TOP-SECRET Victoria Police files have been leaked to alleged crime bosses and killers, compromising federal and state drug trafficking investigations.

'Leaking like a sieve'

In one of the most serious security breaches in Australian law enforcement, the leaked information came from the state surveillance squad, which conducts physical and technical surveillance on crime targets.

Alleged drug baron John Higgs, a founder of the Black Uhlans outlaw motorcycle gang, received information from the leaked files, as did other members of his syndicate.

At least two other Melbourne men — one an alleged murderer and the other a suspected drug trafficker — also received their confidential surveillance records. One fled overseas after obtaining copies of the files.

The leak is the latest in a series of corruption scandals to entangle the Victoria Police since 2001 and will prompt new calls for a full inquiry into the links between organised crime and serving and former police.

The revelations will also put pressure on the State Government over its previous commitments to reform Victoria Police's information-handling processes after repeated police files scandals in recent years.

The Office of Police Integrity and the Victoria Police are investigating the latest leak and senior police yesterday briefed the surveillance squad about the investigations. The Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission and other agencies have been informed of the security breach.

OPI director Michael Strong said: "Information security within the Victoria Police has long been of concern to the OPI and has been addressed in several of our public reports."

Mr Strong said he was conducting "a comprehensive independent review" of police information security. "Any breach can have serious operational issues and even put lives at risk. Victoria Police needs to give the issue a high priority."

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said investigators were "vigorously pursuing" those responsible for the leaks and "that the vast majority of people in the (surveillance) unit are professional". She said Superintendent Paul Sheridan would review the unit's management and operations and that the force was implementing a range of information security reforms.

The latest leaks have compromised Victoria Police investigations, while related probes by the crime commission and the federal police are believed to have been affected.

Surveillance officers create files detailing the movements and associates of a criminal target. If a suspect obtains a file, he will see how long police have been watching him. This can compromise investigations or give criminals warning they could be charged.

Some of the information leaked related to the AFP's Operation Inca, which led to the arrest in August of Higgs and others over the world's largest ecstasy importation.

The Victoria Police surveillance squad monitored several of Inca's criminal targets during the operation's early stages.

Over the past two decades, Higgs' crime syndicate has repeatedly received leaked or stolen police files.

Suspected drug trafficker Mohammed Oueida fled overseas fearing he was to be arrested after he received surveillance files revealing he was under investigation. It is not known if has returned to Australia.

Higgs and Oueida were connected to an alleged crime syndicate — other members are also suspected of receiving leaked information — pursued by state and federal drug trafficking investigators. A Victoria Police operation named Agamas stalled in March because the syndicate pulled out of an alleged importation. It is unknown if this was related to leaked files.

Alleged murderer Bassam Tiba — who was wanted over a 2004 killing in Melbourne until his arrest last month — was also leaked information from the surveillance squad police files.

Federal police officers discovered Tiba had obtained information from surveillance files after they located and arrested him last month in the Solomon Islands.

The leaks suggest there are serious flaws with the Victoria Police's creation and handling of files on surveillance targets.

A former Victoria Police crime department officer familiar with the surveillance squad's operations said the handling of information had been ad hoc, unorganised and hard to audit.

He said the ineffective supervision and technology used to collate and store surveillance files was a result of poor resourcing by the State Government.

Last month, the outgoing Victorian Commissioner for Law Enforcement Data Security, Laurie Bebbington, described as "an ongoing concern" the force's failure to implement its central information security policy to govern the storage and handling of all sensitive information.

Ms Bebbington said the policy was "in a perpetual state of review, edit and partial completion" and there was no sign of when it would be finished.

In late 1996, Higgs and his associates were suspected of masterminding the theft of files from drug squad headquarters, including those detailing the identity of a policy informer. That theft remains unsolved.

In late 2003, close associates of Higgs were among a host of underworld figures who obtained stolen police files detailing the activities of corruption and gangland informer Terence Hodson, who was later murdered along with his wife.

The leaks are likely to further damage relationships between federal and state police.

The Age has known about the leaks for several months, but delayed publishing to avoid jeopardising the investigation.

(Webmaster: The question the thinking person has to ask is - "On the question of leaks, how does 'The Age' have such comprehensive information about Victoria Police Leaks and how did they acquire this information.   Perhaps investigating this Newspaper, particularly Andrie Petrie and her unhealthy association with Ehthical Standards would be a good place to start."

Source: The Age   02.12.2008

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On their watch

BY THE time you see them, it’s usually too late. For they are the ones who do the watching. They are the unseen followers,

the human bloodhounds whom police call "the dogs".

The only time suspected criminals should see a surveillance operative is in court, by which time "the dogs" will be barking: a surveillance offi cer will probably be confiding notes to a jury. Something like: 4.25pm: Target leaves cafe with unknown male. 4.27: Target enters black BMW, exchanges package. And so on. Cryptic but damning in a witness box.

Surveillance operatives keep diaries about people unlikely to keep their own. These diaries should only be aired in a courtroom. But, sometimes, strange things happen in police work.

Which is why, several months ago, uneasiness spread through Australian law enforcement. Victorian drug investigators locked down inquiries with even more rigour than usual. The Australian Crime Commission and Australian Federal Police did the same. The word was out: someone working for the good guys was leaking. The dogs had a problem. Now, they were the ones being watched.

Yesterday, a group of suited, sombre-faced corruption investigators paid the surveillance squad offices a visit. (Webmaster - "How do they know this?  Ethical Standards Department tip perhaps?  Sombre Faced ?   The devil is truely in the detail.)  They were looking for evidence about files — the diaries kept by the dogs — that had somehow been leaked to the underworld, compromising federal and state investigations.

The files outlined in detail what police knew about the associates and activities of at least one senior member of an organised crime syndicate.

In early to mid-2007, Victorian surveillance operatives had watched the syndicate’s members on behalf of several police agencies. It was busy work. The Australian Federal Police, as part of an operation code-named Inca, claimed in August this year that some members of the syndicate were helping plan the importation of the world’s largest shipment of ecstasy. It has now emerged that Operation Inca is one of the investigations potentially compromised by the leak.

Some police believe leaks are inevitable and it is best to identify them, deal with them and get back to business. But this leak follows repeated scandals involving serious information security breaches at the Victoria Police. A leak in 2004 might well have led to the murder of a prosecution witness and his wife. This latest leak also comes after repeated warnings, recommendations for better resourcing and reform of the force’s hundreds of data "repositories". And it comes after repeated promises by the Victorian Government that it has done enough to safeguard police files.

It is unclear whether this latest leak involves a rogue officer from the surveillance squad, or another law enforcement offi cial with access to its files, although at the very least, the squad’s information security is in question.

But the leak is about more than a problem with "the dogs". Victorians are again entitled to ask whether the force and Government’s handling of policing problems has fallen short.

LIKE most businessmen, John William Samuel Higgs knows the value of a good network. When he turned his hand to concert promotion in the early 1990s, his contact book listed those already plugged into the music industry. When he did his punting, friends in horseracing, including jockeys and bookies, often had the inside oil. With his alleged main business enterprise — drug trafficking — Higgs needed to call on other contacts; those in the underworld. In this area, Higgs was well connected, indeed.

More than two decades ago, Higgs was a founding member of the Black Uhlans, one of the most secretive outlaw motorcycle gangs in the country. Back then, he was a bearded and fearsome-looking man, the archetypal bikie. Last August, sitting in the Melbourne Magistrates Court after being charged by the federal police’s Operation Inca, Higgs looked less imposing: clean shaven, with square-rimmed glasses and a purple windcheater.

Arrested on the same day as Higgs were those who had allegedly organised the importation, men from the NSW Riverina town of Griffith, with ties to the Calabrian Mafi a in southern Italy.

During the investigation, Higgs’ contact with the so-called Griffith cell ended abruptly. This unsettled some police. Was Higgs aware he was being watched? If so, it would not have been the fi rst time. Indeed, Higgs and his associates have featured in almost every signifi cant Victoria Police leak in the past two decades.

As far back as 1989, police were investigating claims Higgs was dealing amphetamines from a Fawkner house. But according to intelligence reports, "Higgs left the address before the operation got under way."

Court documents reveal that Higgs bragged to a police informer in 1993 he had been tipped off about a major investigation. "Higgs said he was told by a person who was in the job (referring to a police officer) that 120 detectives were flying to Melbourne to form a taskforce targeting the five largest speed gangs in Melbourne. Higgs was told they would be here for four weeks."

Three years later, Higgs’ reach inside the Victorian police force became infamous.

Apart from the bustle of sales and the traditional cricket Test, the city was mostly quiet on Boxing Day 1996. For those unlucky enough to be rostered on at the Victoria Police St Kilda Road headquarters, there were just drunks and car crashes to contend with.

Still, some creatures were stirring.

It has been long suspected, but never proven, that on Boxing Day evening — or on a night soon after — a close associate of Higgs, drug trafficker David McCulloch, executed a plan to steal sensitive files from the St Kilda Road drug squad offices. The files detailed the work of a police informer, codenamed E2/92, who had been providing valuable information about drug trafficking. Higgs was one of several men E2/92 had snooped on.

Two police officers were thought to have helped plan the burglary, but nothing was ever proven. An investigation into the burglary, named Sentinel, later concluded: "There is little doubt that the proceeds of the burglary have eventually been received by John Higgs and that a significant sum of money was paid to individuals responsible for the offence."

Fearing for his life, E2/92 was forced into hiding after the burglary. He later died in suburban Melbourne of natural causes.

A different fate befell another police informer whose files, seven years later, were also stolen from the drug squad. It was AFL grand final weekend in 2003 when this batch of files went missing. They detailed the work of police informer Terence Hodson, who had agreed to testify against two allegedly corrupt drug squad detectives.

Shortly after they were stolen, the Hodson files began circulating among underworld fi gures. In May 2004, Hodson’s adult children arrived at their parents’ suburban Kew flat to find their father and mother lying face down with gunshot wounds

to the back of their heads. Terence Hodson still had a cigarette clasped in his hand.

With Hodson dead, so were corruption charges against one of the officers he was to testify against. That officer, Paul Dale, was later named in a report to State Parliament as the obvious suspect in the theft of the Hodson files, but he denies any wrongdoing and has not been charged.

In his January 2005 report on the theft, corruption expert Tony Fitzgerald, QC, said the system in place to manage the Hodson files was "grossly inadequate".

"Insufficient attention was paid to … the security of documents and information, which at the time were only part of a confusing array of instructions and policies," Fitzgerald wrote.

Two months after Fitzgerald’s report, the Office of Police Integrity tabled the findings of another inquiry. While its focus was on the chronic failings of the Law Enforcement Access Program, or LEAP, a general database used by police to do background checks, it also aired broad concerns about the force’s inability to adequately safeguard information and impose a central policy on security protection.

In mid-2005, the State Government responded to the growing concern by promising to overhaul the LEAP system and appoint a new watchdog, the Victorian Commissioner for Law Enforcement Data Security. When he announced the changes, a stern premier Steve Bracks said: "Time’s up. We need a better system."

By mid-2005, police were also closer to knowing how many in the criminal underworld had seen the Hodson files. Some were familiar names. Higgs’ close associate, McCulloch, had been given a copy. So too had Higgs’ brother-in-law, David McLennan. It was a sure bet that Higgs had also been on the receiving end of the leak.

There has been no suggestion that Higgs, McCulloch or McLennan have any link to the Hodson murders, or that the E2/92 file burglary and the Hodson fi le theft are connected. But, in 2005, Higgs was a common thread appearing to join the two security breaches, given he was a recipient of the leaked information both times. Now it appears he has gathered yet more confidential files.

An investigation by the Victoria Police and the state’s police watchdog, the Offi ce of Police Integrity, is examining how fi les created by the surveillance squad ended up in the hands of Higgs and his criminal associates.

The leak could have jeopardised investigations by Victoria Police, the Australian Crime Commission and federal police. For instance, one of the men who received the files, suspected criminal Mohammad Oueida, fled overseas fearing arrest.

Five weeks ago, the watchdog, which the State Government said in 2005 would help fix the force’s leaks, tabled its annual report. Outgoing commissioner Laurie Bebbington said Victoria Police urgently needed to appoint an information technology security adviser and update its central information security policy, which she said was in "a perpetual state of review, edit and partial completion".

It is unclear if the problem with "the dogs" will provide enough impetus to see the necessary changes made to safeguard the force’s information holdings. This time around, though, it may be one leak too many.

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Police were warned on lax security

VICTORIA Police has ignored years of warnings about its lax policies on storing classified Commonwealth information.

Victoria's Commissioner for Law Enforcement Data Security found in October that the force was struggling to protect security classified information to required federal standards.

In March 2005, the Office of Police Integrity warned Victoria Police "as a matter of urgency" to upgrade its security systems and policies to comply with national requirements for storing classified information.

The then director of police integrity, George Brouwer, warned that federal law enforcement agencies might be reluctant to share classified information with Victoria Police because of its poor data security systems.

In her annual report, outgoing data commissioner Laurie Bebbington said the force urgently needed to appoint an information technology security adviser and update its central information security policy — which covers all police data — to meet Commonwealth standards.

She said the force's central information security policy was in a "perpetual state of review, edit and partial completion".

"The auditors could not find evidence to suggest that the policy would be completed to … standard expectations in the foreseeable future," Ms Bebbington said. The 2005 OPI report also called for a central information security policy to be completed.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said that the Commonwealth standards were "onerous" and taking "some time" to implement." But she said that the force was already mid-way through implementing a range of reforms.

Ms Bebbington also found:

¦ The security of law enforcement information transmitted by police in regional Victoria on the Statenet Mobile Radio Network was "unacceptably low".

¦ Police had yet to sign memorandums of understanding with private prison operators and information technology companies that can access confidential police databases.

¦ Thirty-seven confirmed police data security breaches in 2007-08, with a further 40 allegations being investigated. Some of the information disclosed went to criminals, private investigators and the media.

The security of confidential police data has been a huge problem for the State Government and force command in recent years.

In 2005, after repeated privacy breaches and leaks of confidential documents, the State Government spent $50 million to replace the LEAP computer system and appoint a data commissioner to oversee how police use information.

The changes came after two damning reports by the OPI into information security, including the report into the LEAP database.

The second report was into the theft and leaking of police files detailing the activities of a police corruption informer, Terence Hodson, murdered with his wife Christine in May 2004.

Source: The Age

December 2, 2008