Australian Broadcasting Corporation
FOUR CORNERS
Investigative TV journalism at its best
Date 9.10.2001
The inside story of a three year undercover investigation into NSW police corruption.
You will hear a lot more about Florida in months and years to come.
For the past two and a half years, NSW Internal Affairs police have undertaken a most remarkable undercover operation.
C: I know three people that have been dealing for years and years and years and they've been paying him and they've never come undone.
B5: Is that right?
C: And if they do come undone, they're fuckin' out the next day.
B5: Right, right.
C: Know what I mean?
They've never been to jail, they just cop a fuckin' slap on the wrist and they're back selling the next day.
B5: I was gonna, you know, just completely quit, but he's given me the green light.
CHRIS MASTERS: What we're about to see exposed is the anatomy of the street drugs market.
What is about to be answered is the long-asked question -- why does the drugs trade continue to flourish despite expensive and extensive efforts to stop it?
In all its sordid detail, an explanation has been under our noses all along.
C: You either gotta pay him and go ahead or you gotta quit 'cause he'll pinch ya.
D: It's like paying rent, it's like having a shop and paying rent.
That's all it is.
B5: Yeah being taxed, tax.
CHRIS MASTERS: The marathon undercover operation brings to the surface a glimpse of the way the Australian drugs underworld operates.
B5: You reckon I'm alright paying two grand a month?
I mean, I can afford it, I can afford it.
D: You're laughing mate.
That's chickenfeed.
C: I'm paying a grand a week.
B5: That's a lot.
Fuck, he's making heaps.
CHRIS MASTERS: But you will have to watch closely because if you blink, you'll miss it because the devil is in the detail.
D: Let me tell you something.
Don't tell anyone.
B5: Yeah?
D: Don't tell anyone.
B5: Nah, fuck nah mate.
D: Not one single person.
B5: Yeah, not a chance man.
Dead set.
CHRIS MASTERS: Six years ago, Inspector Graham 'Chook' Fowler was caught taking bribes for allowing crime to flourish, particularly in Sydney's Kings Cross.
MAN ON TAPE: I said, "Mate, I don't know what you want to do with him, "how you want to f approach him for bail "or f what you want to do, but like -- " CHRIS MASTERS: The Wood Royal Commission made a range of similar discoveries which were followed by reform recommendations including the establishment of the Police Integrity Commission.
Lawyer Chris Murphy is another to campaign against crooked police.
CHRIS MURPHY, CRIMINAL LAWYER: I do believe that if you forget history, it repeats itself.
Police seem to have a lot of leeway still.
They appear to be directionless and I think it's open for crooked characters to take control.
PETER RYAN, NSW POLICE COMMISSIONER: The past comes to haunt the future.
If change is necessary and you haven't cleaned up the past, whatever is lying in there and the people who were responsible for it will surface again.
DR DON WEATHERBURN, BUREAU OF CRIME STATISTICS AND RESEARCH: Well, I think it's always naive to imagine that you can completely eliminate corruption from policing, whether it be in NSW or any other State of Australia.
There are large numbers of police, enormous amounts of money involved.
And I think we realistically ought to aim at trying to minimise corruption and preventing it becoming systemic.
CHRIS MASTERS: Even while the Wood Inquiry was going on, so was corruption, and not just in Kings Cross.
So they looked further in what might seem an unlikely direction.
Sydney's North Shore is home to comfort and wealth that can for a time hide an addiction to heroin.
LOUISE LIN: She started at 12.
She's 14.
FRANK FEATHERSTONE: Nothing would be too bad.
You'd steal a car.
You'd rob a house.
Um --
Bash someone up.
Uh, what do -- drug addicts do when they become part-time criminals, I suppose.
LOUISE LIN: Well, you feel like you're a prisoner in your own home.
I can't give my daughter keys anymore.
I have to be here constantly to let her in, to let her out.
Um, I feel like --
I don't feel safe.
I don't feel safe in my own home.
JUDY SKIPPER: When it happened, it was quite devastating for us as a family -- that we could not --
I mean, here we are, a little middle-class family, never had anything to do with the police, really.
CHRIS MASTERS: In NSW, more than 80 per cent of imprisonments are for drug-related crime.
NSW has more than half Australia's 74,000 heroin users who spend an estimated $2.6 billion on their drug of choice.
CHRIS MURPHY: Well, over the last decade, there's probably been a doubling of the number of dependent heroin users.
It's certainly rapidly risen over the last five to ten years.
And it's dragged with it, right across the country, offences such as robbery and break, enter and steal.
CHRIS MASTERS: A good beginning to the story is here, out the back of a major police centre on the north side, the Chatswood Local Area Command.
Rattled by the Wood Inquiry, police decided to move a stock of illegal weapons they kept hidden.
They took the guns, drove north and picked up this boat from one of their supervisors.
They launched the boat, loaded with as many as 100 cut-down shotguns, rifles, pistols and the like, and headed out along the river.
If commuters heading home at dusk had looked down, they might have seen an incredible sight -- police dumping their own dirty history into the deepest channel of the Hawkesbury River.
Four years later, a very different group of police on a very different mission set about recovering the evidence.
CHRIS MURPHY: You've got to remember that the infrastructure of the police force was to cheat.
That was in the '70s.
Even when there wasn't money around, the police would cheat.
Some of them -- the good police -- would say, "We do God's work when God forgets."
They knew someone committed a crime, they couldn't get them, they'd plant a gun on them.
CHRIS MASTERS: But tonight's report is not all about what happened in the past.
It is about what is happening now.
And with that in mind, let me introduce Vincent Anthony Caccamo.
VINCENT CACCAMO: Yeah, OK wait for me there.
I'll go to the BP to get the money and I'll come straight down.
OK, OK, Ciao.
CHRIS MASTERS: Caccamo is believed by police to be one of Sydney's Northern Beaches' biggest heroin suppliers.
He has operated since the mid-'80s, principally within the region of one of Australia's most famous beachside suburbs, Manly.
For the period of this surveillance operation, Caccamo had a sidekick and driver.
The two of them would make as many as three trips a day, most days, to pick up the heroin.
CACCAMO: I gave the police $800 worth, right.
I just gave Jamie 300 OK, that's 11 and there's about 1.8 left in the fuckin' bag.
CHRIS MURPHY: The larger the quantity, the bigger the jail sentence.
You get caught with a kilo, you could spend the whole of the next 15 years of your life in a jail cell.
So you go and get it and you come back.
CHRIS MASTERS: Caccamo would buy about seven grams at a time for his special rate, usually $1,150.
On occasions, he would send the dealers' payments offshore to foreign bank accounts.
But more often, he would collect the money nearby and pay in cash.
The exchange would occur in this public park where sporting competitions were held, joggers sweated and mums pushed prams.
The pusher in this case is part of a major Romanian syndicate.
He supplies as many as ten others like Caccamo.
And despite a current heroin drought, this particular dealer's stash appears endless.
As you see here, he would go into the park, often on his pushbike, and secrete the order.
As you see here, Caccamo would be there to do the pick-up soon after.
Before they would leave, Caccamo and his mate would frequently sample the gear themselves.
But most was kept to sell.
On the way back, they would constantly grumble about the oppressive overheads of their chosen profession.
CACCAMO: How do they justify $150 for that letter, hey?
Like, OK, fair enough when he's in the courtroom he's using his expertise.
DRIVER: He can't hit you for that high a price --
not when he writes you a letter.
And the funny thing is lawyers and solicitors are just so flat out, every one of them.
They've all got heaps of work.
CHRIS MURPHY: Every user of heroin at some stage becomes a dealer, by definition.
They supply to their friends.
They've got to pay for their supplies.
They should be distinguished from those who are only in it for material enrichment, for gratification.
CHRIS MASTERS: Caccamo, with an annual tax-free cash flow in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, lives a comfortable and otherwise inconspicuous life.
Here at his home, he would prepare the heroin and then arrange for his runners to distribute it.
Caccamo's main runner is also a user.
One favoured method of pushing was by bike.
He would make his deliveries upon request, usually via mobile phone.
Here, police surveillance captures Caccamo's runner and a client doing their business.
According to police, along this small strip, an astonishing amount of business is done and it's been like this for decades.
JUDY SKIPPER: They started listing mobile phone calls and I noticed that there were so many and very short phone calls.
And I asked him who they were for and he said, "Oh, they're just friends."
OLGA VASSAROTTI: He had a lot of quick phone calls, very quick phone calls.
And, well, he would just rush out the door, you know, and be back in a few minutes.
So it was obvious that he was getting it from that area.
LOUISE LIN: You don't need an antenna.
People see you.
And that's exactly right.
I think that she would be able to just walk along the street and someone would go up and approach her because of the way she looks.
She's a target.
FRANK FEATHERSTONE: At one stage, he said to me, "I feel like a piece of shit."
Well, I don't use that language, but it said how he thought about it.
CHRIS MASTERS: The commission has been told that early last year, Caccamo was charged with drug supply and released on bail.
While out on bail in a five-month period, he was known to move over a kilo of heroin with a street value of more than $1 million.
The question of how and why he continued to operate despite the attention of police has a simple explanation.
Caccamo was franchised just as hamburgers are franchised.
In the vernacular, he was green-lighted.
PETER RYAN, NSW POLICE COMMISSIONER: It makes me very angry indeed -- you would have thought they would have taken their lesson from what happened in the royal commission and to what happened since when we actually arrested people in other operations -- that this sort of thing still goes on.
They're very foolish to think they would not be caught.
And it's just really reminiscent of what used to happen in the old days where people are giving crooks free run in return for money.
And I'm very angry that these sorts of things have been revealed yet again.
CHRIS MASTERS: After last year's arrest, Caccamo connected with this man, Detective Senior Constable David Patison of Manly Police.
Patison and his frequent partner, Detective Senior Constable Matthew Jasper, it appears allowed the heroin dealer to continue to operate after payment of a lump sum and promised instalments of $1,000 a week.
CHRIS MURPHY: In those early days, police corruption evolved, in that they cheated to get convictions.
Then the flood of gold came into the market from in the late '70s with the arrival of heroin.
The money was massive and the police had the right to decide who was guilty.
It was only a very small step to accepting money to let people off.
And then they licensed dealers.
Dealers would deal for years.
CHRIS MASTERS: It is a common arrangement all across Australia.
The dealer is free to operate.
Corrupt police get paid to protect him.
They use information from the dealer to limit competition and thereby appear to keep their arrest rates up.
To the corrupt parties, it can seem like a good arrangement.
Although in this case, Caccamo did show signs of stress about keeping up his payments.
CACCAMO: I had to borrow money yesterday to pay fuckin' you know who this afternoon you know.
DRIVER: Yeah, only just getting through really, hey?
CACCAMO: Yeah well, see that fucks me every week.
But I mean you've gotta have it, otherwise it's too risky you know.
CHRIS MASTERS: The weekly meetings were often here in the car park alongside a busy shopping mall.
But the drug community being what it is, arrangements were dogged by unreliability.
The drug dealer was scratching hard to make his payments, let alone make them at the arranged time.
JASPER: Yeah Vince, how ya going?
CACCAMO: Hey Matt, sorry about yesterday eh.
But my battery went flat and I couldn't get your number out.
JASPER: That's alright cobber.
Can we do that thing today?
CACCAMO: Yeah, I'll give it to you this afternoon bud and I'll give you an extra hundred for the hassle alright.
JASPER: What about three?
CACCAMO: Ah, can I give you a ring?
It'll be around that time -- all depends on what time we head over to the other side.
JASPER: No problems, OK, I'll wait to hear from you.
CACCAMO: I'll give you a call alright?
JASPER: Thanks mate.
CACCAMO: Thanks Matt.
See ya.
CHRIS MASTERS: When the meetings occurred, it was like this.
Caccamo would wait.
The police officer -- in this case, Patison -- would join him.
And the payment, it appears, would be made here in the stairwell.
Caccamo would return to the driver's car and as often as not, they would set off to score all over again.
And it went on like this for months.
CACCAMO: I gave him four or five.
He was all dressed up, probably going to a brothel, the cunt.
$290 left.
DRIVER: You're kidding me.
CACCAMO: So I've got to make $290, and I gave Jamie $340.
I've got to make another $850.
That means another 21 deals.
CHRIS MASTERS: Caccamo rarely bothered to resort to code to conceal the arrangements other than referring to getting the paperwork -- meaning money -- together.
The police, on the other hand, unaware they are themselves being reeled in, use fishing terms to mask their corruption.
JASPER: I went to see that bloke at the fishing shop.
He was there -- he had dramas.
Getting all that other tackle in, like the heavy stuff.
He fuckin' had another couple of other lures so I grabbed them.
And he reckons he'll have some more on Friday just some other smaller lures.
Just for that fuckin' fishing he's already been doing anyway.
So I didn't see any great dramas with that.
PATISON: Ah, that's alright.
JASPER: I just grabbed what lures he had sort of thing and just fuckin' took the tackle box off him.
TELEPHONE MESSAGE: One slimy mackerel.
CHRIS MASTERS: A 'slimy mackerel', it appeared, meant they'd just caught $1,000 and 'tackle' meant 'smaller change'.
JASPER: I heard your message.
PATISON: Yeah, one slimy mackerel.
JASPER: What, you going to get some more tackle later or what?
PATISON: That's all I can tell you about, yeah, there's some more tackle yeah.
JASPER: Yeah, no worries.
CHRIS MURPHY: The language depended on the squad -- your old vice squad and that -- the things from the past.
But, uh -- they had a hand movement like a duck, where they'd swing their hand back like that and that meant, you know, "Where's the money?"
And that expression they stole from the racecourse -- "If you don't sling, don't ring."
CACCAMO: They're getting money every week, they're getting $500 each.
$500 a week should be plenty mate, plenty.
DRIVER: That's right.
When they first gave you that figure Vince said you shoulda haggled it then.
CACCAMO: I said look -- if I was doing the business that I was doing back then I'd pay you two grand a week and I'd make two grand a week, right?
I said, but I'm not doing it.
But he doesn't believe me he goes, you know, if you don't sell a half an ounce a day, I'll cut your dick off.
Every cent I make fuckin' goes to them.
DRIVER: You're gonna have to renegotiate it with 'em.
CACCAMO: 28 grand they've got off me already.
No wonder I'm fuckin' so behind in my bills and shit.
Everything I've made's gone to them.
CHRIS MASTERS: The arrangement was such that it soon became obvious the police were not just protecting the drug dealer, but encouraging him to greater enterprise.
And there's no better example of that than in the story of the man the Integrity Commission has codenamed 'B5'.
Around the Northern Beaches, he did a profitable trade in cannabis.
On May 11 last year, following a tip-off, Manly police executed a search warrant on his home.
Two of the officers present you've already met -- Detective Senior Constables Patison and Jasper, who were again unaware they were being watched or, more to the point, listened to.
OFFICER: We're the police.
Open the door.
We're the police.
Open the door.
MAN: Open it up, mate!
CHRIS MASTERS: Although a softer drug, there is good, hard cash in cannabis, and, on that day, there were wads of it waiting to be found.
POLICMAN 1: Are we going to take a video of this?
POLICEMAN 2: No.
CHRIS MASTERS: Immediately following the discovery of the money, they were gone, heading back to the station.
Although aware they had left behind a large quantity of drugs, neither this nor the money was mentioned as the beginnings of a deal were struck with the dealer.
POLICEMAN 1: I'll just it in me notebook, just write out some questions -- just about the grass and a few other things and those other little fuckin' steroids and mate, we should have you outta here in about an hour and a half if everything goes to plan, OK?
So there's gonna be -- you're happy, there's no dramas at this stage?
Right, let's go.
CHRIS MASTERS: True to their word, the dealer is charged with a small possession offence, which later earns him a $200 fine.
The confiscated $40,000 does not make it into the records.
CHRIS MURPHY: If you're a drug dealer, police break into your house and you've got a gram of heroin and you've got $100,000 in cash, it was implicit, for your sake and the police's sake, that you're better off without the $100,000 in cash and it would disappear.
DR DON WEATHERBURN, BUREAU OF CRIME STATISTICS AND RESEARCH: Well, certainly the dealer isn't going to complain, or, if they do, no-one's going to believe them.
There will be no other witnesses, besides the police who are with you.
CHRIS MASTERS: Later, police divided up the $40,000 between three of them, with around $10,000 going back to the dealer.
As this conversation recorded at the time shows, they were happy with their day's work.
POLICEMAN 1: There was a bag in his room, chock-a-block.
There's 40 in the bag.
It's all bundled up in ten grand lots.
Beautiful.
Ten grand each, and probably about nine for him I suppose.
POLICEMAN 2: Fuck me dead.
Fucking shit myself.
Happy days.
POLICEMAN 1: There was probably about nine I suppose for him and I think we'll just take the three quarter each and say that's your fuckin' 30 -- that keeps you out of gaol and we could have kept the lot and charged you with supply -- he'd be doing five years.
We might have to give the big eared bloke a slice of it.
POLICEMAN 2: The big eared bloke?
Oh, Ray.
CHRIS MASTERS: Not yet lunchtime, some of the group retired for a celebratory drink or two.
A few more police were also cut in on the arrangement.
From the money already divided, some hundreds were given to other officers, including a supervisor, Detective Sergeant Ray Peattie.
POLICEMAN 1: I give Peattie some of his money -- he knows I'm keeping that much.
I'll give to him fuckin' when he needs it I said, not now.
I'll not give it to him tonight either when he asks me cause it just goes straight in the pokies.
I'll give it to him when he's got no money to pay the bills.
POLICEMAN 2: Give him all fuckin' that and it's fuckin' all gone that night.
CHRIS MASTERS: The cannabis dealer would be encouraged to continue his business.
Patison and Jasper planned to tax him in the way they taxed the heroin dealer, Caccamo.
Here, Detective Jasper contemplates the billing arrangement.
JASPER: He can give us one a week -- 15 a week, that's 500, that's alright.
Mmm, I can't see why he wouldn't be able to do that.
MAN: Or happy to.
JASPER: He's obviously doing enough business to be able to ah, cope with that.
CHRIS MASTERS: In August 2000, there was another search, this time of the cannabis dealer's car, and more drugs and money were seized.
But the presence on this occasion of honest police meant the $12,000 drug haul and the $31,000 in cash had to be recorded.
POLICEMAN 1: They (the straight police) have no idea.
But we have to be good in 's eyes.
POLICEMAN 2: Oh, absolutely.
Been there.
Count it all out.
Yeah, it's all right.
Got to get a couple like that.
CHRIS MASTERS: What Patison was saying, and what is explained again by Jasper, was there's also profit in occasionally appearing to be honest.
POLICEMAN 1: $44,OOO we've fuckin' recovered for the NSW Government.
POLICEMAN 2: Oh, isn't that decent of us.
POLICEMAN 1: That's right.
CHRIS MASTERS: But never mind, a plan was soon hatched to get the money back -- a plan involving a former Manly police officer and friend of Patison, who now practises as a solicitor, Martin Green.
Detective Patison appeared to encourage the cannabis dealer to produce false receipts, that would indicate the money seized was not criminal proceeds.
The dealer was sent with the $44,000 worth of receipts to see Green, who appeared to know Patison's ways.
B5: Pato's going to want a bit of money I think from this.
GREEN: Yeah, I think that's what he's interested in.
Now just in terms of our fee.
I'm happy not to sort of make too much fuss about that because no doubt the money'll come back to you as cash.
Now we don't want to disturb John Howard and his cronies in terms of, you know, raising bills and having to charge you GST and all that sort of stuff.
B5: Ah, yeah, that's what I'm worried about as well, yeah.
GREEN: So, I mean we can talk about that but if, what if there -- three grand, I guess if we took our cut as about ahh -- CHRIS MASTERS: So, the solicitor cooperates with the drug dealer and the police officer, to plan the recovery of criminal proceeds, which they would share.
CHRIS MURPHY: Corrupt police prosecutors, corrupt lawyers, and they facilitated the system.
And I believe that police were corrupted because they were able to be corrupted.
At the end of the day, you look to the system and blame the system that it let it happen.
CHRIS MASTERS: At this stage, as it happens, it was the cannabis dealer who seemed the most uncomfortable with the system being imposed on him.
At earlier meetings with the detective here at the Manly Swim Centre, Patison had demanded a lump-sum payment of $15,000 and ongoing monthly payments of $2,000 in order to maintain protection.
When the cannabis dealer said he had lost his supplier, Patison, very much directing traffic, pushed upon him a new one, who just happened to be the heroin dealer Vince Caccamo.
Caccamo, who was still having trouble making his payments, was happy to do a bit more business, and this was dutifully arranged by Detective Patison seen here exchanging telephone numbers with Caccamo.
The cannabis dealer, who was also given Caccamo's number by Patison, agrees, without noticeable enthusiasm, to a $6,000 buy.
PATISON: It's six a kilo.
B5: Ah, for sure, yeah as long as it's good.
PATISON: He was saying it was good head stuff.
B5: Well, I'll start with one, yeah.
Any chance of getting ripped off?
PATISON: No, mate, no, no.
CHRIS MASTERS: The next day, Patison met again with the cannabis dealer to allay his concerns about the quality of the product and the arrangement.
B5: I've just had that much bad luck, you know.
PATISON: Mate look, I guarantee ya, I guarantee you it's 100 per cent.
CHRIS MASTERS: Two days later, the meeting between the heroin dealer and the cannabis dealer, arranged by the police, occurred, and the two discussed the intricacies of the drugs market and its overlaying protection racket.
B5: I was gonna, you know just completely quit.
But he's given me the green light.
He'd let me know if anyone around my area would get done.
CACCAMO: You either pay him or you gotta quit cause he will pinch ya.
DRIVER: It's like paying rent, it's like having a shop and paying rent, that's all it is.
B5: Being taxed, tax.
Ya reckon I'm alright paying two grand a month?
I mean, I can afford it, I can afford it.
DRIVER: You're laughing mate.
That's chickenfeed.
CACCAMO: I'm paying a grand a week.
B5: That's a lot, fuck, he's making heaps.
PETER RYAN, NSW POLICE COMMISSIONER: They're letting us all down, every single one of us -- they're letting us down.
It's almost like they are traitors in our midst.
They are giving up the police service.
They are giving up their colleagues to the hands of criminals.
They're embarrassing us beyond belief.
They're causing more difficulties.
But the worrying part, of course, in it is their tentacles and networks across the whole of the service are creating other difficulties, other areas, criticisms here and there, and disruption.
And that really is the wickedness of the whole thing.
CHRIS MASTERS: To get a better sense of the broader patterns of corruption in this and other local areas, Internal Affairs police began, last year, to stage a series of what they call 'integrity tests'.
PETER RYAN: These are extreme circumstances.
Police officers are expected to act beyond reproach.
They are held to be of a behavioural standard above the rest of the community.
And if that standard is breached in any way, there has to be another extreme measure to try and balance up the equation.
That we will bring in an integrity test because we do expect a high standard.
CHRIS MASTERS: In June 2000, another search was conducted at Manly but this time, unknown to most police involved, it was an integrity test.
The unit to be searched was extensively monitored and wired.
A female undercover officer was present, acting the part of a friend of a suspected drug dealer.
A stash of money, drugs, scales etc had been secreted in this cupboard.
One police officer carries a video camera, which is supposed to be used to demonstrate procedures are properly followed.
The uniformed independent officer is also there to ensure integrity.
As you can see, the video camera is not used.
You will by now be familiar with the officer undertaking the search, Detective Senior Constable Patison.
He seems to have a talent for sniffing out drugs and money.
Within seven minutes of arrival, he finds the stash, which he secretly separates.
The drugs and lesser quantity of money, $2,230, he puts on the table.
The bulk of the money, $6,000, he has slipped into his shorts.
Patison goes outside soon after to check the money.
When police leave, they take the money, the drugs and two DVD players with them.
Patison later gives one of his colleagues $2,000, claiming it is half the total which is, in fact, $6,000, casting doubts on notions of sacred brotherhood let alone honour among thieves.
Later there is some muttering among the parties who are short-changed.
POLICEMAN 1: There was six, not four and he gave me two so I'll have to clarify it with the bloke next week but ah --
POLICEMAN 2: Right.
OK.
POLICEMAN 1: I'm not happy till we get to the bottom of this.
POLICEMAN 2: Well that's the rules.
They always said they're the same.
Pato's always played by them.
Well, they're my rules.
POLICEMAN 1: But even if you were leaving fuckin Jasper out it should have been three each if you know what I mean.
Not fuckin 2:4, you know what I mean?
POLICEMAN 2: It's always been equal parts.
POLICEMAN 1: Maybe he's getting a bit greedy I don't know.
POLICEMAN 2: Yeah, 'cause he's not like that.
POLICEMAN 1: I know he's gone over budget on his house so.
But even if that was the case I mean it's something which --
you don't dud your mates because you're never going to get in anything else again.
POLICEMAN 2: Exactly.
CHRIS MASTERS: Later, some amends were made when the uniformed Sergeant Hill -- who attended the scene as the independent officer -- was given $300.
POLICEMAN 1: Now, what is it?
POLICEMAN 2: Two by DVD players to be returned to.
POLICEMAN 1: No, what's the number do you know?
POLICEMAN 2: Ah, hang on.
Yeah, it's 5 ah, 584922.
POLICEMAN 1: Ah yes that's them.
Beautiful.
POLICEMAN 2: Like to sign the book?
sign them out?
POLICEMAN 1: Ah mate, they're not going anywhere.
Just give me the receipt now and we'll fix em up tomorrow morning.
POLICEMAN 2: OK, good as gold.
Thanks mate.
CHRIS MASTERS: Patison's partner Jasper got his prize seven weeks later when the books were fiddled in such a way as to have one of the seized DVD players, worth around $1,000, diverted to his custody.
PETER RYAN: The systems are there.
They just don't comply with them.
CHRIS MASTERS: And it wasn't as if some of these police were just prepared to steal money, they seemed to be actually eager to do so, looking for opportunities.
Did that shock you, surprise you?
PETER RYAN: It did.
Ahh -- it isn't just a matter of cultivating a criminal, and then saying, "I want part of your proceedings of crime, "and then I'll allow you to operate freely."
These people are actually actively going out looking for the opportunity to take money off people, a drug dealer, for example, or to encourage them to give them drugs or to work for them, so they were recruiting.
I mean, this is terrible.
But it's choices they are making.
All the systems and procedures in the world and supervision in the world isn't going to stop these people doing that.
How we can change their philosophy -- I'd love to be able to wire into them and program them anew and say, "You should not do this."
But they're human beings and, unfortunately, they make the choices.
CHRIS MASTERS: The big worry is the same worry that emerged through the Wood Royal Commission.
Where is the supervision that dissuades corruption?
Where is the vigilance that arrests it?
In August last year, the acting duty officer for Northern Beaches Command, Sergeant Mark Messenger, was asked whether he would illegally obtain confidential information about the cannabis dealer investigation.
The senior officer and supposed role model, Messenger, is seen wearing the shorts.
X: I just popped down to give fuckin' give you a present, that's all.
MESSENGER: Yeah, no worries.
X: It's in there mate.
MESSENGER: Lovely mate, I'm very happy with that mate.
X: No worries mate, it's five there so --
It's not the end of it.
I'll keep you appraised of how things are going.
Well mate I might have to come back to you that's all because it's your area that's the only thing.
I don't know who else to talk to, year know.
CHRIS MASTERS: This surveillance video records the follow-up meeting in a local park, where he delivers and is, in return, given $500 wrapped up in a newspaper.
MESSENGER: Mate it was, I couldn't find the brief anywhere.
But I got a copy of the fax and made it virtually said.
X: lets go talk in the van.
CHRIS MASTERS: The following month, another request is made for confidential information, and another meeting occurs in the car park of a local swim centre.
Over the years, selling intelligence to criminals has been a very good earner for corrupt lawyers and police.
Sergeant Messenger, who was also a local Police Association representative, is again wearing the shorts and singlet.
The cooperating police officer is in white.
X: Mate there's $1500 for that.
MESSENGER: You're kidding.
X: yeah, mate all you got to do is show it to him.
Satisfied.
It's all over and done with.
CHRIS MASTERS: Messenger hands over a fact sheet for which there's a down payment.
X: one, two, three, four, five.
That's yours mate.
MESSENGER: Yeah, no worries.
Not a problem mate.
CHRIS MASTERS: It is fair to say there were other supervisors at Manly trying to do the right thing, and still others like the then local area commander either not listening or not wanting to know.
RECEPTIONIST: I'll put you through to the commander.
One moment.
CALLER: Thank you.
GARY RAYMOND, FORMER COMMANDER MANLY POLICE: commander Gary Raymond, how can I help you?
CHRIS MASTERS: Earlier that year, when the commander was telephoned and warned by a local about police misconduct during searches, this was his response.
GARY RAYMOND: This is not the bad old days -- this is highly sophisticated procedures these days.
CALLER: Commander Raymond, right, don't tell me about the good old days, right, because they're still here, better than ever.
GARY RAYMOND: Don't be as gullible as other people surely.
PETER RYAN: But when a little team goes off and does a thing which is wrong, however wrong it might be, you can't stack up behind them on every occasion these serried ranks of supervisors to make sure each one is checking on the other.
It's just impossible.
CHRIS MASTERS: But do you take responsibility for failures further down the line?
PETER RYAN: What?
Me personally?
I feel I do.
I feel what is it we've done that we could have done better.
CHRIS MURPHY: In order to supervise police, you need senior officers you can trust, you need educated grassroots police you can trust, and you need to pay them an honourable wage that won't see them tempted.
But I think it's also implicit in any system that you must have someone -- to be a policeman -- who's prepared to enforce the law against other police officers.
POLICEMAN: There's a lot of moisture or water inside the jar.
CHRIS MASTERS: This inquiry has looked up at management culpability.
It has looked out at networks of corruption stretching across NSW and Australia.
And it's looked back.
POLICEMAN: 10 there.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 --
CHRIS MASTERS: There is a lot of history still to be dug up.
On this occasion, Internal Affairs police are recovering $2,000 in dirty money hidden by an officer who has admitted a wealth of corrupt payments.
CHRIS MURPHY: The situation that we have at present is that we've got managerial problems -- not Peter Ryan, the Commissioner's fault.
They're the fault of the fact that we had thousands of dishonest people working as policemen and we had to get rid of them.
And the replacement of the infrastructure is a very, very difficult task.
PETER RYAN: I think, um, just after the Royal Commission, Justice Wood in his report said, "This could take a generation to change."
And I agree with him.
People expect things to happen overnight, but it can't be.
You have to go into this for the long haul.
CHRIS MASTERS: But the old guard does not give up without a fight.
They yearn for the old ways.
On this occasion, an experienced detective with the elite Crime Agencies division laments the passing of the old days when you were afraid to take time off because of the rewards you might miss.
POLICEMAN 1: Will it ever get back to that?
POLICEMAN 2: I don't think so.
It might.
POLICEMAN 1: It won't because there aren't enough of us left gunna be left to teach them.
CHRIS MASTERS: Many of these detectives have convinced themselves that despite their overt corruption, they are still effective.
DR DON WEATHERBURN: The notion -- the old notion -- that somehow or other the only way to reduce crime is to get pally with crooks, and get information on people you can subsequently arrest, is quite naive and antiquated.
There are very effective strategies for reducing crime that don't involve talking to offenders at all.
CHRIS MASTERS: Many corrupt police observed during this inquiry have collected hundreds of thousands in dirty money over the years.
Detective Patison put some of the cash into improving his home, but most operate under the taxman's radar and don't put it into visible assets.
POLICEMAN 1: That's the trouble with cops and fuckin' quids.
You know like, ya can really only use it for fuckin' pissing against the wall and shit like that.
POLICEMAN 2: You can't really turn it into a house can you?
POLICEMAN 1: Nah.
POLICEMAN 2: I'm still happy.
CHRIS MASTERS: The corruption over the years has accommodated prodigious drinking and alcoholism.
There have been numerous examples uncovered of police using their power to conceal drink-driving accidents.
There are numerous stories of all day and night drinking sessions charged up as overtime.
PETER RYAN: They seemed to think that all sitting around with a few glasses of beer and talking over the job or whatever is a good way of doing business.
It's generally avoiding work, in my view.
CHRIS MASTERS: On this day, the old-time sergeant Ray Peattie was recorded talking about the rules of corruption and his view of the ideal crook.
SERGEANT RAY PEATTIE: He's robbable.
POLICEMAN: Yeah.
SERGEANT RAY PEATTIE: That would be the way to go, lock him up, fuckin' rob him give him fuckin' 10 per cent off for a letter.
He'd expect to be fuckin' robbed.
He wouldn't complain.
CHRIS MASTERS: As the day wears on -- and sobriety wears off -- he counsels against making weekly arrangements to collect money.
SERGEANT RAY PEATTIE: Each collection will be a fuckin' danger zone.
Bad way of doing business.
CHRIS MASTERS: There are also indications of similar patterns of behaviour across State boundaries.
Corrupt police talk of an unwritten rule of hosting visiting interstate police, falsifying accommodation receipts, and being allowed to book up fictitious overtime in order to cover the costs.
When NSW police visit other States, they say they observe the same behaviour you have seen tonight.
What reason have you to believe that corruption patterns in NSW, as revealed today, do or do not exist in other States?
PETER RYAN: I have no proof.
But I would say they do.
There is no doubt about that.
It is bound to happen.
NSW is not unique in any other area, but we are trying very hard to do something about it, hence the public exposure of what we are doing about it.
CHRIS MASTERS: What you have seen is most certainly a microcosm of a wider story, as will be revealed when this inquiry further unfolds.
And it is a tragic, tragic story encapsulated by the soulless lives of two in the cast of tonight's rogues gallery.
The heroin dealer Caccamo, who has operated freely for years and made millions, has nothing to show for it.
He has been regularly observed putting $3,000 to $4,000 through the poker machines at this club.
One of the corrupt police officers at nearby Manly frequently lost his share to the same machines.
CHRIS MURPHY: In an odd sort of way, the structure of life is that the pathos of the small criminal was almost the pathos of the small police officer.
CHRIS MASTERS: As this inquiry reaches further back, it will show that these patterns were established decades ago.
One of the biggest dealers on the Northern Beaches speaks of meeting at this club once a week and playing golf with a group of police who would receive weekly payments.
And by the way, within the last decade, there have been over 300 deaths by overdose in northern Sydney.
The victims, and that is all of us, have a right to be angry.
FRANK FEATHERSTONE: For the last 15 years, probably, I suppose our greatest fear was that, um, we'd never know that he'd died, that he'd be somewhere in Australia, and we'd never see our son again.
JUDY SKIPPER: You know, we've all got on our mind about terrorists at the moment.
I see these are a form of terrorists in our -- in our society.
OLGA VASSAROTI: I can't understand how these people could sell this stuff if they knew what it did to people, you know?
They're murderers, obviously, because it just kills people.
LOUISE LIN: It's terrible, because I love her, I love her more than anything in the world, I'd do anything to help her, and she doesn't want to be helped.
You put your hand out and she slaps you in the face for it.
It's just the way things are.
CHRIS MASTERS: But we should end with something that brings some relief -- an important whistleblower whose evidence partly opened up this inquiry came forward voluntarily.
NSW Internal Affairs police who have undertaken it have done so both willingly and effectively.
There is within their actions evidence of a sea change clearly overdue and still with some way to go.
PETER RYAN: We are the thief-takers, the corruption busters, and we're coming again.
There's more in the pipeline and I'm coming again, so they ought to listen to THAT message, and not just think, "Well, that's another inquiry out of the way."
Because it isn't.
I'll be coming again.
POLICEMAN: I wonder if, at the last, when you're ready to execute it, if we got the duty officer from Dee Why to handle it --
CHRIS MASTERS: The Police Integrity Commission hearings will reveal more examples of the corruption you've seen tonight, and we go out listening in to the result of another search warrant and the oh-so-appropriate car radio background music.
POLICEMAN 1: D'ya want me to start counting this while we are driving around.
ya know what I mean?
Holy fucking dooley there is a fair bit there isn't there.
POLICEMAN 2: Jesus Christ.
Sort em out into piles I reckon.
POLICEMAN 1: Fuck me dead.
I didn't know you could fit that much into an RM Williams.
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