Steve Symon: Organised crime expert on New Zealand's response to and efforts to curb organised crime

An organised crime expert believes New Zealand's failure to curb criminal activity isn't due to a lack of trying.  

A ministerial advisory group has released its second report criticising our response to modern crime and money laundering.  

It shows the cash and assets seized by police is just 4.2% of the $1.6 billion in criminal profits each year.  

Group Chair and top lawyer Steve Symon told Mike Hosking Police are doing an excellent job addressing the problem and just need more tools.  

He says the number of seizures is fine by international standards, but not enough to properly disrupt operations. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Organized Crime Advisory Group back this morning with their
second report finds we're willingly funneling money into organized crime
groups through the purchasing of drugs and dumb scams. Meanwhile,
the police are who bring up just seventy five million
dollars worth of criminal assets, which they think accounts for
about four percent of what's actually out there. Steve Simon
is the chair of the Ministry of Advisory Group and

(00:20):
is back with us. Steve, very good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
You morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
So we're attractive as a market. Is that because everywhere
is attractive as a market at the moment, or we
in New Zealand are a little bit sleep at the wheel.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Everywhere is attractive as a market. New Zealand is particularly
attractive because, on the one hand, because of our remoteness,
we're doing everything we can to be the easiest place
in the world to do business. The downside of that,
it also means we're one of the easiest places organized
crime to do business. And we're also attractive because, for example,

(00:55):
with meth amphetamine, New Zealanders will pay a price for
metham vetoing which is higher than most other places in
the world.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
How depressing is it to say that.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's pretty hard. It's pretty challenging to think of what
that means for us as New Zealand. Is what that
means for me, what means for my kids? And so
that's part of the reason why we're looking at trying
to find ways tools for the police and other enforcement
agencies to do something about it.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Are they what's your summation from this group of yours
so far on? And this debtails into the four percent
on assets as well of what the job police are
doing good or not.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
The police are doing a really good job. I think
the difficulty is by international standards that four point two
percent is actually very good. The point as your notice,
they just can't it's just not good enough to move
the dial to disrupt organized crime. Our police are doing
great with the tools that they've got, working really hard
with the tools that they've got to seize that amount

(01:54):
of money, and it's not insignificant. We just think that
if we are going to actually disrupt the organized crime,
we need to give them a tools exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
So a two part question on this what are those tools,
how legislatively heavy are they and are you telling people
like Mitchell anything they don't already know?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Question Mike. There are a number of changes, and number
of them will be legislators and what we've done is
set in our report a variety of them relation to
the proceeds of crime regime, also in relation to the
money laundering regime, and also around what we can do
in relation to cash. Some of those will require changes
to the acts that govern them, and we've been in

(02:34):
consultation with Minister Costello in relation to that. We've also
seen where we will need changes to be made by
government agencies and we've had conversations again with a minister
about how those might be achieved.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I think I asked you this time when the first report,
do you bullish on where you sit, on the difference
you're making that we're traveling in the right direction and
something good will come out of this tangibly?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, I mean we were told to be bold, were
told to shift the dial and to do it in
a meaningful way, and so our recommendations have been very
bold because we know on the one hand we want
to balance private individuals interests, but also we want to
on behalf of New zealand do something to tackle this problem.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Good on you, and I wish you the best and
we'll get you on with your ext report. Steve Simon,
who's the chair of the Ministerial Advisory Group for Organized Crime,
it's worth looking if you can be bothered. In Parliament
yesterday Shane Jones gave a very sober answer. And the
reason I emphasized that is normally Shane Jones as sort
of hilarious in his answers nothing's taken particularly serious, but
yesterday spoke very seriously about the drug addled nature of

(03:39):
his part of the world and the far north of
this country. And if you ever want to see what
meth can do, and gangs can do, and organized crime
can do, unfortunately the Northland region as you post a child.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
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