Technology allows organised crime to carry out hits, distribute drugs from a distance
In the past outlaw motorcycle groups would conduct business with people affiliated with that club. (AAP: Alan Porritt)
In short:
The proliferation and accessibility of encrypted apps and devices means killings can be ordered and carried out in secret.
A law enforcement officer says they have seen crews become younger, more violent and more reckless.
What's next?
Underworld sources say criminals here and internationally have become wary of the security of encrypted devices after recent police investigations.
As a senior New South Wales police officer, Jason Weinstein observes trends in the criminal world closely.
In the past couple of years, he said he had watched a change in the way that organised crime worked, and it worried him.
"Traditionally organised crime would perform functions inside their own group," he said.
"For example, it's an outlaw motorcycle group, they would conduct all the business or their illegal activities inside the group by persons who are affiliated with that club.
"So whether that was money laundering, whether that was doing acts of violence, whether that was moving prohibited drugs around the state or interstate, it was always done internally."
Police believe these jobs are now advertised and picked up online.
The person offering the contract might not know the identity of the individual performing it.
It drapes both parties — the person offering the contract and contractor — in a shield of anonymity, a cloak which means their activity is harder to investigate if neither knows who the other is.
Jason Weinstein says he's worried by changes in the way organised crime works. (ABC News: Tim Swanston)
Detective Superintendent Weinstein explained that it also meant younger crews with less experience were stepping up and performing extremely serious crimes like murder but might lack the experience, putting the public at risk.
"We're certainly starting to see people sometimes with a very clean record or not very much on the radar of criminal of law enforcement, who were all [of] a sudden conducting probably some of the most extreme violent activities … that you can imagine," he said.
Superintendent Weinstein is the former commander of the Raptor Squad, the specialist force tasked with investigating the activities of outlaw bikie groups.
Loading...Tech allows syndicates to operate remotely
A series of raids conducted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) last month saw dozens of people charged with illicit drug trafficking, conspiracy, destruction of records and supporting a criminal organisation and firearm charges.
The key to these charges was the AFP penetrating the so-called "Ghost" platform, part of federal police's Operation Kraken, which gave them access to 125,000 messages sent by users.
Assistant Commissioner Kirsty Schofield said the AFP was able to stop threats made to life.
Experts say the rise of crime tech has also led syndicates to operate remotely.
Criminologist David Bright from Deakin University, who specialises in organised crime, said before the advent of these new technologies, organised crime groups were to some extent locked geographically into their local areas.
David Bright says organised crime groups are embracing technology. (Flinders University: CJ Taylor)
"You would often still have shipments of drugs and other illicit commodities internationally, but you would still need people on the ground in specific locations," he said.
"These days with the technologies that we're seeing, we're seeing organised crime groups unchained from the geographic locations in which they are … these shipments can be coordinated from far away from the drugs themselves."
The remote operation puts them beyond the jurisdiction of police like Superintendent Weinstein and provides an element of freedom that allows them to traffic narcotics without having to do the on-the-ground work themselves.
"It also gives members of organised crime group a kind of an additional capacity to be distanced from the actual criminal activities themselves,"Dr Bright said.
Huge amounts of data collected
This is certainly the case for underworld figures associated with the notorious criminal network dubbed The Commission, a cartel-like Australian criminal syndicate that sets the floor price for drug sales.
Several members of The Commission operate out of Dubai, a city quickly becoming something akin to the Silicon Valley of Australian drug trafficking.
Last month, NSW Police said they cracked The Commission, but underworld sources disputed this.
The data itself, underworld sources told the ABC, captured through telecommunication devices, could also sometimes be a trap for law enforcement.
Investigators in Europe, they claimed, inundated with mountains of data collected through monitored encrypted devices, have been forced to prioritise only serious criminal offences: homicide and major drug trafficking.
The source said there was also a growing perception among people who worked inside criminal syndicates that, in the wake of penetration by police of several encrypted services, they were no longer secure.
"Encrypted phones are not trustworthy," one source told the ABC.
"They will have to find another solution to communicate with immunity. Question is, what will that be, and who is already ahead of the game?"
Wars are won or lost based on communication lines.
It is no different in Australia's underworld, where syndicates will flourish on their ability to communicate securely.
Now, the source says, those who will be able to develop that new platform will be the ones who succeed.