrenched Russian spy ring,Biggar also warned that Russian spy expulsions in the UK had prompted Moscow’s security apparatus to turn to organised criminals to carry out its dirty work.

He said Russia’s intelligence agencies were using “proxies,including criminals to try and achieve their ends” overseas,while simultaneously providing a haven for international hackers inside Russia.

Biggar also said financial sanctions applied to Putin-linked oligarchs in the UK had forced some to turn to the criminal underworld to move and launder significant sums of money.

While all states,including the Five Eyes partners,engaged in cyber-espionage,countries such as Russia and China target companies and individuals to steal intellectual property and harass dissidents.

Britain’s most senior counter-terror official,Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes,said Russia and Iran were using transnational crime groups to subvert Western democracy.

British police had thwarted 15 murder plots aimed at critics of the Iranian regime living in Britain since January last year,he said.

In February,Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil called out Iran for itsharassment of Iranians living in Australia,describing acase in which a critic was “followed,watched,photographed and had their home invaded” by Iranian agents.

Jukes said what UK authorities could “see very plainly from Iran is a determination to silence … dissident voices as they perceive them.”

He said British authorities had disrupted 15 “intense,acute,threats” to the lives of Iranians in Britain in 18 months.

Five Eyes police chiefs also described a concerted campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to intimidate and harass diaspora communities in the West,claims long denied by Beijing. The Chinese embassy in Canberra declined an interview request.

On Saturday,this masthead and60 Minutes also revealed how the FBI was tracking relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and organised criminals operating in Pacific island nations. The FBI said these crime groups had corrupted Pacific island politicians in order to advance China’s sphere of influence in the region.

FBI deputy director Paul Abbate claimed Beijing had enabled transnational crime groups to destabilise Australia and its allies,blaming the Chinese government for failing to curb the huge flow of fentanyl to North America.

Concerns about the overlap between the Chinese Communist Party and transnational criminal entities is among the catalysts for the recent decision by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to use its special intelligence gathering powers to target foreign interference,espionage,bribery and terrorism.

The commission’s acting chief executive,Matt Rippon,confirmed his agency’s board – which is chaired by Kershaw and governed by Australia’s spy and police chiefs – had,in December,authorised operations targeting links between organised crime and national security threats,but declined to single out any state actors.

The National Security Threats Determination is almost certain to focus on the Chinese government’s dealings with organised crime groups,two sources speaking anonymously to discuss confidential information said.

Rippon also revealed the Criminal Intelligence Commission was working with its Five Eyes partners to assess the prospect of America’s fentanyl epidemic being replicated in Australia and to war game how to pre-empt this.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley.Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletterhere.