Gangs in the police firing line

MIDDLE EASTERN gangs are more violent and of greater concern than any other group in Sydney, senior police say. But difficulties with obtaining evidence is the main problem in bringing criminals to justice, not any directives to go "soft on ethnic crime" as claimed by the Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam, police say.

The NSW Police operations manager for the state crime command, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Dein, has described as "outrageous and disgraceful" a lack of respect towards authority shown by members of teenage and organised Middle Eastern gangs. "Middle Eastern [criminals] are worse than other ethnic groups in NSW from what I have seen," Mr Dein said. "The crime committed ... is much worse, much more violent. The violent incidences are a lot more in number."

But Mr Dein said that the peaks for problems with the gangs were in 1998, when the Lakemba police station was shot at, and in 2003, when a spate of drive-by shootings resulted in Task Force Gain being set up. The gangs were not as serious a problem now as they were then, after a series of prominent arrests, he said.

Last week the Premier, Morris Iemma, announced the formation of the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad. It makes permanent the work of Task Force Gain, which has had its number of officers cut from 150 to 60 since it was set up in in 2003.
Mr Iemma and the Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, also announced that Strike Force Enoggera would have its numbers increased from 28 to 100 as it aimed to do more to capture revenge attackers after the Cronulla riots. One detective who has been investigating organised Middle Eastern crime told the Herald: "They're prone to use violence ... They'll get in your face a lot more than normal crooks will. "They'll tell you they're going to go f--- your mother. Normal crooks will have a bit more respect. The young blokes ... a lot of it is drug-related. It's easy money; they don't have to work."

Gangs were becoming more canny about the presence of listening devices and phone taps, he said. Talking about problems with evidence, Mr Dein said: "There is a very strong perception that because everybody knows about something occurring [someone should be arrested but] it doesn't necessarily mean there's evidence ... Identification is a very [difficult] issue."
Police believe some people involved in organised crime might have taken part in the revenge attacks following the Cronulla riot, but that they were mainly the work of angry young men. Mr Dein was at pains to point out: "We don't target people because of their background; we target the crime."

Task Force Gain has made more than 1300 arrests, including 10 for murder and attempted murder. Since 1998 six strike forces, focusing mostly on crime in the Middle Eastern community, have made more than 250 arrests relating to drug operations, shootings and car rebirthing. In the past two years almost 300 people of Middle Eastern background have been arrested by state crime command squads.

In the past six months Gain has pressed 124 charges, including one for murder, five for attempted murder, four for the discharge of weapons, three for arson and 57 for drug supply. The figures run counter to claims by Mr Debnam that there have been "almost no arrests" of "Middle Eastern thugs" in 10 years.

But a defence lawyer, Brett Galloway, who has worked on several matters brought by Task Force Gain, said police were failing in their prosecutions. "I have had every Task Force Gain prosecution against my clients go sideways so far," he said. Mr Galloway told of one case where a client was charged over a drive-by shooting but the case was dropped after problems with prosecution witnesses. The Crown was likely to pay costs of more than $1 million.

Mr Galloway said police were often turning people they arrested into informants, but their stories were inconsistent so they did not present as good witnesses. Told of the police comments on Middle Eastern crime, Mr Galloway said: "I'd actually be more concerned with Asian crime."

A former Bankstown police crime manager, Acting Superintendent Jim Johnson, said problems in the area had declined. "In Bankstown, for 10 years, it was a situation where you would walk around the area with some concern," he said.
"[Now] you'd walk around any time there" in uniform. "Gangs were formed because they saw it as an opportunity of not only making money but actually being recognised. "That's no different from our own culture with the Bra Boys, the Surfies and the Sharpies."

Another police source agreed: "We used to have two shootings a week ... we're down to one every three months." The co-author of the book Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime, Scott Poynting, a University of Western Sydney associate professor, said Mr Dein's comments were counterproductive. "No one makes such comments about gangs that happen to all have [people of] Anglo-Celtic origin in them."

Evidence gathered by Task Force Gain will be tested this year in several trials, some relating to shootings in Sydney's south-west. The difficulties in making charges stick became apparent when alleged revenge attackers appeared in court this week. The police case against Wael Tahan, 20, and Mohammed Eid, 19, accused of involvement in an attack on a pedestrian, was questioned in court. The prosecutor said it was unlikely the victim could identify his attackers. "I would suggest that the prosecution case was not strong," said the magistrate, Paul Falzon. "I dare say there would be some appreciable difficulties in attacking the defence ... "

Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald.