“It is the other 90 per cent that we are not getting a look at or are not able to fully focus on for various reasons. That’s the bit that really concerns me,and it concerns me from the point of view of what it really does to our nation,” Mr Ryan said. “We are quite stunned at the size of organised crime in Australia.”
The comments came as one of the spin-off operations from Ironside exposed an alleged crime ring at Sydney airport. The operation led to the charging of six serving and former Australian employees of the Dubai National Air Travel Agency,raising serious concerns that the agency may have been infiltrated by a crime syndicate for several years to smuggle drugs through Sydney international airport.
And an Australian alleged crime boss has for the first time been designated a high-priority crime target by the US government. The former Sydneysider,Hakan Arif,is a fugitive and right-hand man of another most-wanted former Sydney resident,Hakan Ayik,who was a key figure in distributing the encrypted phones at the centre of Operation Ironside. The American “high priority” designation is usually reserved for Mexican and Colombian narcotics bosses and highlights the rapid global expansion of Australian crime syndicates.
In a rare and forceful public intervention in the national security debate,Mr Ryan said inadequate resourcing of the AFP combined with the laws of supply and demand in the illicit drug market meant Australia’s premier law enforcement agency was often playing catch-up,increasingly relying on technological innovation to deter criminal targets.
“We could have another 500 investigators working in the organised crime space and it would still be an issue for us,” Mr Ryan said,describing organised crime as a “completely insidious” national security threat that had been overshadowed by terrorism.
“It just doesn’t get the attention it deserves to get,” he said.