Australia cracks money-laundering racket
Print Edition
Australian police have cracked a major global money-laundering ring with operatives in more than 20 countries and funds siphoned off to groups reported to include Hezbollah.
The Australian Crime Commission said yesterday more than A$580 million (US$512 million) of drugs and assets had been seized, including A$26 million in cash, in a year-long sting targeting the offshore laundering of funds generated by outlaw motorcycle gangs, people-smugglers and others.
The operation has disrupted 18 serious and organized crime groups and singled out 128 individuals of interest in more than 20 countries, tapping information from agencies including the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
The full details of which countries had been involved were not revealed but acting ACC chief Paul Jevtovic said “the reality is that the Middle East and Southeast Asia have featured prominently.”
“Drug importations into Australia continue to be the main profit source by organized crime here in this country, but there is a range of other things, serious organized investment frauds, identity theft,” Jevtovic said.
The operation saw 105 people arrested on 190 separate charges and resulted in the closure of three major clandestine methamphetamine labs and Australia’s largest-ever urban hydroponic cannabis hothouse in Sydney last November.
“The task force focused on high-threat money-laundering activities and, as a result, revealed a range of different crime types which has led to these extraordinary outcomes,” said Justice Minister Michael Keenan.
Legitimate international cash wiring services were a major focus of the operation, with the government’s anti-laundering agency AUSTRAC saying they had been identified as at “high risk of being exploited by serious and organized crime groups.”
A Fairfax media expose on the operation found criminals targeted foreign nationals and students in Australia awaiting remittances from overseas, hijacking the transaction by depositing dirty money to the payee and then taking the cash wired from offshore.
Fairfax said at least one of the exchange houses used in the Middle East and Asia delivered a cut from every dollar it laundered to Lebanon’s powerful Shiite movement and Hezbollah, which is banned as a terrorist organization in Australia.
“It was just never-ending,” said ACC acting chief Col Blanch. “We were regularly finding bags of US$500,000 and US$400,000.”
Police netted a record A$5.7 million single cash seizure in Sydney at the weekend — seven suitcases stuffed with bills uncovered in an apartment near the city’s airport.
A 58-year-old US citizen who recently arrived in Australia via Costa Rica has been charged with dealing with the proceeds of crime over the stash.
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