The first cop on scene of the Bali Bombings: Glen McEwen Pt. 1

On October 12, 2002, then Australian Federal Police Acting Superintendent Glen McEwen was just 400 metres from Paddy's Bar by chance when the Bali Bombings happened. He ran toward the blast and became the first Aussie cop on scene. In Part 1 of this interview, Gary sits down with Glen to hear what it was like inside those first chaotic hours, helping the injured, making the first call back to Australia to report mass Australian casualties, forming 'Team Australia' at the Consulate, and returning at first light to help secure the crime scene for the investigation that followed. Glen also shares how his posting to Indonesia led him there, from infiltrating people-smuggling networks to his earlier work on the massive 397kg Port Macquarie seizure in 1998. Find out more about Glen’s book Crime, Chaos and Controversy here: https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/crime-chaos-and-controversy https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/crime-chaos-and-controversy/?srsltid=AU7gw4UPf9mchBPHB8Zj6R45jMesFpE7BHVDcbWdIKWqi7msAOyN4BD6 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

  Glenn McEwan was the first Aussie cop on the ground after the Bali bombings. And what he saw still haunts him. Today, Glenn joins me to discuss his 35-year career with the Australian Federal Police, where he battled terrorism, smashed international drug syndicates and took on people smugglers. I was fascinated by his career fighting crime at the highest levels. And I think you will be too.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Glenn McEwan, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  It's good to have you on. I always enjoy sitting down and talking to a cop.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Likewise.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Now, I know there was a bit of rivalry between state police and, as we were discussing the other day, and I pointed out that, yeah, and this is going back decades, in fairness, that we referred to the AFP as the plastic police with the plastic badges. And you came back at me quick smart. And what did you say?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  We're plastic, you're perspex. You know, we both do the same job, but you're only thicker.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  I like that. Unfair and untrue, but yeah, I did like that comeback. And a bit of friendly rivalry is always good. Although of recent times, and you've been out since 22.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  I hear, and it drops in the media a bit round Sydney, the rivalry between the AFP and New South Wales Police not sharing information. And given the areas that you've worked at, you understand the importance of, yeah, the exchange of information, but the complexities of it.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. And I've got to say, I'm baffled by that, Gary. You know, like the joint arrangements, particularly counter-terrorism and organised crime, been around for 20 years. Like, I understood that when we were, you know, I believe you joined in 85, I joined in 87.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  And the AFP back then was quite young, which I understood about that. You know, why there was that rivalry and, you know, when we were working, probably crossing over, you know, when we were newer. But I don't understand why that rivalry is there. And if there is that void of information sharing, particularly in a joint environment, I just don't get that. And they need to get that shit together.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  I agree 100%. That's where mistakes are made if they're not the free exchange of information. And as you said, with the joint counter-terrorism group, there's already the memorandums of understanding and the processes. So what made you join the cops and why do you go towards AFP rather than the state police?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, it was always a dream of mine to join the cops, ever since I was like five-year-old.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  I was watching all those TV shows, even though they're state-based, Victoria-based, actually. Division 4, Matlock Police, homicide.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Homicides, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  You remember those?

• 3:29Speaker 00

  I have vague memories of there was one show where they all get out of the car and close their doors and put their hats on. I'm not sure if that was homicide or Division 4 or homicide, but yeah, okay.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do remember those. So, yeah, playing cops and robbers, you know, the good guys always got the villains.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  You know, that was always, you know, something that really caught my attention and something I always wanted to do.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Being a precocious child, I've been reminded that I told my grandmother that I wanted to lock her up or book her for driving down George Street here too slowly.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  So it was always going to be a dream of mine. School and I never got along, so I did the long pathway.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Did a trade.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  So I was an apprentice electrical finer mechanic down here at Cockatoo Island Dockyard. And yeah, so 1986 was the police application pathway.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  So I went in for both jobs.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  AFP and New South Wales. The reason the AFP came on my radar is my uncle was in the old ACT Police before the amalgamation. And I was always fascinated by organised crime. I grew up in the rough and tumble of Leftbridge Park, Mount Drew, and then moved into Kellyville. But the fascination of crime always got me.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  And I really wanted to get into the organised crime a bit early. And it seemed that AFP being a smaller organisation and reading some of the books, they were focused on that. So I hedged my bets and AFP offered me the job first up, so I took it. And in February of 1987, there I was, bang into Canberra, into recruit training class 1021, and off I went.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  And away you go. And you, so, and yeah, having that experience and, you know, you were sparky, so was I. That, it helps you with your communication skills, like doing the trade and all that. I think there's a benefit to getting those life experiences before you join the cops.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  You did right.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  You know, just talking with people. But also for us, was that forensic thinking?

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And problem solving.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  With the electrician.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Being an electrician, you know, pathlessly persistent, trying to find out where the current goes, et cetera, et cetera, you know. So, yeah, no, you did right. And I didn't really appreciate that until when you join the cops and you start breaking down law and bringing that together, that actually, you know, overlaying your trade background really assisted.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  So growing up in that area, that, you think that helped you with policing as well?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  You know, being able to see all walks of life.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  And being able to see the good and bad and the ugly. And get a real sense of what is good and bad.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  And that's why we moved, because I started to be influenced by some probably not, you know, well-adjusted thinking.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  And, you know, mum and dad really picked up on that and at great expense uplifted the family. And that's when we moved into the Hills District, just to sort of move me away from that.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  Break away.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then they threw me into Oak Hill College, I'm not even Catholic, to attempt to recalibrate my moral compass.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Okay. Well, I think it worked, like reading your book, I think you found your way, even if it was a rocky start. There's so much that you did in law enforcement. I'm going to jump from certain things, but during the conversation, where certain investigation, but during the conversation, we'll get an overview and the thought on the way you think policing should be approached. But I'm going to take you to a date and time, the 12th of October, 2002. I know you'll remember that. That was the day of the Bali bombings. I remember the day when the news first broke, the terrorist bombings in Bali. I think I was driving to the academy to do a lecture on the homicide course.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  And when we heard that and the amount of Australians that were killed in this terrorist attack, what was your role at the time? Where were you based and what were you doing when those bombs went off?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  I was based at the embassy.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  I'd just been sort of promoted from the junior liaison officer to the senior liaison officer. And me and my work partner, Mick Kelsey, we were there for operational reasons. I flew into Bali that afternoon.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  And we had two other AFP officers arriving that afternoon as well to help us out on this particular operation priority. And Mick was there to, on a drug job. We were actually putting a tracking device on a drug.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  So you were based and working in Indonesia.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  In Indonesia, that's correct, yeah, in Jakarta.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  So we flew into Bali.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  And normally, and my suggestion on that particular evening was to go to Paddy's Bar.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Which we would normally do, Saturday night, go and have our chat about what we were going to do that Monday and have a few beers, a feed and wrap it up for the evening. So the two guys who arrived, thankfully now, but at the time I thought they were a bit lazy.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  They were tired from their trip from Oz to Takuta. And they didn't want to walk the 400 metres down the road. They wanted to stay close to their hotel. And so we stayed at a bar 400 metres away.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  So that's where we stayed. We had our beers and our feed and we debriefed and planned for what we were going to do the following Monday. And then... Yeah, uh, the bang.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  You, you heard, heard the bang?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  We heard the bang.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Um, obviously, we didn't know what it was, but the lights went out. Everything just went.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  You know, went quiet and dark. So we obviously, you know, paid for our, for our meals. Um, and then we extracted ourselves out of the bar. The two guys who were with us, they said good night.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  And they didn't understand or care for the, of the seriousness of the situation. Mick and I sensed something was up. But we could see in the distance, the silhouette of fire.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  So, but we could see where we could, the only vision we had was towards the beach and that was towards our hotel. So we sprinted down towards the beach, which was technically away from Jalan Legian. But when we got to our hotel, it wasn't our hotel, but then we could see the massive inferno that was Jalan Legian. So we then sprinted along the beach and then up Jalan Poppies Lane Dua.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Which by chance came out right at ground zero, right outside Patty's bar. And that's where, so as we were running into the inferno, people were coming out. There was no light except from the inferno and.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  What were you thinking at the time?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Well, we didn't know.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  You had no process?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  No, not at that point, other than it was a bloody big fire.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Um, but people were coming towards us, but we could see.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Appeared to be covered in blood.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  But the light wasn't good enough to actually process that. And we weren't stopping and asking. We just had this.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Trying to get the.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, we just had this instinct of finding out firsthand what was, what was going on. So we entered into ground zero as it was really, because we were right in the middle of it. And that was mayhem, as you could appreciate. There was just flames everywhere.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Uh, there was people with skin, um, off them. There was a massive amount of injuries around us. There was dead in front of us. I had made a quick assessment of what I could make out. I then made a call, the first to make a call into Australia, to the AFP, who's my assistant commissioner, and give him a thumbnail sketch of what.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  I could see, smell, feel. And that was basically, there's been explosion or explosions. I didn't want to overplay my hand because nine eleven was only just. Twelve months prior.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I said potentially gas, but what I can say for certain, there'll be mass casualties. Particularly Australians, because the location.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Being the nightclub hub.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  In Bali.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  You were over there working.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Did you have a specific role at that stage? What's, what's the processes to get involved? Like, obviously, you, you, you went to where the danger was. But did you shift into work mode?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yes, straight away.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  That, okay. So what, what sort of skills could you, you bring to the situation or what were you looking to, how were you looking to help?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  So initially, we were helping the injured.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Putting them on, uh, so we're in that first responder, emergency response.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  But as we, the way the situation unfolded, the way Jalan Legian is set up, it's one-way streets. And so the emergency vehicles had great difficulty getting in.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  So that was our initial response. But as we worked our way through Jalan Legian.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Past the crater, we could see the crater.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  And then there was a massive line of, uh, vehicles, which always still baffles me today, that as we worked our way along Jalan Legian. Where there were skeletons with the skin ripped from them.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  But the skeletons remained with smoke rising from their skulls.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  And as we continued, people were coming to us, asking for our phones. Um, there was one particular lady. Uh, who was searching for her eighteen-year-old daughter and her husband, who had gone to the Sari Club.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  To celebrate her eighteenth birthday.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  That point, it was like, there's only so much we can do on the ground.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  There was something of a greater good that we could do as Australian officials.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  That's when I rang the Australian Consul General. And this, at this point in time, the fireys, ambos and police in an uncoordinated response were coming into the scene. So that's when I made the call and the consul general was a couple of hundred metres in front of me.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  So we're on the ground there just over an hour, I think.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  At that point. So we came together and that's when we made the collective decision to regroup at the consul, at the consulate.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And then we would call in the help. We knew that Australian Defence Force personnel were playing a rugby tournament over that weekend. And also the deputy ambassador was, uh, also at that tournament. So we basically brought together Team Australia to put together the Australia, the immediate Australian response.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  So we had the, the Australian Defence Force go to Sangla Hospital, which is where we knew the injured were being taken. To search for the Australians and find out what their injuries were.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  The deputy ambassador was doing the government relations and the media.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Mick and I, at the beginning, were manning the phones and drawing up the missing persons list and taking on.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  The consulate duties. At first light, Mick and I then excused ourselves to, to commence the police response. We went back to ground zero.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  To see what needed to be done.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Oh, as in crime scene preservation, that, that type of, type of thing?

• 14:48Speaker 01

  That's when, uh, we engaged the Indonesian National Police.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  I was obviously in touch with, uh, Australia, with the commissioner, Mick Kilty.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Uh, and the first job, the first priority for me was to secure the crime scenes.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Now, when we arrived at ground zero, there was just rudimentary police tape around the crater.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  It wasn't covered for any sort of preservation. And the rest of the area. We was being contaminated by friends and family, loved ones, still picking up red hot. Uh, corrugated iron.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Uh, looking for.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Looking for their loved ones.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Looking for their loved ones, still drinking beer.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Um, so that's when it was absolutely evident for us to have any chance. Of having a platform to build upon.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  For the criminal investigation, we had to have that.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Caught, caught in off the area and.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  So we met with, um, the, what they call the carpolder, which is the chief of the provincial police, i.e. the, the Bali. Who was also a one-star, oh, he was, sorry, also wasn't a one-star then. Um, he was a one-star, um, Brigadier General, Woody Setiawan. And I sat down with him and his commanders and had a full and frank discussion about where to from now.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  We agreed that a joint investigation would occur and we identified his capability gaps. But most importantly, we had a very enthusiastic conversation about the preservation of the crime scene.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  To the point where cultural sensitivities went out the door, which I prided myself on through my time in Indonesia. But I had to be very forthright.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  How, how long had you been in Indonesia, working in Indonesia at that stage?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Just short of two years.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  Right, okay. So you, uh, you, you had the communication, you had that bit of an understanding of the culture and the way things are done. And you would have had contacts and, and people you could, uh, speak to. So that, that would have been a great assistance.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it was.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  And I knew the greatest thing for my counterpart was to keep face.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  You know, he had to keep his pride.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  That, that, that's interesting. And it, it, it comes out in your, your book about the, uh, the diplomacy that's required. In negotiating in these situations, because, yeah, I, I, let's shrink it down a little bit. If you go to the local detective's office and you come in as a major crime, you don't come in and talk over the top of them and you give them respect. You've got Indonesian police that do things their way. You, you're coming from an Australian policing point of view. You can't come in there and go. No, that's not the way you do it. You should be doing it this way. You've, you've got to have that diplomacy, haven't you?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  And you're a guest in their country.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  So absolutely.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Um, but I had to put the greater good for the integrity of the investigation first.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  And Australia first.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  And I lost skin there, but we got that preserved.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Okay, so you, you pushed the envelope a little bit and got, got what you wanted, but probably.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  But I knew I was gonna, there'd be a consequence.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. The fact that there was what, eighty, two hundred people or over two?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Two hundred and two, killed eighty-eight Australians.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Okay, so we, we've got a lot of, uh, investment in the investigation, haven't we?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  What caused, caused that?

• 18:05Speaker 01

  And of course, we didn't know the numbers at that point.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  But it was, it was very solid that we were gonna have quite the, the death toll there, yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Moving aside from the policing point of view, from a human side of things, like you would have seen some horrific things there. It would have been overwhelming, the smell, the sights, the noise, the screaming, everything. How did you deal with that personally? Because that's, you know, we can say, okay, we're police, we're used to that, but that's on a scale that not many people ever get to experience.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  No, and two thousand and two was a difficult year anyway for me personally. You know, I had my father pass and I missed that by three days, uh, three hours. Uh, because I was overseas, had to travel back.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Um, I lived in denial, um, and I returned to Indonesia far quicker than I should have. Leaving my, um, young family behind. And then a couple of weeks after that, I got skiddled by a two ton pantec truck in Jakarta on the way to, um, provide assistance to an informant who was having a heart attack and left me with three fractured vertebrae.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Saw a picture of the car.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Lucky you're even sitting here talking.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  That's right. You know, I had to learn to walk again. So it was a year of trials and tribulations and Bali, on top of a marriage breakup. Just, you know, put the icing on the cake. So, yeah, it was a very difficult year.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  I, I, I've seen it in a lot of police and other, other occupations where it lends itself to this type of thing. Sometimes you can run away from your problems and just throw yourself headfirst into what's in front of you. And in policing, it's, it's very easy. So, yeah, I could imagine the, the state of mind you're in. And then you just switch on and you, you don't even have time to, uh, process the horrors that you've seen at, at that point in time.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, but in saying that though, Gary, I, it become a bit too much for me. Um, and there was some internal politics occurring as well. And in, um, late December of two thousand and two, I resigned my commission in Indonesia and come back home.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Overseas deployments in the AFP, are they, uh, favoured spots? Are they, they the type of spots that people go, go for?

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting. I would have thought so.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would have thought so.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  You know, to me, that's the pinnacle. And back then it was definitely because the international network, as it was known back then, was, was quite small.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Now it's extremely large. There's two hundred odd plus people in thirty four different locations in the diplomatic side. Then they've got the, the peacekeeping and the, you know, the capacity building side. So there's two aspects to the global operations now. But even talking, and I don't, um, have many contacts within the organisation these days, but I did hear recently that they're having difficulty filling people to go overseas because when you're sort of older and more experienced, you've got kids you don't want to leave home. And you've got all those challenges.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Um, it's a commitment, isn't it?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  It is a commitment because now they're three and four year commitments. Uh, so, yeah, that's.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  So you get deployed like when you were sent to, um, Indonesia, so Dempesah. Uh, what sort of powers do you have and, and what sort of training do you get before you go over there? Or do you literally just get dropped in there and here's a key, you find, find your way?

• 21:20Speaker 01

  The ladder.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have no powers.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  You're a guest in the country.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Uh, it's really, you're learning, you know, diplomatic manoeuvring, you know, one O one.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  As you go, you know, you get a bit of a sense of what it's all about, but we're not getting the training, language. Like ADF and DFAT, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, or the Australian Defence Force, or even Department of Immigration.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Uh, because we don't have, or they, the organisation doesn't have the, you know, the, the luxury of uplifting officers off the front line.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  And putting them through twelve months of preparation.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Before you get, um, you know, placed. Like I only had eleven weeks notice and we had the Sydney Olympics in between.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Before I left to go to Indonesia. So our preparation is very short. Um, you know, at that point in time, yeah, so that it was difficult.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  Do you get to, uh, like closely embed with the embassy over there? Is that, do you have people that you can rely on or are you on, on your own? In, in the dealings that I've had with people from the AFP when they're, they're based overseas, they seem very isolated.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Oh, no, we're in, we're in the embassy.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Um, but there's different thinking about police being in the embassy construct.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Uh, we're not a traditional partner. And even though I was there close to twenty five years ago.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  There are still the diehard diplomats, the traditional diplomats who see us as a still a bolt on and and not really as part of it. And we are very fortunate within the policing world that we are still, we are the partner of choice. Because our ideals are very much aligned, be it you work with the Chinese police or the Iraqi police or wherever.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  You, your ideals are the same. It's the protection of the community.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Whereas in other embassy cohorts, military, you know, politics.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Immigration, you actually have different policy views.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  And, and probably objectives too.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Policing are aligned and that's probably an envy of others.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. With, um, the Bali bombings, how much of the investigation were you involved in? And, and like Australia played a part in the investigation. I know we had crime scene officers go over there and, and different things.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  We had it all. Um, so within twenty four hours, we had a hundred Australian police fly in.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  And that covered investigators, uh, disaster victim identification, DVI, forensics.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Uh, intel analysts, um, technical. Then we stood up the family liaison officer network.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Because they needed that conduit between families.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Uh, so that really had the whole truckload of, you know, tools available. I was asked, once we bettered down the identifying, or we laid the, the groundwork, Mick and I laying, laying the groundwork for the investigation. They brought in, uh, an assistant commissioner as the police forward commander, Graham Ashton, and a deputy at the commander level. At this point, I was only an acting superintendent.

• 24:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Uh, and then they brought a superintendent over as well. They brought a plethora of, um, rank over. Uh, and then as I was a senior liaison officer, the commissioner then directed me to return to Jakarta to develop the actual framework and the document.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  And the investigation agreement of such.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  With the IMP, the Indonesian National Police that stood for many years. So even though I was quite miffed about it, my strategic maturity wasn't where it should have been.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Um, because, oh, you know, it was our investigation.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  I want to be, yeah, kicking doors in, but that, that, that role is very important, what you did. It certainly, certainly needs to be done. Um, other work that you did in, uh, Indonesia, was that Indonesia with the people smuggling, was that during the same deployment?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, same deployment, but that was, uh, two thousand into two thousand and one.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Tell, tell us about that because the complexity is there and, and some of the things that you're getting up to and going out and targeting, uh, targeting people. And I like the way in the people smuggling, um, that you were trying to prevent it before they get into the boats too. And, and sometimes that's, sometimes we, we want the stats that, well, how many boats did we turn around? But the ideal situation is prevention rather than, yeah, stopping them when they're actually in the boat. So tell, tell us about your role there and the type of work that you did, because I found that fascinating.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I was the second person identified. So that if people remember back in ninety nine into two thousand, there were thousands of people. And numerous boats arriving.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Huge.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Into Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Uh, all from Indonesia. So people were travelling from the Middle East and South Asia, uh, across into Indonesia and then jumping onto boats. So government provided money across whole of government to, as part of the stop the boats. Even though it probably wasn't known as stop the boats back then, it morphed into that. But essentially that's what it was. And it was identified, the AFP was going to be provided with a second liaison officer into the embassy in Jakarta, of which I was, uh, identified as that person. Now, when I was notified of that, I almost drove off the Harbour Bridge because I heard quietly that I was going to Thailand, not Jakarta. Now, bearing in mind, at this time, we had already gone into East Timor.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  So we had ADF and AFP in East Timor confronting the Indonesians. And here I am going into, uh, Indonesia to quietly combat people smuggling.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Um, and we did have, again, we did have a relationship with the IMP, but we weren't in a combat situation with the IMP. That was with TNI. So it was a, a fluid environment.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Uh, so my role was to identify a way of basically stopping the boats. So after, again.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Making an assessment, looking at how we could do it, I identified that the most effective way would be trying to infiltrate the criminal groups because our, our mandate was about looking at the criminal aspect was the organizers.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  So that's what we were focused on. Yes, we, what I wanna do is if I couldn't stop the boats, at least have the knowledge of when the boats were leaving.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  When the boats going.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  So we could have a welcoming party at the other end because God forbid, we did not want any mainland arrivals.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was very political at the time, wasn't it?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  It remains so as well. Still a government number one priority as far as I'm aware.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  It was, yeah, virtually government's power was hinging on the, on how many boats were coming in and, and different things. So, yeah, I could imagine the pressure from above. And so you were there.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  How, how many were you working with at the time?

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Uh, well, there was me and, uh, there was another official that I was working closely with.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  So it was really he and I, um, and we had a, we had regional, uh, Indonesian National Police.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Squad, but they were intel, but they were very good. They helped us out. Uh, but essentially it was really me just coming up with how we were gonna strategize. It was really a poisoned chalice.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  I'm just laughing. I was gonna say you're a pretty easy fall guy.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  But, uh, but potentially if it, if it stuffs up. So, okay, you're in Indonesia, the boats are coming. What's your, what's your, your method that you've come up with on how to try to, uh?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  So we were lucky, we had a couple, couple of Australians.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Who seemed to, or they were, they were nautical experts.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  And they had a bit of an in with, they, they operated off in the fringes in the, so Indonesia's seventeen thousand island archipelago. So they were operating in the far regions. And they had some good contacts.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Who were relied upon by the smugglers or the organizers to organize boats.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  So they become informants.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  My main person was an ex-passenger.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  And he made an approach, or we approached him each way, actually. It was an each way bet. We came together.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  With the same idea. And he became our main infiltrator. And in the end, they all became crown witnesses.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  So over time, we were slowly building cases, uh, on, on the organizers, using these particular informants.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  And slowly gathering evidence, as you know, with informants.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Doc, documenting.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Documenting.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  I was just gonna.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Dotting i's, crossing t's.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Say the same accountability with a human source or informants, uh, as we used to call them, um, over there as there is here.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, because the, the idea was the prosecutions were happening here.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Cause I'm operating in an environment, there's no people smuggling legislation in.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  Okay. So you're, you're keeping the records that you know you can present in a court of law.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  And a lot of it.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  The Indonesian National Police hierarchy, well, I don't know where I was doing.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  So I'm on my own.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Doing this.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  So we're off, yeah, doing all this.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Well, that, that's the sense that I got, that you're off doing surveillance and, uh, driving to remote locations. And, yeah, it's, uh, looking for, uh, boats, sort of the type of boats that the smugglers might, uh, might use and all sorts of different weird and wonderful ways of, uh, gathering the information.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Pretty rudimentary, but yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  It wasn't Jason Bourne type, that was for sure.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  No, but it was down, down the basics. It was doing, doing the legwork and the physical surveillance and observations and, uh, human sources.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep. Meeting them, you know, making sure they dry clean themselves and meeting in, you know, interesting locations and because it's, as you'd appreciate, particularly with my main guy who had co-named Camel.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  He was Iraqi.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  So in Indonesia, an Iraqi meeting what they call in Indonesia a bully.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  An Australian or a white guy is unusual. So you gotta, you gotta, you know, cover your tracks with that.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  Pick your locations. Yeah, yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it was exciting and enthralling. Like, my first visit, um, to Kupang, which is West Timor.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  So remembering we're having that, you know, combative activity.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  In East Timor.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  Things were a bit tense.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  I fly into West Timor.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  And, um, Enrico Gutierrez, who was one of the, the main militia guys.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  For, in the, in the activity, I call it activity, I don't call it a war, but the activity, um, in East Timor, he's in West Timor going around shooting up the place. He would have loved to have found two Australian officials.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  You know, and here I am there to meet Cassawery, the one of our informants. Um, yeah, that was interesting times. That, that was a lovely thirty-fifth birthday.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Oh, thirty-fifth too. Okay, a lot, a lot going on. How did it all work out for you? You, you get some good results from it?

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Over time, yeah, we did. Um, you know, we, I was more proud of the fact that I was able to, uh, identify when boats were going. I wasn't that successful in stopping.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  But at least I was able to let them know when boats were going.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  My, my zoo, as I called it, because every informant was named after an animal.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Um, and they all had a story.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  You know, Camel from Iraq, Cassawery, cause he, he warped, he warped on a bit. Um, you know, Taipan because his bite would.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Be deadly. Um, yeah, so the zoo really helped.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Uh, in the end, we were able to lock up six organizers. I think it was six.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Uh, and these, these guys turned crown witnesses. And without them, we wouldn't have, you know, been able to stop it.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  And, and did you get prosecutions on, on the, on the back of it?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. One of the guys, what we did with Whale.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Um, he, we, we created this scenario where the main, the guy who had the most arrivals, a guy called Case Asfor, he had seventeen hundred passengers. We built the brief around.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  And we created this scenario where he believed Whale was going to be his fos- foster father.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And he, we got him a false passport.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Visas. And he actually voluntarily left Bali, flew to Perth with Whale.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  And we snapped him.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Oh, right. Okay. That, that's how you got him.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  That's innovative.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  But you, you've gotta think outside the square there. Like, traditional, uh, policing methods aren't gonna cut it. And, and you gotta try to out, outsmart them.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  And under, you know, that we didn't have, we have an extradition treaty with Indonesia, but there's no, there's no similar offenses. So there's no reciprocity. So we could never extradite.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  Get, get them.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  So we have to look at outside the square. And others, we had them snapped in, in Thailand.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  For the, you know, similar reasons.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  With it, the danger of it. And when I'm talking danger, I'm not talking from the, the policing point of view, your point of view, but all these people that were getting in these rickety boats and making these ocean, yeah, crossings. And, uh, I, I know lives were lost and I, I don't think we fully appreciate how many lives would have been lost.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  No, there's been a number that have been not reported.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Because the, the intel wasn't strong enough, but the, the main one was CivX.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Only October in two thousand and one, CivX, where we lost three hundred and fifty three lives.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Um, and what weighs heavily on me is I got the intel on that.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Um, and it was a four, it was a smuggler who I had met.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Who rang me about it.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Because he decided to feel guilty.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  About it. Because he knew he overloaded the bloody thing. You know, they had four hundred plus people on that boat. And we're not talking the love boat. We're not talking a cruise liner. We're talking a rickety boat. And there is a memorial down in Canberra where it actually, it actually measures out the size of the boat. And when you, when you look at it.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Four hundred people on it.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  And four hundred people on it. You know, what, what do they think was gonna happen?

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Um, and I was there when, um, when they, when the survivors came back.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  You know, and you're looking at all, you know, all these weather beaten people and orphaned children and stuff. It was just horrific, you know, when they, when they came back and.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  And that stuck with me.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Uh, because, you know.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  One, you know, one, I got the information.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  And then I was like, well, what the hell do I do with it? We don't know where they are. It's not like they had a beacon on the bloody thing.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Um, so, you know, I fed it into the, the greater machine and camera.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  And they didn't know where to start. You know, it's a big sea out there.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Big ocean.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Huge, um, and fishermen found the survivors some two days later and that's how they got back.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  But, um, and that's just one that we know of, um. Because there were so many leaving at the time, you know, you just didn't know how many were out there at any given point.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  What's the sort of things you don't expect to be doing over in deployments like that? Do you, if, if an Australian citizen gets locked up, are you, uh, you involved in that?

• 37:13Speaker 01

  No, that's a consular duty.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that's very clear delineation.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Um, with foreign affairs. We don't get, uh, involved with that at all.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Um, so, you know, we, we, we're involved with, uh, working with our counterparts in country.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  So if they get, unless they ask for it.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Uh, and they've got something that they want to talk about, then we'll get invited in. But if it's just a normal bang, particularly if there's, um.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  A death penalty issue.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Well, that's a contentious, uh, thing, isn't it, in, in policing that, uh, Australian police, I know I've been involved in stuff where. You're looking at applications for extraditions or whatever, and if there's a, the thought that the death penalty might, uh, might occur, it's a big no-no.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've definitely, uh, we, we do have very strong protocols.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Very strong guideline, they're not even guideline, they call them guidelines.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Uh, but there's no way to ring left or right of the arc in relation to it, yeah, so. But it doesn't mean we can't work with them.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  From a, from an investigation point of view, um, separate to a person who is finding themselves. Arrested for a, an offence that attracts the death penalty, but working overseas with an agency, say for China.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Say for instance, China and Task Force Blaze, which was our, the only formal drug. Agency to agency agreement that was in, in existence.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  In China, that's separate to MOUs, I'm just saying, straight up drug.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Uh, we were the only ones, Australia, in the, of the world in China.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Thirty-five different agencies that operate in Beijing, right? But the only way we could do it, and we successfully did it, was working within this framework. So every piece of information that I was providing to China.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  I could not provide them with information that.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Allowed them to, I couldn't give them a whole case without them doing any investigation. They had to contribute, they had to investigate.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  So I couldn't give them the whole box and.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  Okay, so that's taking the full onus or responsibility away from you that China's got to.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  They've got to contribute to it.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  You know. Operation Lynette.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  Port Macquarie, right off Port Macquarie.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  I remember, I wasn't involved in it, I remember hearing about it in, in the media when it went down, I thought, shit. I'd like to have been involved in that one, it sounds like a cracker of a case, how did you get involved in it and what was the story of it?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  So that was before Jakarta, so that, in nineteen ninety-eight, I'd just finished, uh, with the International Crime Authority.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  I spent two years there and nineteen ninety-eight, there was new money thrown at the AFP under the National Illicit Drug Strategy.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  So there was a heroin epidemic, which you well remember.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Well remember, yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yep. And I, I was assigned as the surveillance team leader of Avian Strike Team Two.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  So there was.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Sounds impressive.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Two strike teams and that, actually, that was the formation of the Joint Asian Crime Group.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Which was Avian Strike Team Three, um, so I was part of Avian Strike Team, uh, Two. Uh, which was, uh, also. The, the future Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin was part of that one.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Um, he was doing financials and I was doing physical surveillance. So we had, a report come in, in August of ninety-eight.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Of, there was four Hong, uh, Hong Kong nationals who'd arrived in Sydney. Uh, and they were looking at, they were a shore party for heroin importation, that's all we knew.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Uh, we had grainy, black and white photos and the intel was, I think they're, they're in Port Macquarie at the moment.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Off you go. So my team went to, uh, Port Macquarie.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  So we're thinking, how are we gonna find them?

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Okay, we knew they had a Tarago, a Toyota Tarago van.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Um, we, we didn't have a registration at that point. Okay, so, oh, sorry, we did have a registration. So, okay, how are we gonna find Chinese nationals in Port Macquarie?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  We'll look at Chinese restaurants.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  Good start.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  We'll go to the R S L club, into the Pokys and.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  The racing, the T O Bs. So we spent a couple of days up there and we couldn't find them. So then we got a call that the Tarago van was due back. They found it, it was gonna be at Avis Hurstville, the car rental place in Hurstville. So we raced back and we identified them extending the car and we, that's where we latched on to them.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  And over a period of, I think, seven, eight weeks, we watched them prepare.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  The, the, uh, close physical surveillance and, uh, yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  And that's how we.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  What, what did you, cause that's, it, it sounds easy and you, you, you know, see it on TV or you read about and you think, oh, that, that's, it's feasible. But it's hard keeping surveillance on people when you don't know what they're up to, um, and getting a pattern of their movements, that type of thing.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, three-dimensional chess.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely, uh, so these guys were, yeah, they were preparing, the, these guys weren't.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  They didn't switch on until later because they, they were just going from their place at Croydon Park. To an aquatic centre at Hurstville.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Uh, but we knew they were, they were training.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Uh, it's only later and they, they swapped out the, the female, there was three males and one female. Uh, the female left and then another male came and that's when they switched on and that's when they started going and, and buying. Uh, like torches from Bunnings and camping gear and a whole lot of other things.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And we still didn't get much of a read from Hong Kong as what was going on. We weren't told what was happening in Hong Kong, we on the road were only assuming they must have had a gig in Hong Kong.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Uh, feeding, feeding us information. So we just kept working these guys and.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Before the lady left, they did an all-nighter run from Sydney and we went north.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Uh, and we were heading north up the, the M one, well now it was the F three back then, and then we kept going north, past Newcastle. Past Hare, they made a, a, a right turn at Kew.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  And then into Lorrington and then a left on Ocean Drive, heading up towards Port Macquarie along the coastline. And it's ten o'clock at night.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  So we're keeping our distance as you, as you.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  And it's a hard follow, I've, I've done follows up, up the highway just as you've described and, uh, it's, it. The way you describe it, oh yeah, no, that's, but it's hard at night, especially if they start the kicking, the counter surveillance and, uh, different things.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And then they did a right turn onto Grant's Beach.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  And we didn't know that.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  And, and, and then following them down there at ten o'clock at night and, and trying to get obs on them, on, uh, what, what they're up to.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Get an idea of what they're doing. And then they came screaming back out.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Uh, and then went back to Sydney and they swapping drivers and our team were, our eyes were bleeding.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Uh, anyway, we got back and, um, over time, as I said, the, the lady left and the more senior guy turned up.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  And when they were, you said, training, physically training for what they're about to do?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were swimming in the gym, uh, swimming at the aquatic centre, doing the gym work.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Over that seven, eight week period.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Uh, and then bang, so. We knew there was something at the beach, they went back to, they, they moved up. To South Port Macquarie in Tackle Point.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Uh, and that's where they stayed in a hotel, in a motel there.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  And started going back to Grant's Beach.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  So then we all came together to wonder what was going on. Uh, they brought in, uh, New South Wales Marine Unit, plus we had S P G.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Brought in Customs, Coast Watch in the air because we knew there obviously was gonna be a, a marine landing.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  But we didn't have any other details.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  So we, my team was watching the, the shore party do what they were doing now, they were being a little bit more relaxed.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  And there was a bit of activity, we put another surveillance team into the sands.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Because they could switch on at any moment, they started doing the Chinese restaurant tours down in Lorrington and doing their feeds and. Increasing phone calls, we were putting our operatives closer with backpacks with, um, recorders in and trying to pick up the other side of the phone calls.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Et cetera, et cetera. They were getting instructions because we're only getting one side of the, so we're piecing it together. But then they identified a, a fishing trawler lurking outside the main shipping lanes. Off the coast of New South Wales.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  A bit further north of Port Macquarie.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  And over time, they kept eyes on that over the horizon. And then one night, when they were in Lorrington.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  They decided to land on the beach and they went and put these poles with torches on.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Put the lights on as a beacon to, to bring them.

• 46:57Speaker 00

  Bring.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  From Overwatch, there was a crane, I know there's a better name for it, but basically a crane lifted this uh speedboat out of the hull.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Dropped it into the, into the uh water, off she went.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  Well, they've been exciting times for you guys. Yeah.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  So they're, okay, so we're all there and I'm, we're all thinking, oh, that's our job done because, you know, the shore party's gonna get locked up when the, when the uh the boat arrives and my, the other team is, you know, gonna grab him and.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  SPG of uh waiting in case it was a vehicle in it. Well, we're still, we're gonna let it run, so we're still in the game. But we're thinking, okay, we'll just see what happens because as you know, just uh with organised crime, there's a disorganised crime aspect. So you're always just waiting to see if something happens.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  And you're playing for every, everything and then they do something completely, yeah.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  All of a sudden.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  The boat's still screaming towards shore and all of a sudden the shore party up and leaves in two toragos now.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  And they're done a split, north and south. So I've had to split my team. I've called SPG. It's all gone to shit.

• 48:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  We've still got an unidentified speedboat with an unidentified payload.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  The, the crew in the sand have decided to go and switch the lights back on because they took the lights off.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  So something spooked them. We don't know what.

• 48:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  So they're now playing shore party, the surveillance crew.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  That was good thinking.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  It was very good. Yeah, that, that's, that's uh had off to Flash, Pat, Pat, Patrick Gordon.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Did he get his name Flash after putting the lights on?

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Nah, that's just by coincidence, but that's a good pickup.

• 48:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, but uh okay, but that was, that was a uh real good call and they're those split second decisions that you, you make sometimes.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  That's experience. You can't pay for that.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can't buy that, can you?

• 48:57Speaker 00

  So they've, they've, they've been spooked by something. They've turned the lights off.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  And we've got thermal imaging all over the beach. This is where the video is fantastic.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Well, that's a shame I don't have it.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Um, so the boat's coming in, we're running, you know, all over the shop, but we're just telling the team, calm down, they'll come across our bows, you know, they're just gonna be going back to Sydney. We'll pick them up, we'll pick them up, don't worry. SPG's running, playing catch up with us. Old mate, two, uh, two guys turn up in the boat.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  With what ended up being three hundred and ninety seven kilos of heroin.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  Big haul, yeah.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  So they knew what the, the payload was and there was something spooked them and they were gonna leave it.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Anyway, so they get met by the now pseudo shore, shore party.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  Not the.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  And then when they realise they're not getting met by the same nationality.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  They decided they wanna swim back to the boat. So that's what's funny, watching the infrared where they come up to meet their people.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  And then they're, no, no, no, and they go back into the water.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  So anyway, they, so that gets all secured and we end up.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Follow in the car.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  We end up meeting up and we, we get them and SPG coming at two hundred kilometres an hour.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  And we end up, they end up coming and intercepting in uh Nabiak.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  And uh, and they just do things as you know, like split second.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  They're, they're just uh fantastic to watch how they do their stuff.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they, they just keep getting better and better at it. It's uh, the vehicle stops.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're, you know, in their van, you know, swinging around at two hundred clicks an hour, like, you know, hats off to them.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Nah, they do, do a good job. That's, that's an interesting uh, interesting uh one for you to uh get in, get involved in, but yeah, I remember thinking it sort of had it, had it, had it all and like for a drug investigation and the importation, not knowing and just yeah, as the case builds. That's what I like about it. So like a criminal investigation building up.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  And there's a part, uh, and I, I see in your book and, and you'll, you've learnt this and I certainly learned that in criminal investigation, the patience is, is critical too, isn't it?

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  The, uh, you have investigations and you see it and I was probably the same way, you were probably the same way when you're a young investigator. You want things to happen, happen quickly, happen quickly. But the old detective sergeant or inspector that sits around, just, no, just be patient, it'll happen. And often it plays out that way and you get rewarded.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  It does eventually. Yeah, it does eventually, but as I mentioned, there's always that disorganised crime aspect, the, the Hollywood moment. There's always something.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But that's, and you identified it and you're quite right with your, your mate uh Flash that uh turned those lights on. That's the experience, that's the experience that years and years in the field, seeing that, don't overreact, just okay, weigh it all up. They've taken off, this is a beacon. If I put the lights back on, these knuckleheads are gonna keep coming to the beach and that's how, how it played, played out.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  What was uh, where was that originating from? That, that investigation, where were the players or the drug importation from? Was it all the Hong Kong, China?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  It was um, it got picked up off the coast of uh Thailand.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  In the Andaman Sea.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  So this vessel, the MV Uniana.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Was purposely refitted for drug importations.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  So it had that crane.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  It had the, the setting or the um, in the hull for the boat.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  But it also had a sinking valve. So if they'd ever got identified, they'd just sink the boat.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  Right, okay.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  So it had all the, the works and jerks for it.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Who, who, who boarded the, the vessel in that one? Who was involved in, in the boarding the vessel for it?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Whatever the AFP, SPG equivalent was at that point.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there was a bit of a um, a chase, uh.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know why.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Where is he gonna go? But yeah, I think there was a bit of a maritime chase.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, very hard to give up, wouldn't it? Like, you know, you're gonna spend a very long.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  But it was a, a crew of Indonesians.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  Very long time.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Captain Mandagi, I interviewed him afterwards, yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  And they're, the, these ones that get involved in that, like, someone like him, is it just they've come from poverty and this is just?

• 53:14Speaker 01

  They were just fishermen who get paid a bit more.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. With the uh people smuggling, you uh talked about um, yeah, how you're trying to stop that, but you defined in your book the difference between um people smuggling and human trafficking. Just talk us through, through that aspect.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Well, people smuggling, basically they pay for their journey uh to find or go to another place.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  You know, for Australia to find a, a place of betterment.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Uh, where human trafficking, there's a element of deceit. So in my experience, we're, and I've worked both.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  So with human trafficking, um, you'll find that people will find a person who's happy for them to pay for their or facilitate their journey.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  And promise them a new start, say a Thai, a young Thai girl, they'll find someone who place an ad to be a hairdresser in Sydney.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  And they, they do that, they look after their visa, their passport, they pay their money, which is paid by their family. And they come to Australia under the belief that they're going to be a hairdresser.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  And when they come here, they get their passport taken from them and put into sex work.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  That's the trafficking, the deceit component, where it's all fully voluntary with people smuggling. They know that they're paying for their journey and what they're doing and they take the risks.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Of the rickety old boat.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  And they give their passports over to the smuggler, so, so they don't have, so they can purport to be another nationality when they're not the.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  What we were dealing with back in two thousand, two thousand and one is we'd have uh Pakistanis purporting to be Afghani.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. With no paperwork whatsoever.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  No security checks.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Like, we had very strong intel that we had two Saddam Hussein henchmen arrive.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  And they're relocated here.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Well, that, that's, that's, that's the argument for protecting the borders, isn't it, with, on, on who, who's coming in? Um, human trafficking, is that, uh, uh, I get the sense that it exists under our nose a lot more than what we think.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  It's very prevalent.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  Prevalent? And it's such a, it's, it's almost, well, not almost, it's slavery.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  It is slavery.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Um, you look at it, be it labour, sex work, it's, it is slavery because once you deprive them of their liberty.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  It's modern day slavery.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, and you find them out there in um, you know, in orchards.

• 55:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  You know, doing the, the work that Australians won't do.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  And we, we tend to uh turn the blind eye to it too, don't we? Inadvertently, it, it sort of, you think, okay, it's out there, but I'm sure people have got, yeah, uh, wondering what's going on in this arrangement, but no one sort of brings it to the attention of the authorities.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I would uh strongly agree with that.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, we might take a break. Again, to talk about police corruption, Mark Sten.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  That uh, yeah, I, I know we don't uh think very highly of and the operation in, involved there. Um, you're, uh, also oversaw the Thai cave rescue with the uh, was it thirteen uh, uh, team?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Thirteen young people, yeah, twelve kids and assistant coach.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, trapped in the um caves in uh Thailand. I thought I knew the story, but the uh, the complexity of the operation to get them out alive is, is quite extraordinary. Um, we'll also talk about your uh, your, your thoughts on policing. You did thirty five years in the police, so, and also we express, both express concerns of the lack of um interesting people joining the police these days, like the most uh, or a lot of police forces are struggling to recruit and uh we'll get your, your thoughts on that. Maybe we're looking at the wrong people. Um, that uh, that came across in your book and I'd be interested to get your, get your thoughts on that.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  No problem at all.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Let's take a break and we'll be back uh, back shortly.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you.

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Cheers.