June 29, 2024 • 43 mins
The investigation takes us to a $10 million home in a leafy city suburb.
Back home in Melbourne, Stephen Drill picks up a money trail leading right past his front door.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I've said this once before. It's not your problem until
it's your problem. I think what we've seen in the
past is people will see, you know, these organized crime
groups having conflict within themselves, and it's okay, that's okay,
it's over there, it doesn't affect me. But when you're
having these sorts of shootings occurring where it's close to
playgrounds or shopping car parks and it is close to you,
(00:24):
it is then your problem.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So this is it. This is the end of the line.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You last heard from my colleague News Corp Australia's national correspondent,
Stephen Drill back in episode three when he was in
a Narco tunnel underneath the US Mexico border. But right
now he's standing alone on a road full of multimillion
dollar properties where there's one that really stands out.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
This house is like it kind of looks like a spaceship.
It's it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Stephen's back home in Australia.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I'm in a street in Melbourne. It's the city where
I live. You might call this a leafy area. A
leafy area is shorthand here in Melbourne for posh. The
street is full of very old English trees, and I'm
standing in the shade of one, which is good for
my lack of hair.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Despite the tree cover, it's still hot out. The sun
is fierce in the blue sky. Growing up in Australia myself,
I can remember just how hot it gets.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Black Wall, Black Gate. The door set well back just
the underground garage here would probably be bigger than my
entire house.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
The house has white wolves, a home, cinema, a gym,
and big glass windows overlooking its private pool.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Now I'm just walking up to the front door.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I mean, this place looks like it's worth ten million dollars,
which is exactly what it was bought for just last
year by a man police allege is a member of
a money laudering syndicate called Long River.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
The Long River Operation allegedly laundered hundreds of millions of
Ossie dollars.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
And I'm just about to knock on the door of
this ten million dollar house that is alleged to be
the proceeds of crime.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Stephen reaches out, presses the button on the intercom. His
heart beats faster.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
No answer.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
As a journalist doing these jobs, we even know what
kind of reaction you'll get on a doorknock like this.
What the police are saying is that people living here
brought this swanky property with criminal profits.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Nothing. I'll try again, but this.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Time someone answers. I'm Fiona Hamilton and from The Times,
The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. This is the
final episode of Cocaine Inc. Episode eight, bringing it Home.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
So far in this series, I've been to Columbia and
Mexico looking at where the cocaine business starts in the
coca plantations and how the drug is exported. Fiona went
to the Netherlands, where ports like Rotterdam act as distribution
hubs for this global industry. David was in Northwest England
(04:11):
looking at the retail arm of the business, the street
level dealers. Then he followed the money trailed to Dubai,
which led to a maze of different companies dealing in
gold investment and trading. It felt like we lost the
trail at that point. What do the world's cocaine bosses
actually do with the money they've made from their crimes?
(04:33):
Does criminal money end up buying beautiful homes in suburban
streets in cities like the one where I live? Trying
to answer that question is how I ended up back
home in Australia standing outside his house looking at how
those allegedly involved in organized crime take their profits and
spend it.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Hi, my name's Stephen Drill, journalist. I just was wondering
if the place has been seized by the police or
what's happening with it now.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I just wanted to touch base. Are you the owner
of the property?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Okay, so I don't have permission to record, meaning you're
not going to hear the conversation. I can't see the
person I'm speaking to, but it's a woman. I guess
she's in her thirties.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
She sounds weary.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I try explaining how the Federal Police have just rated
twelve high street money exchange stores across the country and
are saying this house is linked to them. They're calling
it the most significant money laundering investigation in Australia's history.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The police allege the.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Company operated a bit like a bank, providing a system
for customers to transfer money in and out of the country. Only,
according to police, some of the customers will organize criminals
and their money.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Hundreds of millions allegedly.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Came from cyber scamps and what the cops call trafficking
illicit goods, which would be the kind of business we
followed around the world in this series. At the front
door of the ten million dollar.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
House, the woman I'm talking to seems to hesitate, and
a man takes over the conversation. He doesn't say who
he is. When I ask, he says, they don't know
anything about police rates. They've just moved in and they're
only tenants, he says. The owners aren't at home right now,
so they can't talk. Puzzled and disappointed, I say thanks
(06:46):
and walk back out.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
But something's nagging at me. So there's someone living in there.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Now, let's go and see what else there is here.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I'll just come knock on the neighbor's door.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Now, this might seem weird trying to talk to the neighbors,
but as a journalist, I've lost track of the number
of stories I've got just by knocking on doors. Does
anybody else in the neighborhood know something anything? When you're
working on a story like this, you never know what
tiny bit of information might be the missing piece that
(07:25):
helps you solve the puzzle. And I want to know
how this house might be caught up in the Long
River Syndicate. So I try some neighbors doors.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
The dog is certainly home there, but it's a little
white fuck your dog. Nothing too scary, which can happen
sometimes on door knocks.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
But I'll keep moving.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Because all I know is what the federal police are saying,
that the Long River Syndicate provide organized crime a way
to move their money here without it being traced by
the authorities. Money that could have come from allegedly trafficking,
A list of goods which could be drugged, like cocaine. Now,
(08:10):
the house immediately next door, she has a some string
tied around the gates.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It doesn't look like you can come into that one.
Hell from there, I just pressed the doorbell, see if
anyone comes out.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Do you understand why I think the effort is worth it,
spending hours in the hot sun knocking on strangers doors.
I need to take you back a few days to
when I got a call from a source.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
This call was unusual. The source said something was going
to happen.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
I can't tell you too much about it, but they.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Wouldn't say what.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
They just said to be free on a certain day,
so I knew it was going to be big. In
the meantime, I waited, I kept looking at the cocaine business,
which seems to be on a bull run.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
In the almost thirty years I've been in law enforcement
and intelligence, I haven't seen the scale of cocaine that
we've seen consistently hitting our shores in the last twelve
to twenty four months before in my career.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
This is Matt Rippon, Deputy CEO Intelligence at the Australian
Criminal Intelligence Commission or ACIC.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
The main reason is because of the profit margin to
be made. There are a lot of logistics and arrangements
that need to be made between uplift from the style
of coca leaf in Columbia, for example, to make it
all the way to the streets of Sydney or Melbourne, etc.
So it's a real global enterprise.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
We're talking in Matt's headquarters. It's a hard place to find.
There's no marking on the bill. Security is tight inside
these walls. Law enforcement spy and criminals. They access messages,
monitor the movement of people and cocaine.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
The law enforcement actually been really successful in recent years
in seizing some really large consignments of cocaine. You may
recall one point eight ton of cocaine was actually seized
in Peru.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
One point eight tons.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I do some mental calculations, as I learned at the
port in Cardagena back in episode three, the value of
cocaine changes depending on where it is in the global
supply chain. In Peru, where it was seized, that one
point eight tons might have been worth around five million
(10:53):
US dollars. Wholesale, it's almost four million pounds or seven
and a half million is STI dollars. While the time
it's trafficked all the way to Australia and sold by
the gram on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
That value rises by a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
It could be worth more than three quarters of a
billion dollars US over six hundred million pounds or one
point two billion Ousie dollars. Another way of looking at
it is that much cocaine would be enough to supply
(11:34):
every user in Australia for six months.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
That seizure was actually linked to one of the highest
level threats to this country. So attached to that syndicate,
you had another one point one ton of cocaine that
came into New South Wales from Panama.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
When he talks about high level threats to the country.
Matt means it much of Australia's cocaine import are thought
to be linked to an international cartel known as the Kinahans,
the Irish cocaine cowboys, who are currently thought to be
in the United Arab Emirates. The Kinahans are being investigated
(12:14):
around the world, including over links to the Islamic militant
group Hezbollah and Iran's intelligence services. In twenty twenty two,
the US government offered a five million dollar bounty for
information leading to the arrests of the gang's leaders.
Speaker 8 (12:31):
Buzz of today, the Kinahan transnational criminal organization joins the
ranks of Italy's Camorra, Mexico's Los Zetas, Japan's Yakaza, and
Russia's Thieves and Law Also as of today, the result
of these sanctions, these individuals are immediately served from the
US financial system and any assets brought property under US
(12:55):
jurisdiction are immediate blocked.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
At this moment, the Kinahans the suspective of hiding out
in Dubai, where David was in the last episode. Together,
these different interlinked criminal groups represent a huge international challenge
to any single police.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
Force in twenty twenty three. In February, you had two
back to back large cocaine importations, three hundred kilo importation
off the coast of Western Australia, and then you had
three point two ton seased in New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
That's a lot of money in one shipment. That's billions
of dollars of street value.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
It is billions of dollars. And the interesting thing here
is that because of the profit margin that can be
made from coca leaf all the way through to finished
product on the ground, they can afford to lose a
particular consignment. It's not a good outcome for them, but
they actually factor in losses into their business model like
(13:55):
any good company structure would.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Fact In Rotterdam, where Fiona was in episode four of
this series, research suggests authorities sees just over half of
all drug shipments. Other law enforcement people I speak to
say the average might be less. Roughly one in four
cocaine shipments is picked up. Either way, the cocaine traffickers
(14:22):
still make a profit, although that doesn't stop them lashing
out when a shipment is lost.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Good morning, first of breaking Years, and we are three
hours into a gangland man hunt in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
A man executed in Sydney.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
A bloody gang war has caused more than twenty deaths
in recent years.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Another man hunt is under way tonight after the daylight
shooting of a former biking.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Sparked by a dispute over a missing shipment of cocaine,
now thought to have been seized by the Federal police.
Speaker 9 (14:52):
A man has been shocked dead in a front yard
at Fairfield Heights in Sydney's Tit for Tat gangland war.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
Organized crime groups act like a genuinely global business, but
what we're seeing in the environment that's been somewhat different,
particularly in the last three to five years, has been
collaboration across organized crime groups that traditionally wouldn't work together.
We're seeing cocaine importations where you have Mexicans working with
(15:24):
Chinese organized crime, working with outlaw motorcycle gangs in Australia
to make sure that they compartmentalize their business appropriately to
protect the head of the syndicate, but also to make
sure that they capitalize on the capabilities that they all
have at various points in the supply chain.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
That complicated supply chain where cocaine can travel through several
different countries, passing between different criminal groups who are now
working together. That's a strength of the modern drug operation.
The person who's ultimately in charge is not exposed.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
He or she is like the.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Chief executive, safe inside their boardroom, while different groups from
different countries handle all the actual work.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
But listening to.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Matt, I learned that this is also a weakness because
the longer the chain becomes, the more weak links it contains,
meaning more opportunities for law enforcement to find those links
and break them. The day comes when my source had
told me something big is going to happen. Before dawn,
(16:36):
hundreds of Australian Federal Police officers launch raids across the country.
They see expensive looking cars and haul them away with
tow trucks, carry battering rams up to the gates of
expensive looking homes, and send uniform cops into twelve high
street money exchange stores in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
(17:02):
The stores are part of a national chain with bright
professional signs, shining white counters, smartly dressed staff and this
promotional video playing in the window.
Speaker 9 (17:16):
Niha Wa Shu Gary Hardgrave. For almost twelve years, I
was an elected representative in the Australian government five years
as a minister, including in immigration. As of twenty twenty two,
I'm joining the board of Shunxiang Currency Exchange the further overseas.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
And getting a former Australian government minister like Gary Hardgrave
to promote it would have seemed a real seal of
approval to the.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Chang Jiang Currency Exchange to Australia.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Chang Yang is Mandarin Chinese, it translates as Long River.
Speaker 9 (17:51):
The Australian government has strong oversight, but shun Xiang Currency
Exchange has an even higher level of reliability, with water
tight security processes in place to guarantee the safety of
your facts.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
There's no suggestion Gary Hardgrave, the former government minister, knew
anything about what was allegedly going on at Changing. He's
not been accused of any wrongdoing and would later say
he'd cut all ties with the company and had no
day to day involvement in its operations. But this morning,
looking at the scale of the police operation, the cops
(18:28):
walking out carrying computers and stacks of paperwork, it became
clear this really was as big a deal as my
source had promised.
Speaker 10 (18:38):
This is the most significant and complex AFP led money
laundring investigation in the nation's history.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
This is Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Demeadow speaking
at a press conference following the raids in October twenty
twenty three. I'm sitting among the press pack, frantically typing
to get down his work.
Speaker 10 (19:00):
The AFP alleges the chang Jing Currency Exchange is a
front for a mining laundering syndicate that transfers dirty money
for large criminal enterprises.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
The police allege Changjang transferred over ten billion Aussie dollars
just over the past three years. That's over five billion
pounds or nearly seven billion US dollars. Most of that
was legal, the cops say, but they also allege criminals
were allowed to move money in and out of the
country by mixing it in with the legal transactions. In
(19:37):
this way, the Federal Police allege around two hundred and
twenty nine million Aussie dollars was laundered, money from what
police call a serious violent.
Speaker 10 (19:46):
Act money laundering is not a victimless crime, and.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Also money from trafficking illicit goods.
Speaker 10 (19:55):
Even after more than twenty years in law enforcement and
as a former law myself. The amount of money allegedly
laundered still surprised me.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
The police call it an industrial scale operation. Seven people
were arrested in the raids. Some could face life imprisonment,
the cops say, although the accused insist they're innocent. According
to the cops, they'd been living the high life. I
keep typing taking it all in as the press conference continues.
Speaker 10 (20:30):
By eating at Australia's most extravagant restaurants, drank wine and
saki values and the tens of thousands of dollars, traveled
on private jets and drove vehicles purchased for almost four
hundred thousand dollars. One alleged offender lived in a home
worth more than ten million dollars.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
That's the ten million dollar house, the one with the
gleaming white walls that looks something like a spaceship where
we started this episode.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
Hi, how are you going?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
My I's Steve on the journalists.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
So, now that I know my source is correct and
this is a big deal, I want to know more
about this alleged money laundering operation.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
My name's Stephen Drell. I'm a journalist.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
I just was wondering if the place has been seized
by the police, or what's happening with it now. I
just wanted to touch base. Are you the owner of
the property?
Speaker 4 (21:30):
When the people inside so they can't help because they're
only tenants and have just moved in. I start talking
to the neighbors because if the cops are right and
this house was bought by people caught up in international
money laundering operation, then this could be the very last
step in the kind of global criminal business we've been
(21:54):
following ever since the Cokerfields in Colombia, where the money
made by organized crime gangs is moved into a new
country and those involved allegedly spend it on seemingly legitimate
purchases like fast cars and fancy houses or like this house.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
Just wanted to talk about your neighbors.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Have you near people moved in recently? So I got
chatting to a neighbor.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Is there new tenants in the house or same people?
But there's no there has there been any removal trucks
or no removal trucks that's from the same people there.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
It's hard to hear on the audio what the neighbor says,
but he's just told me he hasn't seen anybody moving
in recently, no removal trucks. Wondering about that, I stand
in the shade of a tree, get my phone out
and reread news reports of the police rate. Now I'm
just going back through the news articles because I think
(23:07):
I may have missed a trick here. I know that
there was a husband and wife who were arrested, so
I'm just going through now and checking which of the
people it might actually be. Now, there were three people
who were granted bail, and now I'm not going to
use their names here in this podcast, but there were
three people granded bars. So it's possible that the people
(23:29):
who were grounded batt are those people we just spoke
with on the intercom.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Perhaps weren't genants.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
But were actually the people accused of being involved in
this money laundering syndicate. According to the police charge sheets
which were tended in court, the couple who bought this
house a part of what the police are calling the
Long River money laundering syndicate. That syndicate was named after
(23:55):
the chain of Shining money exchange officers that were raided
last October. Investigators have traced millions going into the bank
accounts of one of the owners of this house. The
police also alleged that some of those who were arrested
coached others to create company structures and false documents to
conceal the proceeds of crime. The charge sheets use what
(24:18):
seems like the language of accountants talking about different businesses,
beneficiaries and assets, funds, transfer instructions, taxable declarations. This all
feels a long way from where I started this series
with Jose the Columbian police officer who lost his legs
to a landmine, fighting a bloody war in the drug plantations, A.
Speaker 11 (24:45):
War on drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I mean times have changed the AFP, we don't focus
on commodity with matured our approach.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Kirsty Schofield is the Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner in
charge of the Forces Crime Command, meaning she oversaw the
investigation into alleged money laundering by the chang Xiang Currency Exchange.
In person, she's all smiles, tan skin. She could be
an Aussie surfer, but that hides an inner toughness. As
(25:19):
a detective, she worked CANi terrorism, an organized crime we
caught up after the chang Xiang police raids, but it's
an open investigation. So Kirsty wasn't going to talk about it,
but from what she would tell me, it's obvious that
Kirsty knows the cocaine business. She's thought about it deeply.
(25:40):
Any major cocaine bust that involves Australia or Australian police
based it over thirty offices worldwide comes across her desk.
Speaker 11 (25:49):
It's much bigger than a commodity.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
It is a global business and we really do look
at it as a whole business.
Speaker 11 (25:55):
We just don't target the drugs.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Where this is relevant is the idea of accountants. Kirsty says,
there are professional criminal groups out there who provide a
service to other crime gains, helping them process their profits,
moving money in and out of countries and taking a
cut in the process.
Speaker 11 (26:15):
We look at the finances.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We actually try to disrupt the whole business model. We
look at the key enablers of what constitutes their business structures.
We make it hostile onshore and offshore wherever they're operating.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
So, yeah, you're saying it's asrupting the business.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
I mean that comes to the next point of are
necessarily trying to arrest everybody? Is that the most effective
way of curbing the drug businesses and the drug trade.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I don't think we can arrest our way out of
this at all. So we are really focused on targeting
those people that when we take them out, it has
a significant impact on their ability to run a business.
Who is it that moves their money? We take their money,
We take the money in the profit out of the crime.
Who is it that they really for their logistics? And
(27:01):
you'll find there'll be a key person across several organized
crime groups that helps with logistics, and we'll target that person.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Kirsty's saying this reminds me of a line from an
old movie called Wall Street about a young stockbroker who
wants to make his fortune in New York during the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 11 (27:22):
Money never sleeps, Paw.
Speaker 9 (27:25):
Just meet eight hundred thousand Hong Kong Gold.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It's been wired to you.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Money never sleeps. That's Gordon Gecko played by Michael Douglas
in the movie. The young broker starts making money, only
it corrupts him. It becomes like the money is in charge.
He can never stop. Kirsty says, the same is true
of those working in the illegal business world.
Speaker 11 (27:50):
They do not stop. They are twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
They conduct multiple business deals at the one time, and
they are motified by money, greed and ego and that
drives them.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
It's power that's led to more conflict.
Speaker 11 (28:04):
That's right. It's all over money.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
They want to control certain parts of the business, so
the conflict is generally associated with that. What's happening now
is people are getting caught in the crossfire. They no
longer do that sort of business away from public attention.
They're more comfortable to do it in the public arena.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
When we've send dead bodies in Sydney streets where kids
are walking past, that's right. So it's coming to people's
doorsteps now.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, and I've said this once before, it's not your
problem until it's your problem. I think what we've seen
in the past is people will see, you know, these
organized crime groups having conflict within themselves, and it's okay,
that's okay, it's over there, it doesn't affect me. But
when you're having these sorts of shootings occurring where it's
close to playgrounds or shopping car parks and it is
(28:53):
close to you, it is then your problem.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
And what would you say to say someone who's taking
cocaine this week, candid insat Sydney or London, because it's happening.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I mean, we can't pretend that it's not.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Just don't do it. Sometimes I feel that just forces
on deads. I find that one of the complicated factors
is how do we explain to those taking drugs of
reasons not to do it because they feel it's part
of their life.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Where do you stop and what do the police just
say up?
Speaker 5 (29:24):
Do we give up? Do we just let this go?
Or how do you actually keep trying to fight against
the criminal organizations?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
The option to give up is not there. I mean,
what would it look like if we did give up?
What does it mean for the world. There's all these
other part of society doing the right thing. There's just
such an inequity in it. And is it hard, yes
it is? Is it worth it? Definitely? It's not just
about arresting somebody. That's old policing mentality. It's very different.
(29:53):
We look for different ways to do business. We look
at all forms of disruption make it hostile for them
to operate wherever they are.
Speaker 11 (30:00):
In the world.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
After speaking to Kirsty, that idea stays with me. The
police are looking for different ways to do business, because
the old way of doing business by simply trying to
arrest the people selling the drugs, isn't working. Standing outside
that ten million dollar house, I decide to go back,
(30:24):
determined to find out who owns it. I'll reach out
and try the intercom again. The man answers again, I
don't have permission to record the conversation. But this time
he and I get talking. It's not easy talking through
the intercom. It keeps cutting off after a few seconds,
(30:49):
so one of us has to press the button again
to talk, and the man on the other end keeps
pressing that button like he really wants to talk to me.
I ask, be you sure you're not one of the
people involved in the Long River alleged international money laundering operation.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
He says, no, but they are relatives.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
You can't say where his relatives are right at this
moment that does say that police phrase came as is
shocked to them all. The man says his relatives are
innocent of what police say about them, their entrepreneurs, successful
business people. He says, is international politics involved, maybe some
(31:30):
racism because the people who have been arrested have Chinese heritage,
and the charges are not proven. He starts talking about
how the police announced having seized are four hundred thousand
dollar Mercedes. But what didn't get said was that his relatives'
business men dealing with millionaires and billionaires, and according to him,
(31:54):
you can't do that if you're driving around in a
Toyota or Rayande. He says the police only found seventeen
thousand dollars in cash during their raids, which was actually
a gift for a baby's first birthday. He doesn't say
who the baby is, only that its parents were taken away.
(32:15):
I think he means they were arrested, leaving the baby
waking up in the night crying for mummy and daddy.
He goes back to how the police were talking about
lavish lifestyles, including a private jet. He says they actually
got a deal like a subscription where they could fly
on private flights that would otherwise be empty, which he
(32:36):
says made it cheaper than flying with a commercial company.
Apparently the private jet also looked better. He says, his
relative reputation has been tarnished. Their bank accounts have been frozen.
There are one hundred and fifty employees who don't know
if they have a future. We stand there talking for
(32:57):
what feels like half an hour. The intercom keeps cutting out,
but he sticks at it, pressing the button on his
side to keep going.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
He keeps coming back.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
To the point that his relatives were just business people,
and the police don't understand the business. Eventually, the conversation
comes to an end. I go to turn away. Then
somehow the door opens. The man I've been talking to
from outside the house is standing there, looking surprised, like
(33:32):
maybe he pressed the wrong button on the intercom and
didn't mean for the front door to open. We're face
to face. I reach out and shake his hand, and
I believe.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
What he's told me that he's not one of the
people allegedly involved in this money laundy operation, meaning he's
just like so many people we've met during this investigation,
and innocent who's paid the cost of an alleged criminal
business operation that spans entire countries. This man was left
holding the baby. He says, he'll pass my name and
(34:06):
number onto his relatives.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
They never call walking away.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
I think that was extraordinary, and at the same time,
it was very ordinary. Face to face, we were just
two people standing in the doorway of a house not
far from where I live. After spending months on this investigation,
I've ended up back in my home city. Walking to
(34:35):
my car, I look up and down the road at
all the houses and think about where this journey's brought us,
Following the money to where the police allege the trail
ends with ten million dollars being spent on a nice
house in a wide street in a leafy suburb in
(34:57):
a pleasant city.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Very ordinary.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
He could be any house on any street near where
I live, or you do.
Speaker 11 (35:16):
So.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Looking back over this entire series, we have Fionna David
and I got to.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well.
Speaker 12 (35:26):
Following the money from Colombia to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK,
to the UA and Australia. We found a complex and sophisticated,
multi billion dollar operation and.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
It's only getting stronger. If Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord,
helped create the modern cocaine industry and.
Speaker 9 (35:50):
He lead Colombian police unit killed Pablo Escobar in a shootout.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Then his death in a shootout in nineteen ninety three
certainly didn't kill it.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Columbian authorities say its message to other drug lords is
to surrender or.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
You will be killed.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
In fact, production expanded in the years after and is
now at record highs, with.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
People living in our two countries Australia and the UK,
the top two highest cocaine users in the world. In Colombia,
I saw how government policy of trying to stop the
industry by cracking down on cocaine supply just isn't working.
Speaker 12 (36:29):
When alas May let I arrive at their cinic, I
create so much, but I.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Am the only people who really lose out are the
farmers and the cops send to enforce this policy, who
don't always come back.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And I say to May that forgive them.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
In Mexico, I learned its demand that drives the cocaine business.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I'm down here here in a Naco tunnel.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
We're about eighty minutes from the Mexican border, and to
be honest, it's just quite frightening.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
There's some timber today with a drug multiplying in value
as it moves through each stage of the supply chain.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
In the port of Rotterdam, the cocaine industry is now
so vast it uses the same shipping containers as any
other global business would to move its product. The industry
corrupts everything it touches.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
We have a big problem in the bort of Rotterdam
with cocaine.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
From port workers to gang leaders who have no regulator
to turn to, so end up building themselves a torture
chamber to adjudicate their business disputes.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
Sounds like what the fuck a torture sellers.
Speaker 12 (37:51):
In Merseyside, the same violence spills out onto the streets
where cocaine is bought and sold, with vival gangs at
war and innocent people suffer.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I'd never go on there because you know what's from
the wood church.
Speaker 12 (38:07):
I met other people prayed on because of their innocence
or naivety.
Speaker 11 (38:11):
I couldn't believe how much it was.
Speaker 12 (38:13):
He became cash mules.
Speaker 10 (38:15):
And I thought, what the fuck have I got myself into?
Speaker 12 (38:20):
Carrying money over international boarders, exploiting differences between countries' regulations
in Dubai while undercover. Some of the money might be
for like drugs in the UK. I learned how that
money can be traded through gold or through different accounting structures.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Actually said al Filaci on there, but it's clearly him,
He's clearly him.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
And then at home in Melbourne I found with police
alage some of the profits of the money lauding operation
are spent on a house that looks like a spaceship.
And Mitt Kirsty, the Federal Police Assistant commissioner, who said,
I think we.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Can risk our way out of this at all.
Speaker 12 (39:03):
If that is true, what can we do instead. Maybe
it's about looking at the cocaine problem differently in the
way we've approached in this series. As a business, it's
just a commodity that has to go from H tob
By following the money, law enforcement can find new ways
(39:24):
to disrupt the cocaine industry and its kingpins.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
We actually try to disrupt the whole business model. We
look at the k enablers of what it constitutes a
business structures.
Speaker 12 (39:35):
By learning how each link in the supply chain works,
you can identify its weaknesses but also its strengths. It's
not good enough to tackle it within state borders. Governments
and countries need to work together.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
We know there's no easy answers, but we also know
from personal experience of covering these crimes and those impacted
by them, that governments have spent billions over the decades
on the drug war and they're still not winning.
Speaker 13 (40:09):
Only omadors be sure.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
And you shall love it early.
Speaker 13 (40:16):
We need school of gospel.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
At the scene where she was killed, Ellie's family came
to lay flowers for a woman they so deeply loved.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Those running the cocaine business are as dynamic, roofless and
motivated as any successful capitalist, able to respond at speed
to market pressures in a way that government agencies and
lawmakers simply can't. And fundamentally, the demand for what they're
(40:47):
selling cocaine isn't going anywhere. So maybe dealing with cocaine
ing on these terms like a business, like the business
it is, we can find a new approach.
Speaker 13 (41:06):
This is not a video game, this is real life.
You go to a fucking pupmar Christmas Eve with a
machine gules if it was someone going there with a
baseball bat and have a grievance with someone. That's standards.
That happens every weekend. But you go somewhere with the
machine matter when it is you go on, it's kill someone.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Cocaine Inc. Was a joint investigation from The Times, The
Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters were David Collins,
Steven Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series was produced
by Sam Chanterassak, with additional production by Andrea tz Evanson.
The executive producers were Will Row and Dan Box. Audio
(41:56):
production and editing was by Jasper Leak, original music by
Tom Birchall, Social and video by Kissie Bray, Sho Burrow,
Vanessa Graham and Chelsea Hardiman. Our legal team were Peter Samer,
Richard Murray and Stephen Coombs. The compliance editor was Claire Telford.
The UK production manager was Oliver Adamson. In Australia, the
(42:20):
project was overseen by Lillian Salagh. In the UK, it
was overseen by Cap Ford, the executive producer of The
Times Daily podcast the Story. The head of Times Podcast
is Tim Level and in Australia the podcast team was
run by Shannon Hollis. But that's not quite the end
of the series. We have two more bonus episodes still
(42:42):
to come. In the first, David sits down with Stephen me,
a former international cocaine smuggler, to talk about his wild
ride with the Colombian cartels and why he left it.
And I'll be sitting down with David and Stephen to
answer your questions about the series. Don't forget to send
an email to Cocaine Inc. At The Times dot co
(43:04):
dot uk, or get in touch with us directly. Our
social media handles are in the show notes for the series.
I've said this once before. It's not your problem until
it's your problem. I think what we've seen in the
past is people will see, you know, these organized crime
groups having conflict within themselves, and it's okay, that's okay,
it's over there, it doesn't affect me. But when you're
having these sorts of shootings occurring where it's close to
playgrounds or shopping car parks and it is close to you,
(00:24):
it is then your problem.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So this is it. This is the end of the line.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You last heard from my colleague News Corp Australia's national correspondent,
Stephen Drill back in episode three when he was in
a Narco tunnel underneath the US Mexico border. But right
now he's standing alone on a road full of multimillion
dollar properties where there's one that really stands out.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
This house is like it kind of looks like a spaceship.
It's it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Stephen's back home in Australia.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I'm in a street in Melbourne. It's the city where
I live. You might call this a leafy area. A
leafy area is shorthand here in Melbourne for posh. The
street is full of very old English trees, and I'm
standing in the shade of one, which is good for
my lack of hair.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Despite the tree cover, it's still hot out. The sun
is fierce in the blue sky. Growing up in Australia myself,
I can remember just how hot it gets.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Black Wall, Black Gate. The door set well back just
the underground garage here would probably be bigger than my
entire house.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
The house has white wolves, a home, cinema, a gym,
and big glass windows overlooking its private pool.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Now I'm just walking up to the front door.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I mean, this place looks like it's worth ten million dollars,
which is exactly what it was bought for just last
year by a man police allege is a member of
a money laudering syndicate called Long River.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
The Long River Operation allegedly laundered hundreds of millions of
Ossie dollars.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
And I'm just about to knock on the door of
this ten million dollar house that is alleged to be
the proceeds of crime.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Stephen reaches out, presses the button on the intercom. His
heart beats faster.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
No answer.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
As a journalist doing these jobs, we even know what
kind of reaction you'll get on a doorknock like this.
What the police are saying is that people living here
brought this swanky property with criminal profits.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Nothing. I'll try again, but this.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Time someone answers. I'm Fiona Hamilton and from The Times,
The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. This is the
final episode of Cocaine Inc. Episode eight, bringing it Home.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
So far in this series, I've been to Columbia and
Mexico looking at where the cocaine business starts in the
coca plantations and how the drug is exported. Fiona went
to the Netherlands, where ports like Rotterdam act as distribution
hubs for this global industry. David was in Northwest England
(04:11):
looking at the retail arm of the business, the street
level dealers. Then he followed the money trailed to Dubai,
which led to a maze of different companies dealing in
gold investment and trading. It felt like we lost the
trail at that point. What do the world's cocaine bosses
actually do with the money they've made from their crimes?
(04:33):
Does criminal money end up buying beautiful homes in suburban
streets in cities like the one where I live? Trying
to answer that question is how I ended up back
home in Australia standing outside his house looking at how
those allegedly involved in organized crime take their profits and
spend it.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Hi, my name's Stephen Drill, journalist. I just was wondering
if the place has been seized by the police or
what's happening with it now.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I just wanted to touch base. Are you the owner
of the property?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Okay, so I don't have permission to record, meaning you're
not going to hear the conversation. I can't see the
person I'm speaking to, but it's a woman. I guess
she's in her thirties.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
She sounds weary.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I try explaining how the Federal Police have just rated
twelve high street money exchange stores across the country and
are saying this house is linked to them. They're calling
it the most significant money laundering investigation in Australia's history.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The police allege the.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Company operated a bit like a bank, providing a system
for customers to transfer money in and out of the country. Only,
according to police, some of the customers will organize criminals
and their money.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Hundreds of millions allegedly.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Came from cyber scamps and what the cops call trafficking
illicit goods, which would be the kind of business we
followed around the world in this series. At the front
door of the ten million dollar.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
House, the woman I'm talking to seems to hesitate, and
a man takes over the conversation. He doesn't say who
he is. When I ask, he says, they don't know
anything about police rates. They've just moved in and they're
only tenants, he says. The owners aren't at home right now,
so they can't talk. Puzzled and disappointed, I say thanks
(06:46):
and walk back out.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
But something's nagging at me. So there's someone living in there.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Now, let's go and see what else there is here.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I'll just come knock on the neighbor's door.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Now, this might seem weird trying to talk to the neighbors,
but as a journalist, I've lost track of the number
of stories I've got just by knocking on doors. Does
anybody else in the neighborhood know something anything? When you're
working on a story like this, you never know what
tiny bit of information might be the missing piece that
(07:25):
helps you solve the puzzle. And I want to know
how this house might be caught up in the Long
River Syndicate. So I try some neighbors doors.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
The dog is certainly home there, but it's a little
white fuck your dog. Nothing too scary, which can happen
sometimes on door knocks.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
But I'll keep moving.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Because all I know is what the federal police are saying,
that the Long River Syndicate provide organized crime a way
to move their money here without it being traced by
the authorities. Money that could have come from allegedly trafficking,
A list of goods which could be drugged, like cocaine. Now,
(08:10):
the house immediately next door, she has a some string
tied around the gates.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It doesn't look like you can come into that one.
Hell from there, I just pressed the doorbell, see if
anyone comes out.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Do you understand why I think the effort is worth it,
spending hours in the hot sun knocking on strangers doors.
I need to take you back a few days to
when I got a call from a source.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
This call was unusual. The source said something was going
to happen.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
I can't tell you too much about it, but they.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Wouldn't say what.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
They just said to be free on a certain day,
so I knew it was going to be big. In
the meantime, I waited, I kept looking at the cocaine business,
which seems to be on a bull run.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
In the almost thirty years I've been in law enforcement
and intelligence, I haven't seen the scale of cocaine that
we've seen consistently hitting our shores in the last twelve
to twenty four months before in my career.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
This is Matt Rippon, Deputy CEO Intelligence at the Australian
Criminal Intelligence Commission or ACIC.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
The main reason is because of the profit margin to
be made. There are a lot of logistics and arrangements
that need to be made between uplift from the style
of coca leaf in Columbia, for example, to make it
all the way to the streets of Sydney or Melbourne, etc.
So it's a real global enterprise.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
We're talking in Matt's headquarters. It's a hard place to find.
There's no marking on the bill. Security is tight inside
these walls. Law enforcement spy and criminals. They access messages,
monitor the movement of people and cocaine.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
The law enforcement actually been really successful in recent years
in seizing some really large consignments of cocaine. You may
recall one point eight ton of cocaine was actually seized
in Peru.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
One point eight tons.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I do some mental calculations, as I learned at the
port in Cardagena back in episode three, the value of
cocaine changes depending on where it is in the global
supply chain. In Peru, where it was seized, that one
point eight tons might have been worth around five million
(10:53):
US dollars. Wholesale, it's almost four million pounds or seven
and a half million is STI dollars. While the time
it's trafficked all the way to Australia and sold by
the gram on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
That value rises by a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
It could be worth more than three quarters of a
billion dollars US over six hundred million pounds or one
point two billion Ousie dollars. Another way of looking at
it is that much cocaine would be enough to supply
(11:34):
every user in Australia for six months.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
That seizure was actually linked to one of the highest
level threats to this country. So attached to that syndicate,
you had another one point one ton of cocaine that
came into New South Wales from Panama.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
When he talks about high level threats to the country.
Matt means it much of Australia's cocaine import are thought
to be linked to an international cartel known as the Kinahans,
the Irish cocaine cowboys, who are currently thought to be
in the United Arab Emirates. The Kinahans are being investigated
(12:14):
around the world, including over links to the Islamic militant
group Hezbollah and Iran's intelligence services. In twenty twenty two,
the US government offered a five million dollar bounty for
information leading to the arrests of the gang's leaders.
Speaker 8 (12:31):
Buzz of today, the Kinahan transnational criminal organization joins the
ranks of Italy's Camorra, Mexico's Los Zetas, Japan's Yakaza, and
Russia's Thieves and Law Also as of today, the result
of these sanctions, these individuals are immediately served from the
US financial system and any assets brought property under US
(12:55):
jurisdiction are immediate blocked.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
At this moment, the Kinahans the suspective of hiding out
in Dubai, where David was in the last episode. Together,
these different interlinked criminal groups represent a huge international challenge
to any single police.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
Force in twenty twenty three. In February, you had two
back to back large cocaine importations, three hundred kilo importation
off the coast of Western Australia, and then you had
three point two ton seased in New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
That's a lot of money in one shipment. That's billions
of dollars of street value.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
It is billions of dollars. And the interesting thing here
is that because of the profit margin that can be
made from coca leaf all the way through to finished
product on the ground, they can afford to lose a
particular consignment. It's not a good outcome for them, but
they actually factor in losses into their business model like
(13:55):
any good company structure would.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Fact In Rotterdam, where Fiona was in episode four of
this series, research suggests authorities sees just over half of
all drug shipments. Other law enforcement people I speak to
say the average might be less. Roughly one in four
cocaine shipments is picked up. Either way, the cocaine traffickers
(14:22):
still make a profit, although that doesn't stop them lashing
out when a shipment is lost.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Good morning, first of breaking Years, and we are three
hours into a gangland man hunt in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
A man executed in Sydney.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
A bloody gang war has caused more than twenty deaths
in recent years.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Another man hunt is under way tonight after the daylight
shooting of a former biking.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Sparked by a dispute over a missing shipment of cocaine,
now thought to have been seized by the Federal police.
Speaker 9 (14:52):
A man has been shocked dead in a front yard
at Fairfield Heights in Sydney's Tit for Tat gangland war.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
Organized crime groups act like a genuinely global business, but
what we're seeing in the environment that's been somewhat different,
particularly in the last three to five years, has been
collaboration across organized crime groups that traditionally wouldn't work together.
We're seeing cocaine importations where you have Mexicans working with
(15:24):
Chinese organized crime, working with outlaw motorcycle gangs in Australia
to make sure that they compartmentalize their business appropriately to
protect the head of the syndicate, but also to make
sure that they capitalize on the capabilities that they all
have at various points in the supply chain.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
That complicated supply chain where cocaine can travel through several
different countries, passing between different criminal groups who are now
working together. That's a strength of the modern drug operation.
The person who's ultimately in charge is not exposed.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
He or she is like the.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Chief executive, safe inside their boardroom, while different groups from
different countries handle all the actual work.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
But listening to.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Matt, I learned that this is also a weakness because
the longer the chain becomes, the more weak links it contains,
meaning more opportunities for law enforcement to find those links
and break them. The day comes when my source had
told me something big is going to happen. Before dawn,
(16:36):
hundreds of Australian Federal Police officers launch raids across the country.
They see expensive looking cars and haul them away with
tow trucks, carry battering rams up to the gates of
expensive looking homes, and send uniform cops into twelve high
street money exchange stores in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
(17:02):
The stores are part of a national chain with bright
professional signs, shining white counters, smartly dressed staff and this
promotional video playing in the window.
Speaker 9 (17:16):
Niha Wa Shu Gary Hardgrave. For almost twelve years, I
was an elected representative in the Australian government five years
as a minister, including in immigration. As of twenty twenty two,
I'm joining the board of Shunxiang Currency Exchange the further overseas.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
And getting a former Australian government minister like Gary Hardgrave
to promote it would have seemed a real seal of
approval to the.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Chang Jiang Currency Exchange to Australia.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Chang Yang is Mandarin Chinese, it translates as Long River.
Speaker 9 (17:51):
The Australian government has strong oversight, but shun Xiang Currency
Exchange has an even higher level of reliability, with water
tight security processes in place to guarantee the safety of
your facts.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
There's no suggestion Gary Hardgrave, the former government minister, knew
anything about what was allegedly going on at Changing. He's
not been accused of any wrongdoing and would later say
he'd cut all ties with the company and had no
day to day involvement in its operations. But this morning,
looking at the scale of the police operation, the cops
(18:28):
walking out carrying computers and stacks of paperwork, it became
clear this really was as big a deal as my
source had promised.
Speaker 10 (18:38):
This is the most significant and complex AFP led money
laundring investigation in the nation's history.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
This is Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Demeadow speaking
at a press conference following the raids in October twenty
twenty three. I'm sitting among the press pack, frantically typing
to get down his work.
Speaker 10 (19:00):
The AFP alleges the chang Jing Currency Exchange is a
front for a mining laundering syndicate that transfers dirty money
for large criminal enterprises.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
The police allege Changjang transferred over ten billion Aussie dollars
just over the past three years. That's over five billion
pounds or nearly seven billion US dollars. Most of that
was legal, the cops say, but they also allege criminals
were allowed to move money in and out of the
country by mixing it in with the legal transactions. In
(19:37):
this way, the Federal Police allege around two hundred and
twenty nine million Aussie dollars was laundered, money from what
police call a serious violent.
Speaker 10 (19:46):
Act money laundering is not a victimless crime, and.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Also money from trafficking illicit goods.
Speaker 10 (19:55):
Even after more than twenty years in law enforcement and
as a former law myself. The amount of money allegedly
laundered still surprised me.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
The police call it an industrial scale operation. Seven people
were arrested in the raids. Some could face life imprisonment,
the cops say, although the accused insist they're innocent. According
to the cops, they'd been living the high life. I
keep typing taking it all in as the press conference continues.
Speaker 10 (20:30):
By eating at Australia's most extravagant restaurants, drank wine and
saki values and the tens of thousands of dollars, traveled
on private jets and drove vehicles purchased for almost four
hundred thousand dollars. One alleged offender lived in a home
worth more than ten million dollars.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
That's the ten million dollar house, the one with the
gleaming white walls that looks something like a spaceship where
we started this episode.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
Hi, how are you going?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
My I's Steve on the journalists.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
So, now that I know my source is correct and
this is a big deal, I want to know more
about this alleged money laundering operation.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
My name's Stephen Drell. I'm a journalist.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
I just was wondering if the place has been seized
by the police, or what's happening with it now. I
just wanted to touch base. Are you the owner of
the property?
Speaker 4 (21:30):
When the people inside so they can't help because they're
only tenants and have just moved in. I start talking
to the neighbors because if the cops are right and
this house was bought by people caught up in international
money laundering operation, then this could be the very last
step in the kind of global criminal business we've been
(21:54):
following ever since the Cokerfields in Colombia, where the money
made by organized crime gangs is moved into a new
country and those involved allegedly spend it on seemingly legitimate
purchases like fast cars and fancy houses or like this house.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
Just wanted to talk about your neighbors.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Have you near people moved in recently? So I got
chatting to a neighbor.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Is there new tenants in the house or same people?
But there's no there has there been any removal trucks
or no removal trucks that's from the same people there.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
It's hard to hear on the audio what the neighbor says,
but he's just told me he hasn't seen anybody moving
in recently, no removal trucks. Wondering about that, I stand
in the shade of a tree, get my phone out
and reread news reports of the police rate. Now I'm
just going back through the news articles because I think
(23:07):
I may have missed a trick here. I know that
there was a husband and wife who were arrested, so
I'm just going through now and checking which of the
people it might actually be. Now, there were three people
who were granted bail, and now I'm not going to
use their names here in this podcast, but there were
three people granded bars. So it's possible that the people
(23:29):
who were grounded batt are those people we just spoke
with on the intercom.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Perhaps weren't genants.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
But were actually the people accused of being involved in
this money laundering syndicate. According to the police charge sheets
which were tended in court, the couple who bought this
house a part of what the police are calling the
Long River money laundering syndicate. That syndicate was named after
(23:55):
the chain of Shining money exchange officers that were raided
last October. Investigators have traced millions going into the bank
accounts of one of the owners of this house. The
police also alleged that some of those who were arrested
coached others to create company structures and false documents to
conceal the proceeds of crime. The charge sheets use what
(24:18):
seems like the language of accountants talking about different businesses,
beneficiaries and assets, funds, transfer instructions, taxable declarations. This all
feels a long way from where I started this series
with Jose the Columbian police officer who lost his legs
to a landmine, fighting a bloody war in the drug plantations, A.
Speaker 11 (24:45):
War on drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I mean times have changed the AFP, we don't focus
on commodity with matured our approach.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Kirsty Schofield is the Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner in
charge of the Forces Crime Command, meaning she oversaw the
investigation into alleged money laundering by the chang Xiang Currency Exchange.
In person, she's all smiles, tan skin. She could be
an Aussie surfer, but that hides an inner toughness. As
(25:19):
a detective, she worked CANi terrorism, an organized crime we
caught up after the chang Xiang police raids, but it's
an open investigation. So Kirsty wasn't going to talk about it,
but from what she would tell me, it's obvious that
Kirsty knows the cocaine business. She's thought about it deeply.
(25:40):
Any major cocaine bust that involves Australia or Australian police
based it over thirty offices worldwide comes across her desk.
Speaker 11 (25:49):
It's much bigger than a commodity.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
It is a global business and we really do look
at it as a whole business.
Speaker 11 (25:55):
We just don't target the drugs.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Where this is relevant is the idea of accountants. Kirsty says,
there are professional criminal groups out there who provide a
service to other crime gains, helping them process their profits,
moving money in and out of countries and taking a
cut in the process.
Speaker 11 (26:15):
We look at the finances.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We actually try to disrupt the whole business model. We
look at the key enablers of what constitutes their business structures.
We make it hostile onshore and offshore wherever they're operating.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
So, yeah, you're saying it's asrupting the business.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
I mean that comes to the next point of are
necessarily trying to arrest everybody? Is that the most effective
way of curbing the drug businesses and the drug trade.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I don't think we can arrest our way out of
this at all. So we are really focused on targeting
those people that when we take them out, it has
a significant impact on their ability to run a business.
Who is it that moves their money? We take their money,
We take the money in the profit out of the crime.
Who is it that they really for their logistics? And
(27:01):
you'll find there'll be a key person across several organized
crime groups that helps with logistics, and we'll target that person.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Kirsty's saying this reminds me of a line from an
old movie called Wall Street about a young stockbroker who
wants to make his fortune in New York during the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 11 (27:22):
Money never sleeps, Paw.
Speaker 9 (27:25):
Just meet eight hundred thousand Hong Kong Gold.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It's been wired to you.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Money never sleeps. That's Gordon Gecko played by Michael Douglas
in the movie. The young broker starts making money, only
it corrupts him. It becomes like the money is in charge.
He can never stop. Kirsty says, the same is true
of those working in the illegal business world.
Speaker 11 (27:50):
They do not stop. They are twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
They conduct multiple business deals at the one time, and
they are motified by money, greed and ego and that
drives them.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
It's power that's led to more conflict.
Speaker 11 (28:04):
That's right. It's all over money.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
They want to control certain parts of the business, so
the conflict is generally associated with that. What's happening now
is people are getting caught in the crossfire. They no
longer do that sort of business away from public attention.
They're more comfortable to do it in the public arena.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
When we've send dead bodies in Sydney streets where kids
are walking past, that's right. So it's coming to people's
doorsteps now.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, and I've said this once before, it's not your
problem until it's your problem. I think what we've seen
in the past is people will see, you know, these
organized crime groups having conflict within themselves, and it's okay,
that's okay, it's over there, it doesn't affect me. But
when you're having these sorts of shootings occurring where it's
close to playgrounds or shopping car parks and it is
(28:53):
close to you, it is then your problem.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
And what would you say to say someone who's taking
cocaine this week, candid insat Sydney or London, because it's happening.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I mean, we can't pretend that it's not.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Just don't do it. Sometimes I feel that just forces
on deads. I find that one of the complicated factors
is how do we explain to those taking drugs of
reasons not to do it because they feel it's part
of their life.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Where do you stop and what do the police just
say up?
Speaker 5 (29:24):
Do we give up? Do we just let this go?
Or how do you actually keep trying to fight against
the criminal organizations?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
The option to give up is not there. I mean,
what would it look like if we did give up?
What does it mean for the world. There's all these
other part of society doing the right thing. There's just
such an inequity in it. And is it hard, yes
it is? Is it worth it? Definitely? It's not just
about arresting somebody. That's old policing mentality. It's very different.
(29:53):
We look for different ways to do business. We look
at all forms of disruption make it hostile for them
to operate wherever they are.
Speaker 11 (30:00):
In the world.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
After speaking to Kirsty, that idea stays with me. The
police are looking for different ways to do business, because
the old way of doing business by simply trying to
arrest the people selling the drugs, isn't working. Standing outside
that ten million dollar house, I decide to go back,
(30:24):
determined to find out who owns it. I'll reach out
and try the intercom again. The man answers again, I
don't have permission to record the conversation. But this time
he and I get talking. It's not easy talking through
the intercom. It keeps cutting off after a few seconds,
(30:49):
so one of us has to press the button again
to talk, and the man on the other end keeps
pressing that button like he really wants to talk to me.
I ask, be you sure you're not one of the
people involved in the Long River alleged international money laundering operation.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
He says, no, but they are relatives.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
You can't say where his relatives are right at this
moment that does say that police phrase came as is
shocked to them all. The man says his relatives are
innocent of what police say about them, their entrepreneurs, successful
business people. He says, is international politics involved, maybe some
(31:30):
racism because the people who have been arrested have Chinese heritage,
and the charges are not proven. He starts talking about
how the police announced having seized are four hundred thousand
dollar Mercedes. But what didn't get said was that his relatives'
business men dealing with millionaires and billionaires, and according to him,
(31:54):
you can't do that if you're driving around in a
Toyota or Rayande. He says the police only found seventeen
thousand dollars in cash during their raids, which was actually
a gift for a baby's first birthday. He doesn't say
who the baby is, only that its parents were taken away.
(32:15):
I think he means they were arrested, leaving the baby
waking up in the night crying for mummy and daddy.
He goes back to how the police were talking about
lavish lifestyles, including a private jet. He says they actually
got a deal like a subscription where they could fly
on private flights that would otherwise be empty, which he
(32:36):
says made it cheaper than flying with a commercial company.
Apparently the private jet also looked better. He says, his
relative reputation has been tarnished. Their bank accounts have been frozen.
There are one hundred and fifty employees who don't know
if they have a future. We stand there talking for
(32:57):
what feels like half an hour. The intercom keeps cutting out,
but he sticks at it, pressing the button on his
side to keep going.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
He keeps coming back.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
To the point that his relatives were just business people,
and the police don't understand the business. Eventually, the conversation
comes to an end. I go to turn away. Then
somehow the door opens. The man I've been talking to
from outside the house is standing there, looking surprised, like
(33:32):
maybe he pressed the wrong button on the intercom and
didn't mean for the front door to open. We're face
to face. I reach out and shake his hand, and
I believe.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
What he's told me that he's not one of the
people allegedly involved in this money laundy operation, meaning he's
just like so many people we've met during this investigation,
and innocent who's paid the cost of an alleged criminal
business operation that spans entire countries. This man was left
holding the baby. He says, he'll pass my name and
(34:06):
number onto his relatives.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
They never call walking away.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
I think that was extraordinary, and at the same time,
it was very ordinary. Face to face, we were just
two people standing in the doorway of a house not
far from where I live. After spending months on this investigation,
I've ended up back in my home city. Walking to
(34:35):
my car, I look up and down the road at
all the houses and think about where this journey's brought us,
Following the money to where the police allege the trail
ends with ten million dollars being spent on a nice
house in a wide street in a leafy suburb in
(34:57):
a pleasant city.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Very ordinary.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
He could be any house on any street near where
I live, or you do.
Speaker 11 (35:16):
So.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Looking back over this entire series, we have Fionna David
and I got to.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well.
Speaker 12 (35:26):
Following the money from Colombia to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK,
to the UA and Australia. We found a complex and sophisticated,
multi billion dollar operation and.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
It's only getting stronger. If Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord,
helped create the modern cocaine industry and.
Speaker 9 (35:50):
He lead Colombian police unit killed Pablo Escobar in a shootout.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Then his death in a shootout in nineteen ninety three
certainly didn't kill it.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Columbian authorities say its message to other drug lords is
to surrender or.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
You will be killed.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
In fact, production expanded in the years after and is
now at record highs, with.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
People living in our two countries Australia and the UK,
the top two highest cocaine users in the world. In Colombia,
I saw how government policy of trying to stop the
industry by cracking down on cocaine supply just isn't working.
Speaker 12 (36:29):
When alas May let I arrive at their cinic, I
create so much, but I.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Am the only people who really lose out are the
farmers and the cops send to enforce this policy, who
don't always come back.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And I say to May that forgive them.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
In Mexico, I learned its demand that drives the cocaine business.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I'm down here here in a Naco tunnel.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
We're about eighty minutes from the Mexican border, and to
be honest, it's just quite frightening.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
There's some timber today with a drug multiplying in value
as it moves through each stage of the supply chain.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
In the port of Rotterdam, the cocaine industry is now
so vast it uses the same shipping containers as any
other global business would to move its product. The industry
corrupts everything it touches.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
We have a big problem in the bort of Rotterdam
with cocaine.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
From port workers to gang leaders who have no regulator
to turn to, so end up building themselves a torture
chamber to adjudicate their business disputes.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
Sounds like what the fuck a torture sellers.
Speaker 12 (37:51):
In Merseyside, the same violence spills out onto the streets
where cocaine is bought and sold, with vival gangs at
war and innocent people suffer.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I'd never go on there because you know what's from
the wood church.
Speaker 12 (38:07):
I met other people prayed on because of their innocence
or naivety.
Speaker 11 (38:11):
I couldn't believe how much it was.
Speaker 12 (38:13):
He became cash mules.
Speaker 10 (38:15):
And I thought, what the fuck have I got myself into?
Speaker 12 (38:20):
Carrying money over international boarders, exploiting differences between countries' regulations
in Dubai while undercover. Some of the money might be
for like drugs in the UK. I learned how that
money can be traded through gold or through different accounting structures.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Actually said al Filaci on there, but it's clearly him,
He's clearly him.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
And then at home in Melbourne I found with police
alage some of the profits of the money lauding operation
are spent on a house that looks like a spaceship.
And Mitt Kirsty, the Federal Police Assistant commissioner, who said,
I think we.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Can risk our way out of this at all.
Speaker 12 (39:03):
If that is true, what can we do instead. Maybe
it's about looking at the cocaine problem differently in the
way we've approached in this series. As a business, it's
just a commodity that has to go from H tob
By following the money, law enforcement can find new ways
(39:24):
to disrupt the cocaine industry and its kingpins.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
We actually try to disrupt the whole business model. We
look at the k enablers of what it constitutes a
business structures.
Speaker 12 (39:35):
By learning how each link in the supply chain works,
you can identify its weaknesses but also its strengths. It's
not good enough to tackle it within state borders. Governments
and countries need to work together.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
We know there's no easy answers, but we also know
from personal experience of covering these crimes and those impacted
by them, that governments have spent billions over the decades
on the drug war and they're still not winning.
Speaker 13 (40:09):
Only omadors be sure.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
And you shall love it early.
Speaker 13 (40:16):
We need school of gospel.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
At the scene where she was killed, Ellie's family came
to lay flowers for a woman they so deeply loved.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Those running the cocaine business are as dynamic, roofless and
motivated as any successful capitalist, able to respond at speed
to market pressures in a way that government agencies and
lawmakers simply can't. And fundamentally, the demand for what they're
(40:47):
selling cocaine isn't going anywhere. So maybe dealing with cocaine
ing on these terms like a business, like the business
it is, we can find a new approach.
Speaker 13 (41:06):
This is not a video game, this is real life.
You go to a fucking pupmar Christmas Eve with a
machine gules if it was someone going there with a
baseball bat and have a grievance with someone. That's standards.
That happens every weekend. But you go somewhere with the
machine matter when it is you go on, it's kill someone.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Cocaine Inc. Was a joint investigation from The Times, The
Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters were David Collins,
Steven Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series was produced
by Sam Chanterassak, with additional production by Andrea tz Evanson.
The executive producers were Will Row and Dan Box. Audio
(41:56):
production and editing was by Jasper Leak, original music by
Tom Birchall, Social and video by Kissie Bray, Sho Burrow,
Vanessa Graham and Chelsea Hardiman. Our legal team were Peter Samer,
Richard Murray and Stephen Coombs. The compliance editor was Claire Telford.
The UK production manager was Oliver Adamson. In Australia, the
(42:20):
project was overseen by Lillian Salagh. In the UK, it
was overseen by Cap Ford, the executive producer of The
Times Daily podcast the Story. The head of Times Podcast
is Tim Level and in Australia the podcast team was
run by Shannon Hollis. But that's not quite the end
of the series. We have two more bonus episodes still
(42:42):
to come. In the first, David sits down with Stephen me,
a former international cocaine smuggler, to talk about his wild
ride with the Colombian cartels and why he left it.
And I'll be sitting down with David and Stephen to
answer your questions about the series. Don't forget to send
an email to Cocaine Inc. At The Times dot co
(43:04):
dot uk, or get in touch with us directly. Our
social media handles are in the show notes for the series.
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