by James Morton
Next, Overland drew negative media attention when the police computer system had a cost blow-out of $100 million. Even worse, Sir Ken sent Overland an email regarding a sensitive report he was about to turn in on murders committed by parolees. The report stated that up to four murders could have been prevented had police databases kept better track of parolees, because officers dealing with criminals had not been alerted to their status.
Suspicion for the unfavourable leaks against Overland fell on Sir Ken Jones, who had resigned from his post three months earlier than he had intended on 6 May 2011 amid suggestions that Overland had precipitated his departure. Another investigation was ordered, this time to be run by the OPI.
Meanwhile the press, in particular The Herald Sun, ran what some unkindly termed a ‘get Baldy’ campaign, in reference to Overland’s shaved head. In 2011 almost 2980 police members, a quarter of the force, voted in a Police Association online poll, which found that 92 per cent did not have confidence in Overland continuing as their boss.
On 16 June 2011 ombudsman George Brouwer’s annual report found that, while Overland had been inadequately briefed by senior police as to the validity of the crime statistics, he had allowed them to be rushed through to the media, despite warnings that the data was not ‘settled’. Overland, with dignity intact and denying any improper conduct, resigned the same day.
But the slate was not yet clean. Now Ashby and Mullett complained that Overland, his Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius and former Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton had breached federal communications laws when they accessed OPI phone-tap information. Ashby and Mullett also claimed that Overland had conducted a vendetta against them, instigating a joint OPI and Victoria Police investigation during which they had been humiliated in public hearings.
Even the OPI itself was firmly in the firing line. Critics, including a retired judge, had already accused it of being incompetent in dealing with a police force riddled with corruption. It was thought to be heavy handed, using secret internal investigations, phone tapping and other star-chamber tactics. Not unexpectedly, the OPI was disbanded and replaced in early 2013 by the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC). The name and constitution may have changed, but sadly the complaints were carried over.
In November 2013 the new watchdog announced that it was not empowered to investigate anything short of ‘serious corruption’. As Graham Ashton had not intended to breach the federal telecommunications law when he provided OPI telephone tapes to Overland and Cornelius, his behaviour had fallen short of corruption and so was outside IBAC jurisdiction. IBAC also cleared Overland and Cornelius of any wrongdoing and found that Mullett and Ashby’s allegations were either not made out on the evidence or were outside IBAC jurisdiction. It resolved to hand the Simon Overland–Sir Ken Jones stoush to an outsider: retired judge Murray Kellam. There was immediate press criticism of the watchdog, saying that it needed wider powers and the ‘serious corruption’ threshold was too restrictive.
It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that the only anti-corruption investigations that worked at least in part were ones where, instead of confining the ambit of the investigator, the boundaries were stretched beyond what was initially thought appropriate. By accepting or putting itself in a strait jacket, IBAC risks being thought to be simply pussy footing.
Kellam’s report, tabled in the Victorian Parliament on Wednesday 19 February 2014, cleared Sir Ken of serious misconduct. Kellam found that there was no evidence Jones leaked sensitive information directly to the media and, while he may have divulged confidential information to others, he had no intention that the information be passed on to the media. While there certainly were leaks of material confidential to Victoria Police, the OPI and the Victorian ombudsman between 2009 and early 2013, the sources of the leaks were not identified. However, Kellam found that the facts demonstrated there was a ‘serious level of dysfunction’ in the relationship between Overland and Jones. He was highly critical of the OPI investigation and found sympathy for Sir Ken’s argument that the report demonstrated a ‘methodology adopted by the OPI of pre-judging Jones’ guilt and then conducting an investigation to support that conclusion’. Which is, of course, how many believe the police regularly conduct their investigations.
But the biggest disaster for Australian police was in relation to Mark Standen, former assistant director of investigations for the New South Wales Crime Commission. The highest-ranking officer to fall in recent years, Standen was another in the Kelly, Krahe and Rogerson mould:
Like the Roman god, a mythological gatekeeper, Standen had two personas: one was the competitive, effective and highly decorated investigator; the other was the shadowy alter-ego of an addicted gambler, who managed to evade paying the debts for his sometimes questionable professional methods and friends.
His questionable friends included Sydney identity John David Anderson and his son Michael, who were convicted in 2008 of the attempted importation of 27 kilograms of cocaine in watertight containers strapped to the hull of the Tampa and another vessel. The haul, worth around $11 million, was discovered by New Zealand officers and substituted. The Tampa was then tracked and Michael Anderson was seen diving in to try to retrieve the drugs. John Anderson received eighteen years and his son, who was said to have acted out of misguided loyalty, received ten.
Curiously, in Standen’s case none of the lessons of earlier decades appear to have been learned. He had been under suspicion for a great deal of his career but, despite this, continued his inexorable rise, lasting a full thirty-three years in law enforcement. Along the way he had been adversely named in royal commissions, faced accusations of destroying evidence and, as Paul Higgins had done in Melbourne years earlier, managed to overturn adverse rulings—in Standen’s case over his entry into the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
In 1982 the Stewart Royal Commission into drug trafficking heard that Standen had worked for the Federal Narcotics Bureau, then an arm of customs that later amalgamated with the AFP. In May 1979 Standen and two other narcotics agents had raided the Bondi house of a man called Udy, where they found eighteen silver foils of hashish. Standen later told Stewart that he and his colleagues had, weeks later, flushed the hash down a toilet, falsified entries into the bureau’s log book to show that nothing was found in the raid and then destroyed a signed statement from Udy confessing to his ownership of the drugs, thus effectively removing any trace of the bust.
‘I do not actually specifically remember the incident—I feel fairly certain I would have destroyed it by shredding’, Standen told the commission about this confession. Asked by Stewart if the men were ‘really trying to obliterate all traces of this incident’, Standen responded, ‘That is correct’. The reason they destroyed the hashish and paperwork was that the amount of drugs was less than 500 grams and so charges could not be brought under federal laws.
But AFP Chief Superintendent John Reilly, who investigated the matter after a complaint was made by New South Wales Police, offered a different version of how the agents had explained their actions. According to Reilly, the agents claimed that there had been problems with charging Udy because of lack of cooperation by local police and they then became embarrassed about having held onto the hashish for more than two weeks. Stewart said that Standen’s answers during the investigation ‘reflected on either his honesty or his quality as an investigator’.
Standen was charged under the Public Service Act and recommendations were made that he and another agent be barred from joining the AFP when the Narcotics Bureau merged into the new Commonwealth force later that year. The charge and the AFP ban were dropped because of ‘indecision by members of the Department of Administrative Services and what was then Business and Consumer Affairs’. So Standen moved into the AFP, along with Allan Gregory McLean, later convicted for importing heroin into Australia.
Two of Standen’s colleagues in the Udy bust, Stephen Innsley and Frank Ramaccia, came to notice again later. Ramaccia joined t
he New South Wales Police and was investigated by the Police Integrity Commission, though no charges were brought. Innsley was jailed for four charges of perjury at the 1982 Stewart Royal Commission.
In 1979 Standen went to work in the AFP’s Sydney office, where by all accounts his gambling escalated. Federal agents who were his workmates said it was widely known that he had a problem and he was a regular punter on the horses, racking up a debt of about $70 000 at his favourite hotel near AFP headquarters.
During those years the AFP was riddled with corruption. In 1990 AFP drug-registry officer Michael Anthony Wallace was convicted of stealing $20 million worth of drugs, some of which he had hidden at his parents’ home, and cash and exhibits. He was jailed for twelve years. After his release he was convicted of the manslaughter of Zoe Zou, with whom he said he was in a relationship. He had dumped her body in the Blue Mountains. In 2007 an appeal against his sentence of fourteen years was dismissed. AFP officer Allan Gregory McLean was sentenced to sixteen years’ jail for helping to import millions of dollars worth of heroin from India hidden inside a consignment of soccer balls in 1988. In 2001 Cliff Foster, Standen’s former boss at the Sydney drugs unit, committed suicide while under investigation for supplying heroin and possible links to a crime syndicate importing hashish from New Zealand.
In 1995 Standen’s colleague Alan Taciak rolled over in the New South Wales Wood Royal Commission and alleged that seventy-eight AFP officers—15 per cent of the force—were corrupt. Taciak’s allegations prompted a 1996 inquiry headed by Ian Harrison, who later became a Supreme Court judge.
Harrison’s final report, which is understood to have found widespread corruption in the AFP, was never released. However, in April 1997 the Attorney-General gave parliament limited details of the inquiry, which had investigated eighty-nine allegations in respect of fifty-four current members of the AFP. His statement contained the exculpatory sentence, ‘It is worth noting that the AFP currently comprises approximately 2700 persons’.
According to the statement, Harrison had found that many of Taciak’s allegations related to times long ago and were to some extent based on gossip and rumour for which no supporting evidence was found. Those matters that Taciak witnessed or in which he was directly involved, where his allegations might be more soundly based, were thoroughly investigated by the inquiry and recommendations were made where appropriate. Every serving AFP officer invited to attend or otherwise cooperate with the inquiry did so, without exception. However, the statement did not add that many agents escaped investigation simply by quitting the AFP.
Harrison made no adverse findings in respect of forty-six of the fifty-four officers. In each instance he found that there was no reliable basis on which to recommend any further steps be taken. He also examined twenty allegations involving seven of the remaining eight officers. While he found that many could not be substantiated, he did recommend that some allegations against seven officers be referred to the AFP commissioner in order to determine, in light of the material available, whether the commissioner retained confidence in those officers. In respect of the eighth officer, Harrison recommended that one issue, going back some fifteen years, be referred to the DPP for consideration as to whether any charges should be laid. Many thought the whole thing was a whitewash.
Standen met Diane James in the AFP drug-targeting unit in 1995. She later married Bakhos ‘Bill’ Jalalaty, left the AFP and went to work with him in their smallgoods company. Standen and Diane Jalalaty kept in touch, but he became closer to her husband than to her.
That year, 1995, was also the year Standen took voluntary redundancy from the AFP and joined the New South Wales Crime Commission. There he was in charge of what was known as the Gymea Team, which had responsibility for investigating organised crime, drug importation and the manufacture and distribution of drugs.
In 2005 Michael Nicholas Hurley, variously described as a criminal ‘head honcho’ of a new east-coast milieu or the Coogee Mob, was arrested following a five-month investigation known as Operation Mocha. This related to the alleged cooperation of baggage handlers in smuggling drugs through Sydney airport. The October 2004 haul that ended Hurley’s career had been the last thing loaded onto an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight from Chile. As a result it would be unloaded first, so that it could be removed before it reached the baggage hall in Sydney and put into a designated bin for subsequent collection. Hurley died before his trial could take place.
In 2004 Standen was involved in the authorised sale of 7 kilograms of cocaine seized from the Hurley syndicate to an authorised informant codenamed ‘Tom’, on the curious grounds that it could not seriously endanger anyone’s health. A single kilogram was later retrieved, but Tom had either sold the remainder or buried it in bush-land near Wahroonga. In any event, 6 kilograms was never recovered.
In late 2004 the Crime Commission received information from an informer that Englishman James Kinch, who was overseas, was a ‘big mover’ of drugs. In early 2006 Australian police were tipped off by their Dutch counterparts to the plan, which was allegedly being masterminded by Kinch and involving Bakhos Jalalaty, who now had a food-importing and -distribution business in Blacktown.
On 19 December 2005, $47 192 was transferred by Kinch into a bank account belonging to Jalalaty’s company. Payments totalling $47 000 were made from the bank account to Standen in December 2005, and in January and February 2006. These transactions amounted to a gift from Kinch to Standen. The gift was not made directly, because Standen did not want the Crime Commission to know that he was receiving money from the Englishman, who was later giving evidence at his trial, or that Kinch had offered to send him as a Christmas present—as one does—the amount of money required for an operation on his eyes. However, the cost of the operation would have been only $5000 or at most $10 000. From May 2006, police and investigators, including Standen’s colleagues, intercepted thousands of conversations between Standen, Kinch and Jalalaty. Standen’s role in the massive importation plan would be to advise on the movements of customs officers and so pinpoint a time when it would be safe to import drugs.
On 15 September 2007 Jalalaty and Standen met at a Sydney cafe, where they discussed the incongruity of rice being sent by a company named Elegant Hosiery and whether such a name would attract the authorities’ attention. Standen gave advice to Jalalaty about how he should answer in the event of his being arrested, and also spoke about customs procedures for inspecting imported containers and the profit that could be made from the venture. He said, ‘They will probably make from 100 to 120 a kilo’. Jalalaty then said, ‘So if they bring in 100 kilos it makes 12 million profit and he goes half with … the biggest mule and we go thirds’.
Unaware of the around-the-clock surveillance, Standen and Jalalaty pressed on. In their communications the three of them adopted pseudonyms, including female names. Jalalaty was usually referred to as ‘Myrtle’. Kinch was referred to by a variety of female names, including ‘Jo-Jo’. Standen was usually referred to as ‘Maurice’.
In May 2010 Jalalaty pleaded guilty to conspiring to import a commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine. He received ten years with a minimum of six to be served. Standen fought to the end. On 11 August 2011, after a five-month trial, a jury found him guilty of conspiring to import and supply 300 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, which could be used to produce $60 million worth of ‘ice’ or crystal meth. He was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice and sentenced to twenty-two years in jail with a minimum of sixteen to be served. In sentencing Standen the judge said he found ‘that by his acceptance of this [initial] substantial sum of money Mr Standen was irretrievably corruptly compromised, so far as Kinch was concerned’. Many might think he had compromised himself years earlier.
In 2011 former New South Wales Police Integrity Commissioner and Australian Crime Commissioner John Pritchard resigned from his $417 000-a-year job and began working as a salesman at a Ray’s Outdoors store in Caringbah. Since the report on his conduct was embargo
ed not everything is crystal clear, but it appears that Pritchard had leaked confidential information to the media in an effort to make the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) look better. He had left the PIC for a top job with the Australian Crime Commission in January the previous year, nine months before his five-year term was due to expire. Six months into his new job he was obliged to offer his resignation.
One increasing worry for all states has been the potential infiltration of its officers by a new breed of outlaw motorcycle gang members, in particular those of the Comancheros and Bandidos. In March 2013 there were allegations that Victorian and other states’ officers were taking drugs supplied by bikers, using biker-owned tattoo parlours and getting free entry into strip clubs run by gang members. As far back as 2004 a potential AFP raid on multimillionaire drug dealer Amad ‘Jay’ Malkoun, then president of the Comancheros, had been compromised by leaked information. In February 2011 the multi-agency trafficking investigation Operation Corsair was aborted when Malkoun received a tip-off that he was on its list and being targeted by police. Investigations by the now disbanded OPI and other agencies identified several Victoria Police officers associating with Malkoun or members of his criminal syndicate over several years.
In April 2013 Victorian Police Commissioner Kenneth Lay admitted that the force was investigating breaches of its LEAP computer system dating back three years, with sensitive files allegedly having been sold to motorcycle-gang members. Task Force Eagle was established to tackle the problem. ‘It is not just about compromising Victoria Police now; it is about compromising the organisation in five, 10 or 15 years’ time’, said Lay.