NET OFFENCES TOP PRIORITY: CRIMES EXPERT

Electronic crime, particularly that committed via the Internet, will soon
become the biggest challenge facing police and law enforcement agencies,
says the former general manager of operations at the National Crime
Authority, Mr Peter Lamb.

Mr Lamb, who retired last Friday after almost 40 years in policing, said
the volume of business already being done on the Net was huge, and police
were struggling to keep up.

"We are moving towards looking at it, but here in Australia we have no idea
of the scope of the problem," he said.

Mr Lamb, one of the most experienced law enforcement officers in the
country, said money was increasingly being sent via the Net, and this posed
some big challenges, not just for police but for legislators.

"Money can be sent at the touch of a key," he said. "A touch of the key
removes the evidence. And where is the crime committed? Out there in the
ether, here, or at the other end [of the transaction]?"

One of the difficulties law enforcement faced was that officers experienced
in dealing with computer crime were quickly poached by big business, which
offered "a lot more than we can pay", he said.

Mr Lamb, who spent most of his career with the Federal Police, was the
first officer in charge of that force's organised crime division in Sydney
in the 1970s, "Sydney being the home of organised crime".

He also worked in the United States and for the Independent Commission
Against Corruption.

Drugs had changed the dynamics and structure of organised crime forever, he
said.

Anglo-Saxon and Celtic criminal groups such as those run by Lennie
McPherson and George Freeman had dominated Sydney's crime scene for many
years via illegal gambling, prostitution, robbery, standover and protection
rackets.

"On their day they ran Sydney. But Lennie and those fellows pale into
insignificance now ... heroin changed all that. Drugs have brought into
play a far more vicious and violent element who, in staking out their patch
and their marketplace, will do anything to protect it."

Chinese and Vietnamese groups were responsible for the vast majority of
heroin importing and distribution, he said, although those reaping the huge
profits would often never set foot in Australia.

"There are certainly major profit-takers within Australia, but the
significant profit-takers reside overseas. The money is moved [back to
them] in a variety of ways."

Mr Lamb said that in the 1970s he had worked on what were thought to be big
money laundering cases involving up to $30 million, but these days those
kinds of amounts were regarded as trivial.

Although police would never stop drugs coming into the country, they could
make life very difficult for many of the big syndicates which were using
lawyers, private investigators and former police as advisers.

"What we are seeing now in Australia is what I saw in the US: criminal
elements doing their homework on our methods. They employ quality people to
research our methods."

This included advice on electronic surveillance.