10 Days with no food, water or air: Glen McEwen Pt. 2

After Bali, Glen McEwen became the AFP's Asia Commander and found himself at the centre of the Thai cave rescue . Gary sits down with Glen to hear what it was really like inside that cave rescue, 10 days with no food or air, Australian divers in the water, the high-risk sedation plan to swim the boys out, the moment they thought they'd lost the first kid, and the Hollywood moment when the pumps failed with rescuers still inside. Glen also opens up on his deployment to Yemen interviewing Australians jailed for alleged gun-running, leading the covert investigation into corrupt officer Mark Standen while working alongside him, and the personal toll of 35 years policing that led to medical retirement and his ongoing recovery through therapy and EMDR. Find out more about Glen’s book Crime, Chaos and Controversy here: https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/crime-chaos-and-controversy See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Welcome back to my conversation with retired AFP officer Glenn McEwen, where we go deeper into his career in international law enforcement. Corrupt officers tangled up in international drug smuggling and the delicate art of diplomacy he was forced to master whilst working in China. We also discuss his role investigating the 2019 terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka and the feel-good story of the Thai cave rescue. Glenn also reveals what this work has cost him and whether it was worth the price. Take a listen.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Glenn McEwen, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Hey, I'm going to ask you one, and I know the job might not have paid out, but you were, we've sent to Yemen at one stage now.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Yemen's not the type of place you want to go for work or a holiday. It's a pretty intense place. There's a lot of warnings about travelling there. And I think, yeah, from no Australian embassy or diplomatic presence there whatsoever.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Whatsoever.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  How did you find yourself in Yemen and what was your role?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Well, I was working in the joint counter-terrorism team in Sydney. And it was shortly, probably not long after Operation Pendennis, which was Australia's largest counter-terrorism investigation.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  We've had people on talking about that here on the podcast.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  And there was three people locked up in Yemen for alleged gun-running between Yemen and Somalia. And two of those guys were related to people who were a major security concern to Australia.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Who were related to Jamar Islamia and Al Qaeda, actually the parents of these two, the AU brothers.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  And so Command decided that we needed to find out what they were, you know, what they were up to. And by chance, the ambassador representing Yemen, there was none here either, was visiting, I think, from Singapore. And they made representation and got permission to send a delegation to Yemen to interview these three Australians. So myself, Daryl Abbey-Sucker from New South Wales and an ASIO colleague.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  We travelled to Sanaa in Yemen via Dubai. And we got picked up by, it was out of the Jason Bourne movie. We got picked up by about six Suburbans with the FBI.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  I felt like, I don't know if you've ever saw the Gary Larson cartoon, you know, it was two moose.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  And one had a bullseye painted on him and it said, you know, bummer of a birth, Merv. I felt like that.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Felt like that.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  The moose standing out.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Standing out. Here we are in the middle of terrorism central in 2006, October of 2006.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Looking like you look.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Just wondering what the hell we're doing here. And then we get whisked away straight to the US Embassy to get our security briefing, which was extremely encouraging. Don't do anything. And yeah, yeah. So and then we got transported back to the Sheridan Hotel, which was an experience in itself, which you would have read.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, we had to go and do our thing, go and meet the good Colonel and head off to the prison.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  What was the prison like?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Oh, do you remember that movie Midnight Express?

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  You know, the Turkish prison, you know, very cold, just built out of rock.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Very much like that.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Very much like that. And we met the two AU brothers and Samulsky, who was the other Australian. We weren't allowed to meet them individually. We only had an hour. It was a long way to go for an hour. And very impressive prison guards were in the room. So you can imagine it wasn't an intimate conversation.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  And typical of those sort of joint conversations you have amongst suspects. They have, they don't tell you anything. They try to, you know, they purport to tell you things, but they don't really tell you too much. So, you know, it was one of those things that they tell you a little bit, but you know, they were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the story that basically was that they were associating with people who were Al Qaeda members and were gun-running between Somalia and, sorry, Yemen and Somalia.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  That, that type of experience and like, yeah, we joke about the risks and all that. But, yeah, I don't know, maybe, maybe I'm stupid. I assume you're stupid, but I put my hand up for that straight away. Like doing a job like that, like it's all experience that you think, okay.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  I wasn't saying no.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  You know, the excitement of going to Yemen. And I'm pretty sure Daryl and I are the only Australian cops ever to have been to Yemen.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I don't know, and either managed to find their way there.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  And, you know, just an example, Gary, like these guys, as in the Yemenis, they're on cart.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  You know, they chew, right? They're against narcotics, but naturally.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  And that gives them a.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  The euphoria, right?

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  And they're all got AK-47s. So as you're driving through the streets of Sanaa in this very discreet convoy of black Suburbans, and they hate the Americans, so who do you think's inside them? The Americans, which, you know, they're driving. And they're just firing AK-47s in the air while they're full of this euphoric, you know, mindset. I don't know where the bloody bullets are dropping. You know, we know where the cases, the casings dropping just to the ground, but where are the bloody bullets coming down on? Coming down on. Just an amazing experience.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  But, well, I put it down as an experience, even if you didn't get a lot of, a lot of information, which is, you know, you've got to, got to try these things. But, yeah, just another ticket up as an experience you can get if you join the police. Speaking of join the police, one former police officer that I don't think we've got any, any high opinions of is Mark Standen.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  And you, if you could just give us an overview of that. The Mark Standen story, he was working for the New South Wales Crime Commission. He had a history in law enforcement and he was caught involved in large-scale drug importation. The thing about Mark Standen was that the position, the trust that he was in was such a high position in, in terms of organised crime and drug importation. And the fact that he was corrupt, I think it leaves a bad taste in all of our mouths that someone can get to that, that point. Your involvement in the investigation, you came in looking at the investigation, but you, at this stage, and tell me if I'm saying too much,

• 8:13Speaker 00

  I think you had to covertly continue working with him on the investigation, knowing or at least suspecting that he might, might be a crooked cop.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, actually, we got to the stage where there was an active investigation against him when I was standing, sitting opposite him during these meetings.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  How, how did you feel like reaching over and throttling?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Because just the bullshit that would have been coming out of his mouth.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Well, it's the, you know, like any sort of covert approach to an investigation, you've just got to hold your own, don't you?

• 8:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  As you well appreciate. Yeah, we, we were very much alive to that fact. Knowing that anything we were talking about in these meetings, he was letting the underworld know what was going on.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, that adds a complexity, a layer of complexity to the investigation. What was, what was the main investigation that you were working on?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Well, initially it was, we were, we, the AFP were being told by the Dutch and the UK that they were concerned that there was a very high-ranking Australian law enforcement official that had been corrupted. And they had well-placed source in both the UK and in Holland who were feeding that information. So the assistant commissioner at the time, Tim Morris, went over to both the UK and Holland to get a full briefing.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  He made a commitment that it might not be an AFP officer because they didn't fully understand the Australian policing system and the jurisdiction, the constitution and the Australian setup. But he did make a commitment that the AFP would look into it because the UK and the Dutch said, look, there's too many compromises. We won't work with you. So it was a big deal. So in January 2007, this was late 2006, I was being, I was coming down to Canberra. I'd finished my time in Sydney and of all things, I was going to be a superintendent of people smuggling. I couldn't get rid of it.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  And I was coming down and I got a phone call from Tim to come to the office. I was on leave and I was coming to start. I know that this was a Thursday or something, I was going to start on the Monday.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  And he basically called me in and we had a chat. And he gave me the circumstances. And he said, what do you think? And we both come to the conclusion that it could be.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Mark.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  And he said, well, I want you to lead up this team um to investigate it.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  But it's not going to be all bells and whistles. It's going to be a very quiet approach.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  And I've gone, considering who it is.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  How are we going to do this? And he said, well, the Dutch just so happened to have a guy here in Australia who's on a tourist visa, who might be able to help us out on a couple of things.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Particularly his relationship with a guy called James Henry Kinch.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Okay, there's a start point. So that's what I did. I went and debrief with two Dutch coppers.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Who this guy absolutely hated.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Uh, and he gave me a thumbnail sketch about this guy, James Henry Kinch. And from there, uh, I did some, you know, backtracking and worked out that Mark and this Kinch did have a relationship back in two thousand three.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Two thousand two into two thousand three.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Uh, and since I couldn't do all bells and whistles and Kinch had seemed to be very well connected with a Dutch group called the Brader Group, which is appeared to be at the time the the largest transporter of ecstasy across the world.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Into the U uh U S and Australia, uh headed by Ron Hucklander and Peter Decker.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  And this source, codenamed Swampy, happened to work with these guys previously.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  And end up, he worked with Kinch and for Hucklander and Decker.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  So that was our start point and it appeared in my research that Standon and Kinch came together in two thousand three when the Crime Commission had locked up Kinch.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  And he flipped when he was caught with a with constructive possession of a hundred and fifty grams. Of drugs, ecstasy. And he flipped.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Flipped.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  For Standon and gave up kilos, hundreds of thousands of dollars here, there and everywhere. And then started working for Standon.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Now, to the point where Standon became this crusader of advocacy for Kinch.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  And made representation to the D P P, lied to the D P P, tried to get his uh charges quashed.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Cause he had him registered as a a when you say flipped, like a criminal informant and was saying.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Co named Hogan.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, and he he's benefiting the investigation and, you know, we should give him leniency before the the crimes he's committed.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  And at that time, it was my belief that the Crime Commission wanted to go global.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  With their work and Kinch was their their conveyance for that, being the global drug trafficker. Now, my saying has always been that um Standon needed one Kinch, but Kinch needed a hundred Standons to do what he.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good way, a good way of looking at it, isn't it?

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  So I always saw Kinch as a bigger fish than Standon.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  And that's what ended up happening.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I started investigating Kinch and all the work that previous jobs, New South Wales Crime Commission jobs, A F P jobs and connected Kinch to that and ended up building a brief of one point five ton.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Of ecstasy uh that was imported into Australia in two thousand two that Kinch was directly connected with.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  During this time, by chance, down, we'd done a whole lot of C C R call charge records on Standon. Because initially we were looking at Standon and initially I was tasked with looking at all of um sort of A F P.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  So I I I'm just getting a sense of it. They put you what you're undercover um the or your undercover cover story is you're investigating the the drug importation.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Well, actually undercover story was um it was a waterfront inquiry.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Right. And that that's brought you into the investigation. And so while you're looking at the criminal activities of Kinch and everyone else, you're also looking at Standon.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  But what had happened there was we were just looking on the periphery of Standon, but we were looking at Kinch. But very early on.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Whilst we were looking at the C C Rs for Standon, I got a phone call from my old analyst here in Sydney, Maria Drennan. And so because our job was locked down under this operation status, under this waterfront inquiry.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  No one else could see it. And she said, look, we just got this phone number through another operation known as Operation Lasserta, which was looking at two Northern Beaches um traffickers. And could you just run that number for me and just let me know? So I ran the number and it was end up being Bill Jalalati.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Who was Standon's, in the end, Standon's co-conspirator.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  So, and then when we looked further, uh we matched up the Kinch, Jalalati and Standon. And I was saying, well, when we were wondering who this Jalalati was, I'm going, well, it's not, it's not a girlfriend or a boyfriend or. And it's it's not a business arrangement. This is, this is something criminal.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Um, and so a parallel investigation started, which had all the bells and whistles.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't have the bells and whistles, but the Sydney office ended up, which was Operation Octans.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  So they ended up doing that and I quietly did my side, but I was across their job, but they weren't across mine. And I I was working under the impression that I will get Kinch for the one point five.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  And be able to flip him on on Mark.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  But nothing went to plan on any of my assumptions.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's, yeah, it was a interesting investigation for you, but also distasteful. Like it if you're working on a corrupt cop and.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  I I can't imagine what it would have been like sitting opposite him, knowing the shit or at least suspecting or reasonably certain what he's what he's up to and watching the bullshit come out of his mouth and and painting himself as, you know, the uh the white knight trying to uh stop all this drug importation.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  You know, and the guy was brilliant, the way he um, the way he portrayed himself.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  To the point where, you know, on Mondays, I think it was every second Monday, he'd bring all the the law, the local or New South Wales, high end, you know, criminal team, criminal investigation teams together, be A F P, customs, gangs, crime, uh Australian Crime Commission back then, you know, all together.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Um, organized crime. And we'd all sit there under the guise of deconfliction.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Ha, even though we were aware of it, so we had to be reasonably guarded.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  And we couldn't let the cat out of the bag. And everyone else was just throwing it out there and he's just being the sponge. It was.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  I I've I've worked with the Crime Commission at various stages of my career on on different investigations and what can you say? It's different experience.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Now, um, I'm going to take you into uh the Thai cave rescue. Cause that's, this is another aspect of policing. You you've seen it where, you know, you're trying to chase the bad guys. Terrorism, trying to prevent uh, yeah, people being being killed. We're now looking at a situation where it's uh, you know, you're trying to save lives. Can you tell us why you were involved in it, what you were doing at the time and and what happened?

• 18:51Speaker 01

  So I was Commander Azra at the time, so based in Beijing and Thailand was part of my command.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Uh, so when the boys went missing.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Uh, so they'd gone into the into the cave. Um, so Tom Long Cave is near the Myanmar Thai border, up there in Changrai. And traditionally with the Wild Boar soccer team, uh when when one of the players turns sixteen, they go and uh sign their name in chamber three, which is a little bit into the cave.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  The cave system itself is ten kilometers long.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Um, but they went in into chamber three, which is known as Pattaya Beach and signed their name. So they rode their bikes down and the assistant coach went with them and the monsoon rains came two weeks early.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  And came with such intensity that.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  The rains came through the entrance way uh and pushed the boys further into the cave. They couldn't go out of the cave because the heavy rains were moving in so far. So they were, they were lost pretty, pretty quickly and they were pushed, found, they were found one point two kilometres into the cave, into chamber nine.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Where we became involved is once the villagers uh and their parents, obviously, um you know, raised the alarm. The Thai Navy SEALs.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Were brought into the equation very early. They made a call into the embassy, asking the Australian Federal Police, what swift water and close quarter diving capability did we have?

• 20:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  That call came directly to me as the commander.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  I then made a call to the commander of our specialist response group and they said, yeah, we've got that. We had six divers, okay. We then pushed that up to the deputy. That goes to the whole of government, it goes to government and they had independent, uh, inter, what do they call it, interdepartmental committee.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  They got to sit down and have a chat about it. Uh, and then that was on a Friday and on Saturday, they're on a Herc off.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Okay. So that was the search component and what they were required to do. Uh, the two English divers who mapped out this cave some fifteen years before. They needed assistance to have air cylinders and water pipes pushed through the cave. To allow them to penetrate the cave further and try to get rid of this water.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  That kept, it's still going in. So my team was there doing that in the first instance.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  The Americans had sent, as they do, durga, durga, durga. They sent a hundred down from Okinawa.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Um, but they hadn't had their rules of engagement finalized at that point. They didn't know if they were allowed in the cave or not.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  And a Chinese private um dive group. So there was Thais, Australians, US and China.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  So amongst them all, America being left out at the moment, they were moving. I estimate about twenty tonnes of equipment over this period of time.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  They had tanks and water pipes whilst the English divers were lying, laying.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Guide rope as they were moving through the caving system.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  So ju- uh, to, to get the picture of it, like you, you said the, the boys, chamber three was one point two kilometres in.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Chamber nine, where, where they were found.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Chamber nine, how far into the cave from the entrance was that, that?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  To chamber nine?

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  One point two.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  One, one, one point two. So they started off in chamber three but got washed fur- further down. So these caves have flooded. You've got this group of experts all with the skill set required that's come over there. But they were putting tanks all through the, through the caves and water pipes to try and pump, pump water out. And then you've got the two English experts that are, are coming over there and the rest of them are basically supporting. Their knowledge of the caves because they've already mapped the caves, is that, that?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  That's correct. And my understanding, the, the cave system itself is very difficult terrain to walk through.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  With the twists and turns and everything else, let alone swim through.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Uh, so yeah, so it was very important to allow the deeper penetration, having that logistics moving forward. Otherwise, they were just going to be wasting energy and not being able to move.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  And it's, it's, I would imagine pitch black in there.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Pitch black. The water was running, freezing.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  And, and that's where unfortunately they lost Petty Officer Ghanan, one of the volunteers.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Out of the, the airport. He was an ex Navy SEAL.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  He lost his guide rope and got lost in the churn.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  How long before they actually found the boys? Cause it, it might have been, uh, not a recovery, it might have been just to find, find the deceased.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  So every time, it was ten days. So every time the divers were entering these flooded caverns. They expected to find, you know, something.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  And they were expecting death. But then they popped themselves up in, in chamber nine. So ten days and they had, you know, twenty six. Or thirteen sets of eyes looking at them.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Um, but these got, you know, these kids, and even the twenty five year old.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  And they're, they're, they're back for ten days. I imagine haven't got food.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  No food, no water, no fresh air, no sanitation.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  And just sitting in a, a air pocket in.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  In an air pocket, waiting for that, is that water gonna come over the lip?

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  If they could see the lip.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  And the ages of the kids?

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Uh, eleven to sixteen and twenty five.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Right, ten, ten days. Okay, so we've, we've found them. So that message would have been passed back out.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  So that becomes now a rescue. I'm in Brisbane with a Chinese delegation. I then fly in to uh the site.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  At that point in time, they've identified Dr Richard Harris.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  The call's gone out by the two English divers that now we need some really strong expertise and Dr Harris, who's a, a doctor. And I hate this word, anesthesiast.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  I was, I know, I know what he was, but I was waiting for you to say it because I, I don't wanna.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  You don't wanna say it either.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  Say it, but he, he's got a special skill set.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  He has a very special skill set.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  I'm gonna make you say that word.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  And his mate Craig Challen, who's a veterinarian, I can say that one. Uh, so they arrived.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  I arrived in the morning of that Saturday and they arrived on the, um, on that afternoon.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  So now the focus is to recover the, the kids. And it's not a case of, oh guys, this way.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Cause how long does it take to get from the entrance, uh, from the entrance to the chamber nine?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  So when, when Harry and Craig first went in with uh the two English divers. Um, if I remember rightly, it was five hours in. He spent thirty eight minutes with, with the, uh, the kids.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  And then five hours back out at that point. It got a little bit quicker.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  When they, but at that first time, yeah, it was something like that.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  And the time, because it, it's narrow, the.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, twists, turns and walking, swimming.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  So your, your role, you flew over there once the kids had been located.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  And that was ten days into it.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  Describe the scene that you met when you arrived there and, and what was your specific role? Were you coordinating the responses? What was?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  I was, uh, I sat in the, the command area with the, the Thai.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Um, I had a, a major with me who was a translator.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  So we weren't there all the time. We would just come in, we'd have a chat with Harry. Um, Harry would go away and come back.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  He had a lot of pressure on him.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  He had a lot of pressure on him, mate. You know, you know, I had a conversation uh where he actually bared his soul.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  When he came up with the idea, because there was a number of scenarios that were.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Placed before the, sort of the.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  How they get the kids out.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Leaders, yeah. Like initially, earlier on, they were talking about going from the top.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Drilling.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Drilling.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  But it was eight hundred metres of granite. And they, they didn't have the equipment to identify where the actual kids.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Was needle in a haystack.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Uh, and then basically the only two options left on the table, the feasible options, were leaving them there. Until the monsoon season finished.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  And walk them out and just keep feeding them.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Well, I suppose you've got to look at all the options.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  June into July and that was November.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Or what, uh, Harry came up, up with, which was sedation.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Now, uh, that was a very, that was high risk.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  And, and the reason to sedate the kids was the kids had obviously all, uh, one would assume they're not experienced divers.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  And it's the most, yeah, difficult dives, dive situation you could find yourself at. But if someone went down and just put a mask on the kid and say, just follow me, uh, they would have panicked. Was that the rationale behind it?

• 28:28Speaker 01

  The experience of these guys is exactly that, Gary. It was about sedating them because the greatest risk of this.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Is the kids panicking.

• 28:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Which is a risk to themselves and also to the diver.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Uh, therefore it was about sedation and then restraint.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  So there was an oral sedative given to the kid.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  They dropped them into the water, placed the masks on them.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Drop them under.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Then give them a whack of ketamine.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Uh, and once they fell unconscious, restrain them with their hands behind their back.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Then the the diver was given two more sedatives in case the the patient was waking up during the transportation.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Now, bearing in mind, it's not all underwater, he still had to carry. So there was a number of different dynamics through that from chamber nine to chamber three, where the Americans were when they were allowed to go, when it was all sorted. Uh, and that's where.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  So you're passing the, um, um, you're dragging the kid through the water, through a tunnel and a very tight tunnel in in some spots.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, twists and turns.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  And other parts, you're coming up and lifting them over rocks and going through a cave without the water or then back into the water, that type of thing. Wow. And wh- whilst they, for all intents and purposes, unconscious.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  So dead weight.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Uh, and then the idea, well, what happened was in chamber three is where the Americans were.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Where they would be awakened with the medical team. Chamber two uh was where the Australians and the Chinese were.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  And chamber one's where the ties were. And the agreement across the board was the tie were ties were going to walk them out because it was a tie operation.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Not everyone needed to know what was happening.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Amongst here.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Now, my guys had uh constructed a flying fox.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  So instead of walking them through the

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  the rocks and

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  the twists and turns of chamber two to chamber one, they just whizzed them across, which was fantastic. Yeah, they did very, very well there. The interesting thing about the first passenger, uh, patient, I should say, was with uh Jason, who was moving, European diver, who was moving, transporting the first patient.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  He started to awake. So he didn't build him once with the extra, he mailed him twice.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  So when he arrived in chamber three, we thought we'd lost our first one, which was going to throw all the planning out the door.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  She's not gonna.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Because Harry was already concerned if we lost one, that was it.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  And what was that, that, that again, it, it came out in your book, but he was, he, because it was his plan. So he was bearing the responsibility if it didn't work. And if we, we lost the first one, well, that, that's it, I'm not.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  We're just gonna.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  I, I can't help you here.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  No, he couldn't live with it.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  So he had to, yeah, he was just like, well, we're gonna have to come up with something else. But he backed himself in the end because even though we thought we'd lost, we'd found out that he was just overly medicated, right? So the first, the first patient, bang. So that was supposed to be the end of the first day. So when the first one was coming out, then all of a sudden we heard number two's here. That's where Harry backed himself.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  And then number three, and then number four, and that was the first day done.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  So four came out for day one, four came out day two, and then five came out day three.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Well, what, what a story. What was the, wh- what was the atmosphere where the first one came out and then everyone came out? And uh we say that with the greatest respect to the uh, the Thai diver that lost his life.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  But getting all the kids back, that was, if you had to sign off on that, you would have gone, yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, well, we just witnessed the greatest rescue.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  That the world had seen. Um, I don't want to take that away from any other rescues, but knowing what I've known in relation to the intricacies that were involved in this, absolutely amazing. But then there was a Hollywood moment.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  When the pumps failed and we still had people on station.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  Oh, what, what happened there?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Because what, the kids were out.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Because you're pumping millions or.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Fifty thousand liters or something, or, you know, like an hour or something, and they're flooding all the rice fields.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  You know, they're taking these villagers, you know, life away, you know, the, uh, the rice paddy fields. And there were four navy divers that stayed with the kids for the whole ten days.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  And they had to make their own way out because all the other divers had

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  taking themselves out or taking the kids out and taking themselves out. So there was still four left. And then they're making their way out and we all agreed that everyone's going to stay on station.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Until the.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  So everyone, yeah, until everyone comes out. And then water pump one goes, water pump two goes. As the four were just making their way out.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  And then everyone, not everyone, my understanding.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  There was some, the panic started panicking because they just wanted to get out. And there was only one way out, apart from that flying fox.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Out of from chamber two to chamber one, and people was jumping over, you know, just being desperate to get out of there. But that was the Hollywood moment, but everyone got out safely.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  But.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  What an extraordinary.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Bit of a twist and turn.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Extraordinary story too. And uh, yeah, I, I suppose you've seen a lot of bad things in your policing career in life, but seeing something like that, everyone coming together.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  It actually reinstilled good faith in people.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Um, you know, seeing what people can actually do.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  You know, with a common purpose of good.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Uh, was, you know, really, really fantastic to see.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  And people go above, above and beyond.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Above and beyond, absolutely.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Um, but unfortunately, just a couple of years ago, there is a, a sad ending to this. And I hope, I'm hoping there is not any further sad endings, but it just demonstrates that trauma lives on. Is the captain of the um, the Wild Boar, who died of suicide a couple of years ago.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  That's sad.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Whilst he was un- undertaking his sc- uh soccer scholarship in England, yeah.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you, you, you wonder how much a, a situation like that or an experience like that would, uh, would carry. What, it must have been terrifying for.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  And uh to be stuck down there for that, uh, that long.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Um, let's take you to China. How did you find yourself in uh, in China? And I, I got the sense that was a very, um, diplomacy became your weapon in, in China as much as uh your policing skills.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, China was uh fantastic, you know, the, the best post I had.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. How long were you over there for?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Just over three years.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  And what was your title there?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Commander Asia.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yep, so.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  Based at Beijing.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  At the embassy.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yep, lived off embassy, but yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Um, but I only spent about probably forty, thirty-five to forty percent of my time in Beijing because of my remit was so vast.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Um.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Tell us about your experience there.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Well, uh, we, we left New Year's Day of two thousand seventeen, um, left Sunshine Coast, thirty-five degrees, and not a cloud in the sky. Um, by the time we arrived in Beijing, it was the second of January two thousand seventeen, it was minus eleven.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Um, couldn't see, due to the pollution, a meter in front of us. Uh, could taste the pollution.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Uh, the traffic was out of the control and Critty, my wife, turned to me and said, what have we done?

• 36:44Speaker 00

  So your, your wife came with you on, on this post?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a, yeah, a company post, yeah. Uh, what have you done? And yeah, but that was the start of it. But, um, you know, a big place, uh, fourteen hundred million people, I don't use the term billion.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Because you lose that, the context. So fourteen hundred million people, Beijing is the size, the population of Australia, just in the city.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  Uh, I've been, I've spent time in Shanghai and it just blows you away, doesn't it?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  It does. And Beijing's totally different to Shanghai, see? Shanghai is all beautiful and vibrant and

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  and Beijing is just dull because that's the think tank.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Of China.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Where Shanghai is all about fun and financials.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  What, what sort of accommodation uh were you put up in, in?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  I was very fortunate.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Um, we had two apartments.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Um, opposite each other. So we had a three bedroom apartment and a two bedroom apartment.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Luxury.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Luxury.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  What are you complaining about?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Well, absolutely. I wasn't complaining about it when I was there. No, we were very fortunate from accommodation point of view. But yeah, no, China, fantastic. Um, my perspective of China, um, it's not, in my view, not the big bad bear that's in the room that the Australian mainstream uh media portray.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Uh, there are reasons for why, why they do what they do.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Um, I, I spent a month in university there prior to my deployment.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  So I studied their political system and I studied, more importantly, their judicial and legislative frameworks. So I understand their legislation. Um, so where they talk about things like their conviction rates and stuff, there's

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, you, you.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  things behind that.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  You, you enlightened me there because I, I would always joke with someone's going to trial in uh China, well, hundred percent conviction rate. And you, you, you broke it, broke it down. Do you want to just explain your, your take on that?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Well, it's like what we have, you know, there, there's certain thresholds that are met.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Um, you know, there's about value, uh, public value, uh, there's all the sort of baseline measures that, that we do.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  They're not going to take a matter to court, that's a waste of public money. They're not going to take a matter of court that is, that is, you know, little chance of conviction. Um, like KPIs, the directors of public prosecution.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  So it, it, it might perhaps more thorough in the expectation of that they've got to get across certain barriers before it gets to trial. So hence a high conviction rate when it gets to trial.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  So there's, there are matters that don't see the light of day. There are matters that get to a point and they're discontinued.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Uh, very similar to us. Uh, and there are control measures.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  But there are fourteen hundred million people in the.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  That's hard to comprehend.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  In a, in a very similar geographical uh landscape of Australia, which means the eastern seaboard is flooded with people, the west side not so much, and there's desert in the middle.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Uh, so.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  I, you know, like anything, I take things on face value and you go in with an open mind. So with China, and that's what I did.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  So those sorts of things, I have a very, I was very much blown away with their um control of the media, I must say, you know, like CNN doesn't exist.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Um, you know, those, you know, all like, um, you go in and Google and like all the Western mainstream.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  You know, platforms, social media platforms don't exist, but they've replaced them with their own.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Um, you know, Amazon doesn't exist, but they've got uh Taobao, they've got their own behemoths.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, uh, uh, it's easier, I don't want to be too open minded, but you look at what we get fed in our media is very much from a certain perspective. And uh, yeah, we criticize China, that people aren't being reported what's happened in the, you know, the actual truth of the matters. But uh, I think every uh population has their media filtered to some degree.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Well, I look at America as a case in point.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Fake news and.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  They're very insular.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  You don't see what happens in Australia when you go to the US, you don't see what happens over in the UK.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's interesting that you live there, work there, and you've come back with a, a, a differing view.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do, yeah, I have.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  I, I suppose you'd have to be careful too, when you get posted there, that you're not played as well. Like, that, that could be the potential as well.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Oh, of course, well, you're, you're under surveillance once you get there.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  The physical or audio.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  And or audio, you know, but if they just, they would have lost interest with us because it's not our first radio.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Um, so, you know, it's more for, for others. Was it, would I have been a high value target? Probably when I first got there, but they, you know, would have realized in the end that policing's different again.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  You know, as I mentioned earlier.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  There's other, other people out there that would have far more interest.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  The uh crime that uh you, you talked about touched on um over there, the fake kidnappings.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  Tell, tell us through that, because that was something that uh.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  The virtual kidnappings.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, virtual kidnappings.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Very, very strange phenomenon.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so virtual kidnappings is uh pretty much what the term is. It's, it's, it's the Clayton's kidnapping, the kidnapping you have when you're not having a kidnapping, um. It doesn't really assist with the initial police response within Australia, so what it is, is gangs in, in China purport to be a Chinese authority, normally the Ministry of Public Security, which is the police.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  And they make contact with us, uh, with a victim, a potential victim, normally.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  A student, uh, in, in my experience, they were Sydney based students.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  And then they would come up with this, uh, coming up with a story that they were wanted for a crime that they never committed.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Uh, and the only way they were ever going to get out of it was to pay their way out of it, pay their fine. And it'd be some stupid exorbitant amount of money. And how they were to get out of that was basically to portray that they were kidnapped and then extort their family.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Now, the interesting thing with this, from a psychological point of view, is the trust they had in the person purporting to be the authority in China was such that they would do this.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  And the fear of the local authorities, i.e. you and I, the Australian Police, the New South Wales Police in this instance, was such that it didn't exist.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  That they would never report it, so they would play along with this to the great detriment of their own family. But then, when it is reported, then you've got New South Wales Police in this jurisdiction, because that was my experience. They go full steam ahead treating as a kidnapping.

• 44:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  When it's all just smoke and mirrors.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  I remember when it first started happening, we'd, we'd be reacting and then start to wise, wiseen up that uh it, it might be all.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Cause once a few of them.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Come out, you start going, hey, but when it first, you know, and I, I did the first couple, and when you're dealing with, you know.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  Well, the family from China would make contact with police over here, my child's been kidnapped, and it'd be full steam ahead.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Full steam ahead.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  And then when it starts coming out, and you're speaking with the family and you're finding out, and then you're speaking with, you know, um, New South.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  And you apologize for wasting time, you're a piggy in the middle.

• 44:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  You know, we got no control over it, but yeah, no, it's um, yeah, that was quite the phenomenon there for a while.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  Terrorist attack in uh Sri Lanka, um, you were the head of or commander of the Asian group at that stage.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Sri Lanka was part of uh my command, yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  That was in two thousand nineteen and uh.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Easter Sunday bombings.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, and what's, more than two hundred and fifty people killed, nine separate locations, suicide bombers.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Um, and I think there was two Australians.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Two Australians, six thousand injured.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, um, tell us about your involvement in that and what, what happened there.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Um, well, I was in Thailand at the time, I got a phone call from my senior officer to tell me that he'd been notified by, he was outside of Colombo on that Sunday, um, and he'd been notified by the Sri Lankan Police.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Uh, by the head of the CID, the Criminal Investigation Division, that what had occurred. Uh, and at that point, the AFP was the only pla- uh, international policing, uh, foreign policing agency that was based in Colombo at the time. So he got the first heads up and

• 45:55Speaker 01

  uh, we had obviously made, because we had people over there, people smuggling, can't get around it.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  And uh, we just made sure everyone was safe. Uh, we had a new ambassador uh at the time and we,

• 46:11Speaker 01

  I asked Stuart, Stuart Allen, who was the senior officer, to make inquiries about is there any assistance that's required of the Sri Lankan Police. As you said, there was nine locations that had been hit uh over a period of time. Now, what we, we did understand is that

• 46:32Speaker 01

  with the churches and the Western hotels, they obviously the, the churches were holding Easter Sunday celebrations.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  But the hotels were advertising Easter Sunday lunches or breakfasts.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  So they're, they're looking to target foreigners and.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  So, so then it was basically something of this magnitude that I'd be, there was an expectation that I'd, I'd go in. Uh, the AFP had determined that counter-terrorism would uh, would lead the, the command response. Uh, I would go in as a senior investigative officer and uh Stuart would do what Stuart needs to do. So I arrived the, the morning after, um, just as, as we were, they were quickly just driving me through um, the, the first church, and that's when they, they found the booby trap car, uh, which was uh detonated as we were driving through.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  I just got quite reminded, you already seen that, what people were like, again, it was similar to Bali, we're coming in and people are going out. And uh, they'd already reinforced the, uh, the airport going in, going out. And so then Sri Lanka had asked for intelligence support and digital forensics.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  And again, we're dealing with a death penalty country.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Even though they haven't executed anybody for quite some time. Uh, so we had to manage that political dynamic. So we basically were working with the Sri Lankans, we're getting a thumbnail sketch, the new ambassador we're getting. Uh, he got quite an extensive briefing early from the president.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Uh, that highlighted perhaps um political inaction uh, and also some foreign actors that uh came into play. It was at this point that uh the hotel that we were staying at, where, where, where we were going to stay at, which we did stay at, was uh one where one of the bombers, Latif, he attempted to detonate, uh, but it didn't go off.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  So he then went to fix his bomb just outside of Colombo and she went off. Uh, he was, he was mucking around with it and.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  Should, shouldn't laugh at someone's death, but a will in that, a will in that circumstances.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  The interesting thing about Latif is he had Australian connections, which really threw a cat amongst the pigeons a bit later, and I got caught. And my political antenna let me down on that one. Uh, yeah, so, uh, yeah, so we end up having a, a, a whole assistance package arrive, we worked with um, well, the FBI turned up, the UK turned up, Interpol turned up. Every man and his dog turned up with different agendas, we were the only ones there to help these Sri Lankans.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Um, and in the end, we end up with our own agenda, we're still helping the Sri Lankans, but then we had an Australian connection.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  That, that's the thing that complicates your career in the areas that you worked, isn't it? There's so many people in there, whose role, who takes leadership? Are we working? What are we providing? There, there's so many negotiation things, you must have become very skilled at negotiating.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I suppose, you know, that's true, in the end, it, yeah, it's just the geopolitical minefield.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Uh, and then you've got to separate the wheat from the chaff, like the, the good contributors and the ones who are useless.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, and when you're talking law enforcement, there's a lot of egos in there. And uh, so you, you're dealing with that, and then you just identified the good ones or the useless ones. Like, uh, yeah, a lot, a lot going on. What I particularly liked about the uh Sri Lankan one, and I'm, I'm saying this tongue in cheek, but uh there was um, the head of the police and military were um convicted of failing to identify, you know, red flags or indicators that this was going to happen, and they were sentenced to death.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that surprised me too. Interesting how they're holding the officials to a high degree than the actual perpetrators, because the perpetrators, uh, or some of them.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Have been sentenced and they got two hundred and twenty years.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  But they're holding those two particular officials to a higher standard. Well, it's interesting, the Sri Lankan, uh, the bombing, the evolution of from petty crime to extremism.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Um, the evolution pathway and how quick it occurred is quite disturbing. And it was ISIS inspired or ISIL inspired, and that's where they're, they're concerned that they didn't match, apart from the foreign aspect.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Of what occurred, they didn't connect.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  The dots.

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  That's where we really helped them out, building that picture of crime, because they were building nine different cases of murder.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Individual silos, yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, as opposed to bringing it all together as one huge, you know, case. Um, but we helped them with that. But again, that could be legislative deficiencies as well there.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  Well, you you'd know as a law enforcement officer and worked in a whole range of different jurisdictions. But when these crimes occur, you you take something away. You learn something on every job you worked on. I'm sure every major job you've worked on.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  The day you stop learning is the day you die.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Walk away critique. I could have done that a little bit better. You learn that. That's the experience. So, yeah. Mistakes will be made in in law enforcement and, yeah, terrorism is a difficult one because it's, yeah, it's preemptive. You you've got to get in there before. Once, once the bombs have gone off, it's too late. So it makes it makes it harder to, uh, yeah. Prevent and investigate, but we learn and hopefully practices, practices improve.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Um, another thing I wanted to talk to you about was, um, your thoughts on policing and a quote from your your book, and I'll just get your your thoughts on that. Policing thrives not on chiefs alone, but on the tireless work of those who wade through the muck of duty. The foot soldiers with grime streaked boots trudging forward. Um, I think I get what you you're saying there, but just explain it to us.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just, it's a matter of, you know, realising that too many chiefs spoil the broth.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  You know, we've got to realise that the foot soldiers are the one who do the job and we've got to support them. We've got to really, you know, knuckle down and really take heed of the advice that the people at the top don't always know. They don't have the answers and we've got to, you know, really appreciate what the people at the coalface are seeing.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  And feeling and knowing. And I think we've lost that.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  And people who get it to the higher ranks are sort of in their ivory tower and not really being as collaborative as they could be.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  And we can improve or they can improve on that and.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  It it's an important position, leadership in in policing and I, I, that's why I use that analogy that you you said with the cave rescue, that you're you're the, you know, coach of an elite team of athletes and just wanted to allow them to concentrate on what they needed to do.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Those, the bosses, I I think, and I'm I'm generalising here, so there's good, there's bad, there's in between. But the ones that rise in rank without the experience, they're the ones that I see that tend to over interfere in investigations and not listen to the operational police or or respect the operational police and feel like they've got to overcompensate because of their lack of experience by ingratiating themselves in investigations where really they should be facilitating, making it as easy for the operators to do their job.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Well, you don't want people learning on the job.

• 54:37Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Not at that level.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Not, not, not at that level. That's where, that's where it's crucial. Just reflections on your career here. This is another quote I just pulled out from your book. Uh, my canvas stretched across a vast expanse of the AFP. As a covert operative, I moved between shadows trailing elusive criminals. As a detective, I unraveled mysteries, each thread leading to justice. Diplomacy became my lexicon, bridging cultures and borders. As a commissioned officer, I stood at the crossroads of duty and honour. Um, again, I get all that you're saying there, but just in in your words, just explaining what you mean by that, that quote.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  I think, well, I I know, it's it's basically, I've had a very full.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  And filling career.

• 55:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Uh, I was fortunate to be outside the blue curtain.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Inside the blue curtain. I've dealt with geopolitics. Uh, and at the commander level, uh, I was able to to lead and allow people to grow. I suppose it's just I was, I was just very fortunate, um, that that my career went where it went and, uh, yeah, I I think that's where I'm going with that.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Well, I I I see it to me, what it it shows me a career of someone that's been at the coalface, done the work, rising through the ranks at the right, right pace, but understanding what leadership becomes when you get there. And I think that if if policing goes wrong, I think it's where, um, people look at an organisation and think, what can I take from the organisation? Rather than what I can give to the organisation. And I I think, yeah, what I what I'm seeing of you and and speaking to you, it it feels like you've enjoyed every, every day. There's been the hard, hard times, but committed to giving to the organisation and just do it, do it, rolling your sleeves up and doing your best.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  I'd agree with that. Yeah, totally.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, well, uh, credit to you. But it comes at a cost and your your career didn't end the way you you thought it would. And you carried some scarring from all the things and what we've talked about are just some of the things you've done too. I should clarify that. Um, but you you've carried some, uh, some damage from it. You're happy to talk a little bit about that.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  Um, so your career, when it it came to an end, you walked away?

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, I walked away, uh, not the way I wanted to walk away. Um.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  I buried a lot of, um, a lot of things over the course of my career, probably that two thousand one, two thousand and two, more than anything. Uh, we briefly spoke about the two thousand three.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Uh, and later into my career, after I came back from China more so. When you're, when you're dealing in the most, in my view, the most strategically important posts within the AFP and you come back to the sort of the lower end of the the spectrum, I came back to Adelaide, um, a smaller office.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  You're dealing with sort of lower important, you know.

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  You're dealing with demand as opposed to supply from a, in a drug sense. Uh, we we had COVID happening. I was really Jekyll and Hyde.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Uh, which is not very nice.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Right, you you acknowledge that now, looking, looking back.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  You could be on the wrong.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was fine at work.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  You know, and and in the, when I, when I was posting into Brisbane, they were my last two postings.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I was awful at home. Yeah, my wife, now I had off to where she's a champion.

• 58:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Chrissy. Uh, and I then, uh, went through some assessments for, I didn't think that was suitability. It's suitability of employment. But anyway, one of the psychiatrists basically said, you're done.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Um, what do you mean I'm done? And I said, yeah, you you can't work for the A P ever again. I don't know what it said.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  But anyway, it was set in stone. So I had to, I was medically retired.

• 58:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Um, so I retired medically on the twenty second of May, which was thirty five years, three months to the day.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  And then I had to make the decision if I needed to do more.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  Yep, more work on yourself.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  On myself. And that that day came.

• 59:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Um, I had to do it not only for myself, but for my wife, uh, because I was behaving badly.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Um, and so everything with me though is I don't do things in half measures and boots and all.

• 59:25Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  So I, um, I went to my psych and we had had the decision. I was already seeing a psychiatrist, but I went to the psychologist and um, she asked me, how far are we gonna go?

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  I said, well, I'm in it. And she goes, well, she's Rhodesian. She goes, well, I have to break you to fix you.

• 59:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  And so we did the cognitive behaviour therapy and I thought, well, this is okay.

• 59:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  It's not bad. And then we did the E M D R, the I, the M D R, eye movement, desensitisation, reprocessing.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Well, that is hell on wheels.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Um, so she did, yeah, she broke me. Um, but what it did was bring everything up.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Um, it took two, two years to do, two and a half years, and it allowed me to be able to talk about things we're able to talk about today.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Um, and what I was able to, um, articulate further in the book, particularly those periods of time I mentioned. So, but I'm still a work in progress. I'm not healed.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  At all. Um, I still have my moments.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Um, and I've got to work on myself every day. Um, so it's still a battle. But I'm a lot better than I was, but there's still a long road to go.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Well, the the fact you acknowledge that, and I say this without any expertise, a, a psychologist, obviously, but the fact that you acknowledge that you've got to work every day is, I I think, a good thing, that you're not going, huh, I'm better now. And you'll, uh, you'll just fall back into your old ways if you, uh, you go with that attitude. But, uh, yeah. We've, we joined a different, different time, different era, and these type of things weren't, weren't discussed. Or if you did discuss that back when we joined, you would have been saying, come on, I'll get you a beer at the pub. That would have been.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  That would have been the way that we we dealt with it.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  That's what we did.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Most definitely involved in critical incidents or whatever. Okay, let's go to the pub and you get wasted and then wake up the next day and go, oh, Jesus, haven't dealt with that. But, yeah, I I think we have moved forward now. So full credit to you for for owning it.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, you know, and I said to my wife, she she asked me, you know, particularly with the book now, she asked me, am I okay? And I said, well, I'll do a check in.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  You know, after I do a bit more, you know, I've got a couple of other things to do, I'll do a check in.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  You know, make sure that I don't go down that rabbit hole again, you know, because talking about it's great.

• 1:02:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  But it also, you're left thinking.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  It it's, I was gonna caution that too, because I went down the path of a book coming out after, after my policing and doing the, you know, going around talking about and all that. It's confronting sometimes and sometimes you step away from it and go, oh, gee. What have I said? What have I talked about? But, uh, look, it's a good raw account of of your, uh, your career. Did you find it cathartic, um, putting it all, all, all down?

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  Then you can look back and go, well, hey, this is my career. So no, nothing hidden there. This is what I'm about. So.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Couldn't be any more open.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  And that's what I wanted. It wasn't all about being the hero or, you know, all the good things. I wanted to put that last bit in and give it that balance to, to say, you know, it's all well and good, but, you know, the realistic side is that it does, it could come at a cost.

• 1:02:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I I think you've got to acknowledge you joined the police, it's gonna, uh, gonna change you.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  Well, look, we might, uh, we might wrap it up here. I I just want to, uh, thank you for your, your service, uh, to the community.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:06Speaker 00

  Broader community, society, because you've certainly covered some areas. Appreciate you coming on here and your honesty. And I enjoyed your book, Crime, Chaos and Controversy, but thanks very much.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Thanks very much, Gary. Appreciate it.