Organised crime detectives have seized control of an encrypted phone network allegedly used by Sydney’s gangsters, and their bosses exiled abroad, to carry out drug deals, kidnappings and murders using Chinese-made speciality devices.
On Thursday evening, detectives broadcast a message to alleged gangsters on 3000 handsets, warning them that their encrypted messaging accounts had been linked to a criminal network.
Over the past month, NSW Police raided properties in Botany and Banksmeadow, recovering dozens of phones imported from China that lack front-facing cameras, and intercepting over 60 devices.
The devices had been outfitted with custom-encrypted operating systems and brought into Australia by a group calling itself the VIP Network.
The VIP Network had been selling the devices for $2000 apiece and targeting Sydney’s underworld as its user base, police allege.
On Thursday, police raided properties in Kogarah, Bexley and Rockdale, seizing a further 35 devices, alongside almost $35,000 in cash and luxury watches, and arresting three brothers.
Hussein Dabaja, 25, Sami Dabaja, 26, and Hasan Dabaja, 29, were charged with participating in a criminal group, contributing to criminal activity, recklessly dealing with proceeds of crime greater than $5000 and aiding and/or abetting the possession of Dedicated Encrypted Criminal Communication Devices to commit serious criminal activity.
They will face Bail Division Local Court on Friday.
Detectives believe the VIP Network sold about 1000 of the devices per year, meaning they were raking in some $2 million.
The devices were used, police believe, in Sydney’s bloody feud between the Alameddine crime family and the Coconut Cartel.
They had also allegedly been used by the Badger crime network, who are believed to have ordered the killing of Coconut Cartel boss Lorenzo Lemalu in Vietnam earlier this year.
The charges faced by the Dabaja brothers are not connected to any killings.
“This operation has struck at the heart of a criminal network that was allegedly deliberately arming organised crime groups with the tools to conceal their offending,” Detective Superintendent Peter Faux, head of the Organised Crime Squad, said.
“We have now identified over 3000 devices distributed by the VIP OCN to commit serious crimes. These devices will now be a part of the ongoing investigation as to who is using them and what they are doing.
“By dismantling this network, detectives have removed a key enabler of organised crime in NSW and reaffirmed our commitment to disrupting those who believe they can hide behind technology.”
The warring gangs have been using the encrypted phones to orchestrate violent kidnappings, which have struck fear into even hardened underworld figures, inspiring some to flee overseas, police have alleged.
They had also allegedly been used to carry out murders and shootings across the city, with bosses often insulated from the kill crews thanks to the encrypted communications.
But on Thursday evening, detectives broadcast a message across the encrypted VIP Network.
“NSW Police Force has linked this Signal or Threema account with the VIP Phones encrypted phone supplier,” the message reads.
“Detectives from State Crime Command will continue to identify, investigate and prosecute all persons connected with the VIP Phones Criminal Network.”
Threema and Signal are anonymous, encrypted messaging apps.
News of the VIP Network’s collapse will come as a further blow to Sydney’s gangland, which has seen members arrested, shot dead, injured or forced to flee the city over the last 24 months.
Police say the Coconut Cartel’s Australian operation has been dismantled. Its alleged onshore leader, Henry Kupa, was arrested in April after police seized 390 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in buckets at an Emu Plains property, while in May, police arrested several alleged cartel associates.
Meanwhile, its senior leaders are in hiding abroad. Police allege senior cartel member Anthony Pele is directing the cartel from South-East Asia, working alongside drug kingpin Daniel Rodney Badger, who is one of the Australian authorities’ highest-priority overseas targets.
The pair is suspected of co-ordinating several large-scale drug imports into Australia alongside Badger’s syndicate, dubbed the Badger Organised Crime Network.
Since the cartel’s onshore dismantling, however, there has been unrest between the groups. Police are investigating whether Lemalu’s killing was ordered by Badger in reprisal for the cartel losing the 390 kilos of methamphetamine leading to Kupa’s arrest.
Lemalu died after being shot several times at close range with what Vietnamese police described as a military-style firearm on May 21.
Badger, who is alleged to be one of the biggest importers of illicit drugs into Australia, has been based in South-East Asia since relocating from western Sydney a decade ago.
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