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Deported: Crime blitz sees record number of foreign crooks booted

AN unprecedented blitz on foreign-born criminals has ­seen more than 2800 ordered to leave the country.

It involves state and federal police working with intelligence agencies and Department of Immigration and Border Protection officers, with no plans to stop the crackdown.

The co-ordinated effort is being driven by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s determination to rid the ­nation of as many criminals as possible who are not Australian citizens.

Figures reveal the 2847 killers, crooks and creeps ordered out of Australia since December 2014 include:

1115 THUGS convicted of assaults, grievous bodily harm and other crimes of violence;

455 DRUG traffickers and dealers;

223 SEX creeps convicted of paedophile offences and possession of child pornography;

114 PERVERTS convicted of rape and other sex offences against adults;

54 MURDERERS and 21 people convicted of manslaughter;

24 PEOPLE whose visas were cancelled on national security or organised crime grounds.

841 OFFENDERS charged with white collar and other crimes.

Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton during Question Time. Picture Kym Smith

Outlaw motorcycle clubs are also being severely disrupted as the zero tolerance police and intelligence agency blitz targets gang officer holders, with 147 senior bikies having had their visas cancelled in the past three years.

“We aren’t asking much — just that visitors to our country don’t kill, rape or rob Australians during their stay,” Mr Dutton told the Herald Sun yesterday.

“If they do they’re out. Let the civil libertarians argue against that.

“I have no doubt that by deporting convicted paedophiles we are saving children from being future victims. The same goes for rapists and drug dealers.

“Criminal motorcycle gang members don’t have jobs or pay taxes — they sell drugs, run prostitutes, steal, extort and kill.

“Why would we want them living among law abiding decent people?”

Under changes to migration laws in December 2014, Mr Dutton now has greater powers to cancel the visas of foreign born people who fail to meet minimum character standards, or who have been convicted of an offence involving a jail term of more than 12 months.


 

Former Tasmanian Rebels bike gang leader Aaron Graham has appealed to the High Court against Mr Dutton’s decision to kick him out of the country


Being a member or associate of an organisation reasonably suspected of being involved in crime is sufficient for Mr Dutton to cancel a visa for failure to meet character standards — and bikie gangs certainly fall into that category.

Not all 2847 foreign-born criminals ordered out of Australia have left yet as many have lodged appeals against their deportation orders.

Former Tasmanian Rebels bike gang leader Aaron Graham is one of those. He has appealed to the High Court against Mr Dutton’s decision to kick him out of the country, claiming it was “unconstitutional” to do so and the court has reserved its decision on the case.

Victorian sex creep taxi driver Jagdeep Singh, 34, is one of the thousands of criminals Mr Dutton has successfully kicked out of Australia.

He did so last month after Singh admitted indecently assaulting a female passenger.


 

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Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission boss Chris Dawson.


 

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BIKIE club buster Chris Dawson’s tactic of singling out gang office holders is crippling what are some of Australia’s most prolific organised crime syndicates.

The former Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission boss said the tactic of singling out bikie gang officer holders has been incredibly effective at crippling what are some of Australia’s most prolific organised crime syndicates.

Mr Dawson this month left his job as the boss of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to take on the role of commissioner of police in Western Australia.

In an interview with the Herald Sun to mark the end of his stint at the ACIC, Mr Dawson also revealed the ACIC has:

PLAYED a leading role in the apprehension of some of the world’s biggest money launderers — including Pakistani national Altaf Khanani, who funnelled billions of dollars for terrorists, drug traffickers and criminal organisations;

GAINED valuable national security intelligence by using its coercive secret examinations to grill more than 80 ­terrorists and their associates;

DISCOVERED disturbing evidence of serious organised crime figures funding and having close relationships with terrorist organisations;

BUILT up a comprehensive dossier of who’s who in the Calabrian mafia in Australia and has been instrumental in the arrest of mafia figure Bruno Crisafi, who fled to Perth to escape charges in Italy;

IDENTIFIED 245 new organised crime targets that were previously unknown to police in just the past three years.

DISCOVERED 381 previously unknown money-laundering entities since 2013; and

WORKED with partner agencies to seize more than $890 million in drugs and $11.2 million in cash during the past year.

Former ACIC chief Chris Dawson points to the cancellation of visas of former Rebels national president Alex Vella as part of the effective tactics used against crime groups.

Mr Dawson revealed Australian bikie gangs are increasingly establishing chapters overseas to give them better access to drugs and other illicit goods.

While the number of bikie gangs and members in Australia fluctuates, he said the ACIC was aware of 38 different bikie gangs with more than 4700 fully patched members and about 2800 associates.

“It is a fact that a number of these have established chapters offshore, some in the Pacific Islands, some in Thailand and other Asian countries as well as in Europe,” Mr Dawson said.

“We also have historic linkages between USA-based bikie groups.”

Mr Dawson said while some bikies established offshore chapters to increase their capacity to deal drugs and commit other crimes, some had left Australia to try to avoid “attention and apprehension” by Australian authorities.

“That’s not always successful on their part because we have been able to disrupt a number of them,” he said.

“A good such example is Alex Vella, who was then president of the Rebels,” he said.



 

Former Rebels national president Alex Vella.





 

“The effect of his immigration status being revoked in 2014, given that he’s a Maltese citizen, has been extremely effective in disrupting the Rebels.

“They have been very fractured as a criminal entity as a consequence of this disruption.

“That strategy has also been effective across a range of senior office holders in other outlaw motorcycle gangs, be they the Mongols, Bandidos, Hells Angels and others.

“Together with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, we have been working very closely with state police to intentionally target those senior office holders, such as sergeant at arms, treasurers and presidents, that aren’t Australian citizens.

“Every criminal in Australia that does not hold Australian citizenship is on absolute notice.

“The Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, has made it abundantly clear, and certainly the Minister for Justice, my minister, Michael Keenan, has been extremely supportive to Immigration Minister Dutton about this strategy in targeting any criminal, of whatever persuasion.

“If they do not hold Australian citizenship then they are under clear notice and that’s a tactic the ACIC strongly supports.”

Another senior Rebels bikie gang member, British-born Danny Mousley, 57, this month became one of the latest victims of the ongoing blitz on foreign-born bikies.

Mousley’s visa was cancelled on the grounds of his links with the Geelong chapter of the Rebels.

Rebels bikie Danny Mousley had his visa cancelled.

Mr Dawson said during his three years as head of the Australian Crime Commission, and the ACIC, the body that replaced the ACC, there had been a dramatic and disturbing rise in the number of organisations set up specifically to launder money.

These organisations make money by moving money — and they are not fussy about who they move it for.

They disguise, hide and move the illicit profits of criminal groups as well as terrorist organisations.

Mr Dawson said the ACIC had discovered links between Australian serious and organised crime groups and the funding of terrorist organisations.

“Over the period I have been CEO the ACIC has conducted in the order of 80 coercive secret examinations of terrorists and their associates,” he said.

“We ordinarily will do these in conjunction with other partner agencies, such as ASIO, the AFP and state police.

“Our objective is to discover and understand any new emerging threats.

“It is very clear from our intelligence that there is a nexus between serious and organised crime and terrorist organisations.

“The ACIC has been instrumental in the apprehension of some of the world’s largest money launderers who had very strong relationships with terrorist organisations, particularly those in and around the Middle East.

“That’s a very important contribution that the ACIC has had in both better understanding and building a very comprehensive intelligence picture of relationships between serious organised crime and terrorist groups.”

Working with law enforcement partners in Australia and overseas, the ACIC played a critical leadership role in helping to uncover and disrupt the Khanani money laundering organisation.

It identified Pakistani national Altaf Khanani as a financial controller who was moving money offshore for organised crime networks operating in Australia.

International money launderer Altaf Khanani. Source: US Drug Enforcement Administration

Domenic Perre. Picture: Nine News

Khanani’s clients included Chinese, Colombian and Mexican organised crime groups as well as terror organisations Hezbollah, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

He was facilitating illicit money movements between Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and other countries.

Khanani was arrested in Panama in September 2015.

The US acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Adam Szubin, later revealed Khanani’s money laundering organisation had exploited relationships with financial institutions to “funnel billions of dollars across the globe on behalf of terrorists, drug traffickers and criminal organisations”.

Mr Dawson said during his time at the ACC and ACIC his staff had worked hard with state and federal police to establish a database on who was who in the Calabrian mafia in Australia, with intelligence dossiers created on members.




 

Calabrian mafia figure Bruno Crisafi was arrested by police at the airport in Rome in June 2017 after flying in from Perth. Picture: Supplied




He said the project had not only given the agency a better understanding of the Italian organised crime gang’s presence and activities in Australia, but had also led to arrests.

“They include the charges brought against the Perre family,” Mr Dawson said.

“A number of those senior family figures have been charged in respect of illicit drugs in South Australia.

“In regard to other mafia figures, the ACIC has also had involvement, and provided key intelligence, regarding mafia member Bruno Crisafi.

“This fellow was subject to an Interpol red notice for international cocaine trafficking.

“As a result of the ACIC’s work we were able to notify authorities, via the AFP international network, and he was apprehended by Italian authorities on his return to Rome on June 21, 2017.”

“The Calabrian mafia, and its role in the Australian market, is one of a number of different target groups that the ACIC, with our partner agencies, continues to target.”

Crisafi fled from Italy to Perth in 2015 to avoid mafia and drug related charges. He was sentenced in his absence to 20 years in jail.

Domenic Perre, 60, was one of the Perre family members picked up by police earlier this year over drug and weapons charges.

His arrest in June this year followed the arrests of his brother Francesco Perre, 56, who has since pleaded guilty to drugs and weapons charges, his sister-in-law Rita Perre, 52, and nephew Antonio Perre, 26, over an alleged drug crop in SA’s Riverland area.

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