DRUG LORDS TO STAY: POLICE

POLICE Commissioner Barry Matthews has conceded police will never rid WA of
Mr Big drug dealers because there is too much money to be made from drugs.

Mr Matthews was responding yesterday to the comments of Acting Chief Justice
Geoffrey Kennedy, who told a drug action conference at the weekend that
big-time drug dealers were rarely prosecuted.

"I think the profit that can be made from organised drug dealing is huge so
as soon as you knock over one or two or 10 or 20, there's another number
that will come and fill their shoes," Mr Matthews said.

Instead, he advocated constant vigilance in the fight against drugs and drug
dealers.

Mr Matthews said community worries that bikie gangs were behind a lot of
drug dealing had some foundation, but the primary attraction of drug dealing
was the big profits that could be made.

"There has been a concern, particularly in the United States and that has
carried through to other countries, about some of the bikie gangs that have
got involved in organised crime," he said.

"But it is not just bikies that are involved. There are other people that
have set up importation and manufacturing processes and they are a cause of
our concern . . . and we do target a number of people.

"A number of them are sort of business-type people and have just gone into
it purely for the money."

"They have not been brought through the sort of drug culture and therefore
they are only there for the money."

Mr Matthews said a Mr Big was a person "that really is running the thing
from the top of the tree".

But it was hard to catch them because that criminal was not always involved
in direct handling of the drugs - "the person that is actually not doing the
dealing, not doing the selling but is getting other people to do the
manufacture, the importation and the selling," he said.

"Very often, these people sometimes don't handle the drugs at all and
therefore they are difficult to get because you can't catch them in
possession of the large amount. You have actually got to use other means to
get to them. And that is always difficult."

Mr Matthews said he was a strong advocate of proceeds of crime legislation
which was introduced to State Parliament last month.

Under the legislation, drug dealers who cannot prove their wealth comes from
legitimate sources may have it confiscated.

"Once you take the spoils of the crime away from them, then of course they
lose interest in it," he said.

He also defended detectives in the organised crime unit, formerly the drug
squad.

"I think that the organised crime unit . . . have had some great successes,"
he said. "I mean, we have charged 200 people over the last 12 months with
400 charges.

"A lot of these are very significant charges. They are not low-level charges
so I am very impressed with what they are doing."

Mr Matthews denied Police Union claims that organised crime officers were
being hampered by the Anti-Corruption Commission.