Price of freedom and privacy ?
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link taken off Lionnoisy's signature
Organised crime 'thriving' in Qld
The "Mr Bigs" of organised crime in Queensland were thriving untouched because law enforcement agencies could not tap phones, a federal parliamentary committee has been told.
Criminal investigators were virtually powerless to stop flourishing criminal networks and were forced to rely on interstate policing bodies for phone surveillance, the committee heard.
Queensland is the only state in Australia where crime fighting authorities do not have telephone interception or phone tapping powers, despite more than a decade of lobbying from police and the Crime and Misconduct Commission.
The State Government had "repeatedly refused to act" because it wanted the independent public interest monitor to guard against abuse of power.
Police Minister Judy Spence last year announced changes in Commonwealth laws meant the obstacle had been cleared, but a dispute between the two governments has delayed a resolution.
CMC director of intelligence Chris Keen said the impasse was diminishing the power of Queensland law enforcement agencies.
"We are significantly impeded at the moment by the lack of telecommunications interception," he said.
The CMC's submission to the inquiry, which is examining the effects of organised crime on society, said the lack of phone tapping powers was letting crime bosses go unpunished.
"Organised crime in Queensland is characterised by a number of significant criminal identities who have been involved in organised crime activity for a number of years and have successfully evaded prosecution," it stated.
"Were TI powers available in Queensland it is highly likely that a number of these criminal identities would have been successfully prosecuted or at the least had their activities curtailed."
Investigative journalist and expert witness Bob Bottom told the committee the CMC's complaints were "shocking".
"That's in effect saying there's an official attitude here that has allowed Mr Bigs to re-arise in Queensland untouched and making a laughing stock of authority," he said.
Mr Bottom said drug lord and fugitive Tony Mokbel's recent arrest in Greece had relied on thousands of hours of tapped phone conversations.
He said it was outrageous Queensland police had gone so long without the same powers as police in other states.
"There could be Tony Mokbel's walking down the Queen Street Mall and you wouldn't have a clue they were here," he said.
"It's the Florida of Australia, because they know they can operate here, they can't be phone tapped and with modern communications it's a haven for them."
Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said he had not seen the CMC's submission and would not comment on it.
However, he said organised crime was an ongoing concern in the state and there was no doubt phone tapping powers would help police.
"There's some good things happening but it is a concern to me and I'm not prepared to say we're on top of it and I don't know that we ever will be," he said.
Police Minister Judy Spence said Queensland police regularly used telephone interception during joint investigations with other agencies.
"I don't think we should be giving Queenslanders the impression that (the police's) inability to have phone tapping impedes them to a great extent because, in fact, telephone tapping is occurring in this state," she said.
However, Ms Spence said the state government agreed that police and the CMC needed those powers independently of interstate agencies.
She said asking for the public interest monitor to be included in the process, as a final check and balance for the community, was fair.
"At the moment, the public interest monitor is present at the Supreme Court when the police ask for these sorts of powers in relation to listening devices," Ms Spence said.
"So I don't think we're being unreasonable in asking the federal government to allow Queensland to have the PMI as part of the process when police go to court to ask for telephone tapping powers." -
when the gang lord has $$ to influence police,politicians
it is the end of justice.
Pl be reminded that as far as i know,one local born aussie
and one Aussie--vietnam were gunned down after
giving evidences in court.So,who want to be no.3??
So,here u see shadow AG support the gang lord to apply
for liquor license.
He is not a pretender.Politician just take a short cut
to win election.
Search for yourself how gangsters influence western politctics...
Mokbel the great pretender,Friday, March 9, 2007Former shadow attorney general Kelvin Thomson isn't the first person to have been taken in by alleged gangland killer Tony Mokbel, writes Adam Shand.
Former shadow attorney general Kelvin Thomson is not the first good citizen to have been taken in by the smiling face of drug smuggler and alleged gangland killer Tony Mokbel.
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“Fat Tony” Mokbel was a favourite of the Collins Street business crowd for years before his associations with the underworld became known. He was a regular at the dinner tables of business folk who enjoyed the racier end of town. A lover of kick boxing, Mokbel could mingle with the high-powered set that frequented such events. He was well liked and made friends and business connections.
Like many villains, Mokbel aspired to legitimate business. Indeed, he had all the outward trappings of a prosperous, if slightly oily, entrepreneur.
By 2000, when Thomson gave his reference in support of MokbelÂ’s liquor licence application, the Lebanese-born drug czar was riding high. He had invested the proceeds of his speed and coke sales well, cashing in on the apartment boom. Thomson says he was not aware he had personally met Mokbel, but there were others who could vouch for the well-connected applicant.
Mokbel owned several of MelbourneÂ’s leading nightclubs and had undeclared interests in others. It was rumoured he had taken control of a leading brothel after a shareholder had defaulted in a debt repayment. He also backed a well-known designer, Christopher Chronis, in the South Yarra boutique Love of Style and Design. (Maybe the acronym LSD should have rung some bells, but Fat Tony was into much more contemporary substances than the 1960s hallucinogen.) Chronis has no criminal connections and only discovered his backer was one of the countryÂ’s most dangerous drug villains when Fat Tony was arrested for cocaine importation in 2001.
When Mokbel was arrested, police seized or froze numerous assets, including a 1998 Ferrari Roadster, a brand new Mercedes-Benz, eight units in Templestowe worth more than $2 million, a row of shops in Coburg, investment properties in Melbourne and Queensland and several fat bank accounts. He did have mortgages, but there was a huge undeclared pool of cash that he hid from his friends in polite society. ItÂ’s estimated that Mokbel had amassed $20 million by the time he fled the country last year.
Mokbel was also a voracious and lucky punter. Leading jockeys were warned to stay away from him after his name came up in telephone intercepts in the infamous Jockey Tapes scandal. He and his wife Carmel were banned from owning racehorses by the Victoria Racing Club in 1999. He cultivated contacts with leading stables to get the best tips and rewarded hoops generously for their information. He enjoyed an extraordinary run of luck on the punt but sometimes he declined to pay the bookies when he lost. Later, he used intermediaries to place his bets as bookies declined to do business direct.
Certainly, Thomson was strictly correct in his reference for Mokbel when he said Fat Tony had made “a significant contribution to the community” but his character reference was less than comprehensive. Mokbel’s “unblemished conduct” had by 2000 included a string of arrests but the best was yet to come. It’s alleged that he paid for the murders of former kickboxing champ Michael Marshall and western suburbs crime patriarch Lewis Moran.
Before his flit, police reportedly overheard Mokbel boasting that he had hidden a huge cache of pseudoephedrine a day-and-halfÂ’s drive from Melbourne, enough precursor chemical to produce amphetamines worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The extent of his wealth may never be fully known. One source told The Bulletin he had once witnessed MokbelÂ’s henchmen moving money around a warehouse on a pallet truck.