The An0m bust in Operation Ironside took down hundreds of organised criminals globally. But crime does not sleep and another cartel is waiting in the wings.
Forget Insta influencers and tattooed Harley riders or fitness junkies with bags of cash meeting in the haunts of the rich and infamous. Today s 2021 drug trafficking crime lords are tech savvy, discrete, deal in Bitcoin, understand transnational laws and globally networked and likely living overseas to traffic anything, from drugs to arms, tobacco to laundered money. And this year it is predicted 100 per cent of their business will be done online via encrypted channels with international collaboration of unprecedented scale to create wealth and crime lines at levels never seen, testing traditional policing approaches like never before. That s the conclusion of an Australian Federal Police assessment that notes the changing face of the drugs trafficking crime boss into increasingly sophisticated digital criminals, posing new challenges for law enforcement including the AFP and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.