He said the operation would take six weeks and cost $40,000. “It is considered that a Sting Operation in this area will produce sensational results.”
His bosses, more interested in long lunches than short stings, were not convinced, and the operation was never authorised. Why not try it today?
Operation Tideland was an investigation into the Gym Gang, a group of armed robbers who carried out seven raids over 24 years – stealing nearly $5 million.
The key members were close mates, highly trained, and had taught themselves police tactics. They would never talk on the phone, in their cars or their homes, always wary of listening devices.
They only spoke in open air, public spaces with one key member taking his small dog for a walk as a cover.
Police secretly bugged the dog’s collar, but sadly the dog’s little legs made him huff and puff to keep up, which drowned out the gang members’ conversations.
Operation Baxley: A gang of six in 1996 planned to raid the Sigma chemical factory and steal legal amphetamine chemicals worth $166 million.
They broke in 20 times and set up their own secret camera system. But when they tried to recruit a safe man he went to the police.
‘What are you complaining about? I was beaten up by a bush.’
On the day of the raid 50 police were waiting. It was pouring rain as the Special Operations Group set up the ambush wearing camouflage, including bracken, to hide in the shrubs while others were lying in ditches half filled with water. When they were arrested one of the crooks said he had been bitten by a police dog. Another one said, “What are you complaining about? I was beaten up by a bush.”
In 1992, Coles Myer executive Christopher Boucher was determined not to pay his ex-wife the settlement deemed fair by the Family Court. Instead he approached a security expert to find him a hitman. Enter an undercover cop who taped Boucher suggesting she may be, “battered, shot, stabbed, strangled, drowned or electrocuted – the old hairdryer in the bathtub – and if that doesn’t work hold her under.”
In his bugged house Boucher practised how to act grief stricken when the police knocked on his door to give him the death message. When detectives arrived, Boucher’s eyes filled with crocodile tears in anticipation. Soon they were real when a detective said, “I have terrible news for you, sir. Your wife is alive — and I am arresting you for conspiracy to murder.”
Operation Thorn: An armed robbery gang planned to steal $1 million on a raid at Melbourne airport in 1992. They thought they had an inside man in the armoured van business but sadly for them, he talked to the police.
Special Operations Group police arrest Stephen Asling after three bandits tried to escape with $1million from the Melbourne Airport in 1992. One of the bandits, Normie Lee, was shot dead.
Stephen Asling was the driver; Stephen Barci and Great Bookie Robbery member Normie Lee were the gunmen. It started well with the gunmen throwing the money sacks in the back of the panel van then jumping in. But the odds were not on their side, as there were 52 police ready to move.
Asling was a little quick off the mark, planting the foot before the back doors were locked.
A couple of sacks and a couple of crooks fell out the back, then Asling was hit head on by a Special Operations Group four-wheel drive.
July 28, 1992: police Special
Operations Group smash into the bandits’ panel van at Melbourne Airport.Credit: Police surveillance
Lee pointed his gun at police, which turned out to be a fatal mistake. He was shot dead, Barci was shot multiple times and Asling arrested.
Years later when Barci ran into the SOG man who shot him he remarked, “I don’t mind that you shot me, but you didn’t need to do it five times.” (Three bullets hit him.) The cop said, “I only shot you five times because I ran out of bullets.”
They later became drinking buddies. Asling on the other hand didn’t learn crime wasn’t for him. He went on to be a hitman for drug boss Carl Williams, taking the 2003 contract to kill Graham Kinniburgh in Kew. Williams promised him $150,000 but only paid the deposit of $30,000. Many years later Asling was charged and convicted of the murder.
Operation Soli: When former lawyer Philip Peters wanted to abduct and murder well-known criminal Peter Kypri, police were tipped off by the middle man.
Peters blamed Kypri for the loss of $200,000 in an insurance fraud that went wrong. He planned to take Kypri to a pit under a farmhouse in St Arnaud and torture him until he provided the cash. Then the middle man, a former butcher, was to dismember the body.
Police used the dummy from the Full Frontal TV show as a prop. As part of the sting, the middle man pretended the victim was in the back of his van, showing Peters the “body”.
In the bugged conversation “John” – the middle man – says, “Yeah, come on, I’ll show you.”
Peters: “Well, I want to stop him breathing.”
John: “Well, come and have a look.”
Peters: “Put a plastic bag over his head.”
Then police moved in for the arrest.
Operation Trojan Shield was the biggest international police bugging sting. Over three years police agencies, including the FBI and AFP, operated a company that promoted an encrypted messaging system for crooks that was supposed to be protected from police.
Police enlisted the help of an underworld tech genius who had built similar systems, but this one had a back door, meaning they were able to trap 27 million encrypted messages from 12,000 phones. The sting resulted in the arrest of 800 suspects around the world and the seizing of more than 30 tonnes of drugs to the value of $70 million.
In one case a captured message revealed a murder plot in Melbourne. Police seized the stolen getaway car, which included the guns to be used in the hit, before the crooks got there, and the plan was derailed.
The black cap found at the crime scene.Credit: Victoria Police
Then there was the Marlboro man. When a young man was abducted from his Glen Waverley home, one of the few clues was a Marlboro baseball cap found at the scene.
Police were able to establish it was one of a promotional batch handed out at US airports for buying duty-free cigarettes. Police traced two brothers who bought four cartons at 12.46am on April 20, 1996, in the North America Shop at the Tom Bradley Terminal in the Los Angeles Airport, providing their ticket details to be given the discount.
The ticket showed they were flying to Sydney via Hong Kong and then Melbourne.
On the orders of an Asian crime boss based in London, they were to abduct Le Anh Tuan, 21, who was to be used as ransom. But as a neighbour witnessed the abduction and called police, the kidnap eventually became a murder, with the body recovered a few weeks later. They flew back to the US, where cops grabbed one of them at Long Beach on some fake fraud charges.
The suspect was nervous and asked if he could smoke. The police said that while the station was smoke-free, he could go ahead if he spat on the butts to put them out. The suspect smoked three cigarettes, which were then gathered up and sent to Australia, where they provided a positive DNA match with the Marlboro hat found at the scene.
Our favourite is the 1985 US Operation Flagship. Fugitives were sent invitations saying they had won tickets to be bussed to a Washington Redskins-Cincinnati Bengals game, with a bonus chance of Super Bowl tickets.
The US marshals set up a fake TV station and were there to greet them dressed as cheerleaders, mascots and even ushers in tuxedos. More than 100 turned up, and they were bussed. But not to the stadium – they went straight to the local prison.
Everyone likes free stuff, particularly crooks.
John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.