Pubdate: Thu, 13 Jul 2000
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001
Fax: +61-(0)2-9282 3492
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/
Author: Neil Mercer

NET OFFENCES TOP PRIORITY: CRIMES EXPERT

Electronic crime, particularly that committed via the Internet, will soon 
become the biggest challenge facing police and law enforcement agencies, 
says the former general manager of operations at the National Crime 
Authority, Mr Peter Lamb.

Mr Lamb, who retired last Friday after almost 40 years in policing, said 
the volume of business already being done on the Net was huge, and police 
were struggling to keep up.

"We are moving towards looking at it, but here in Australia we have no idea 
of the scope of the problem," he said.

Mr Lamb, one of the most experienced law enforcement officers in the 
country, said money was increasingly being sent via the Net, and this posed 
some big challenges, not just for police but for legislators.

"Money can be sent at the touch of a key," he said. "A touch of the key 
removes the evidence. And where is the crime committed? Out there in the 
ether, here, or at the other end [of the transaction]?"

One of the difficulties law enforcement faced was that officers experienced 
in dealing with computer crime were quickly poached by big business, which 
offered "a lot more than we can pay", he said.

Mr Lamb, who spent most of his career with the Federal Police, was the 
first officer in charge of that force's organised crime division in Sydney 
in the 1970s, "Sydney being the home of organised crime".

He also worked in the United States and for the Independent Commission 
Against Corruption.

Drugs had changed the dynamics and structure of organised crime forever, he 
said.

Anglo-Saxon and Celtic criminal groups such as those run by Lennie 
McPherson and George Freeman had dominated Sydney's crime scene for many 
years via illegal gambling, prostitution, robbery, standover and protection 
rackets.

"On their day they ran Sydney. But Lennie and those fellows pale into 
insignificance now ... heroin changed all that. Drugs have brought into 
play a far more vicious and violent element who, in staking out their patch 
and their marketplace, will do anything to protect it."

Chinese and Vietnamese groups were responsible for the vast majority of 
heroin importing and distribution, he said, although those reaping the huge 
profits would often never set foot in Australia.

"There are certainly major profit-takers within Australia, but the 
significant profit-takers reside overseas. The money is moved [back to 
them] in a variety of ways."

Mr Lamb said that in the 1970s he had worked on what were thought to be big 
money laundering cases involving up to $30 million, but these days those 
kinds of amounts were regarded as trivial.

Although police would never stop drugs coming into the country, they could 
make life very difficult for many of the big syndicates which were using 
lawyers, private investigators and former police as advisers.

"What we are seeing now in Australia is what I saw in the US: criminal 
elements doing their homework on our methods. They employ quality people to 
research our methods."

This included advice on electronic surveillance.
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