DETECTIVES | The Rat Pack

0:02A listener production. A warning. This episode contains descriptions of violent crime and suicidal ideation. Please listen with care. They call themselves outlaw motorcycle gangs for a particular reason, because they are outlaws. They have the outlaw appearance of, you know, just good blokes, just knock-a-bound blokes who, you know, drive motorbikes and hang out together, where, in fact, they are one of the best organised criminal gangs on the planet.

0:32Australia's outlaw motorcycle gangs have long cast a shadow over the country's criminal landscape, marked by violent turf wars, drug trafficking and a fiercely guarded code of loyalty. The prospects are those who will carry guns for the club members. They will run, you know, shipment of drugs from one side of the city to another. And often they're deliberately set up so that they will attract police attention. If they're arrested, then they'll be judged on how well they shut up.

1:04Just shut their mouths, they say nothing. That proves their word. Former detective Keith Banks spent three years leading the outlaw motorcycle gang intelligence section with Queensland Police, pursuing some of the most notorious networks, including the Hells Angels, Rebels and Black U-Lands. There's an old saying that you don't catch crooks in bingo halls, you meet them in pubs. We spent a fair bit of time drinking, getting to know people, to just get snippets.

1:35Intelligence analysis is just getting snippets of information and then trying to fit them together. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle. In today's episode, get an insight into what it's like to come face-to-face with these gangs, the intelligence work behind the scenes, and the challenges of dealing with some of Australia's most dangerous criminal organisations. Spoke to the president, I said, look, this is who I am, this is what I do, I understand what you guys are doing, however, the cops have got a job to do.

2:05And I said, I don't want to see it all go badly here, because it's got the potential to. And he said, you're the first deaf and cop that I'm talking to that's got some sense. And I said, well, I appreciate that, mate. Keith also takes us through what it was like to work in the era of corrupt policeman Tony Murphy and a group known as the Rat Pack, a crew whose names later became synonymous with corruption within Queensland police. And I remember a senior constable I was working with telling me about Murphy.

2:35It was bizarre because it was one o'clock in the morning or around me. And suddenly he lowered his voice as if we'd be overheard from someone. about this guy Murphy, who was just feared. He was rumoured to have killed two people that was off the books. He was rumoured to have done all various things. He was just terrifying. I'm former police officer Brent Sanders, and for the past 25 years, I've dedicated myself to sharing what I've learned on the force to the Australian public, so they can better protect themselves from falling victim to crime.

3:13So with the help of some of the most respected current and former detectives and high-ranking law enforcement agents, we're going to pull back the curtain on what life is like on the force and what they've learned about how crime and criminals really work. These are real stories from real detectives. Keith, during your time policing in Queensland over two decades, at one point you led the Bikie Gang Intelligence section. For three years, you worked closely with members of notorious outlaw motorcycle gangs such as the Rebels, the Black Oolans and Hells Angels, amongst others.

3:56Can I take you back to that time, Keith, and discuss what that was like and your involvement in those organisations? Yeah, that was in the days of the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence and each police force had its own BCI around Australia. And all intelligence was centralised in Canberra with the Australian BCI. So within the BCI office, there were a number of desks. There were Italian organised crime, pedophilia, drug deals, you know, drug dealing in certain sectors, etc., painters and dockers.

4:28And the other desk was called wing clipping, so the bikey desk. Wing clipping, the term originated from, I think the Hells Angels still do have, or their famous logo is a flame in the back of the skull, and bikies adorn their vests with wings of various things. So obviously some wit came up with the idea that we'd clip their wings. So when I moved from the tactical team into the VCI, did my surveillance course, and I sort of weren't betrayed in the surveillance area because we ran surveillance teams as well.

5:01And then I think within maybe a couple of months, the boss spoke to me and asked me if I was interested in taking over the wind clipping desk. And I'd actually had involvement with bikey gangs, particularly the Black Yulans at that stage, which was the biggest criminal, well, most vocal gang in Queensland. And I'd had experience with them in the task force before the tactical world as a detective, etc. Because we arrested a number of bikies for various criminal activities.

5:30So I was intrigued and particularly given, I think, about two or three years before that, my tactical team had been involved in a raid on the Fintz motorcycle gang in Coomera on the Gold Coast. And the threat was quite substantial. And we then engaged the use of nine squadron, the RAAF, Iroquois helicopters. So we flew in, again, you know, boys' own stuff. Flew in at dawn. Didn't have the Flight of the Valkyries playing, but, you know, flew in at dawn in five choppers and hit the clubhouse and the surrounds.

6:02And, you know, these guys came out. They weren't armed or they didn't bring any weapons with them. Good thing to them. And so we landed, took control and flew out again. I'd arrested bikies variously. You know, I'd had experiences with them. I knew some of them. When I say personally, I knew some of them from an occupational perspective. And I was intrigued by the entire culture of outlaw motorcycle gangs. So I said yes, resounding yes. And I started looking at all the intelligence files we had.

6:32And gathering intel in those days was not a technology-based role. It was more about assessing what was going on, speaking to police on the ground, speaking to detectives who'd arrested either members of gangs or prospects of gangs or associates of gangs, and getting as much connection between people as you could. So there's a whole science behind intelligence analysis. You gather facts, you gather reports, you draw an inference based on what you see.

7:01So a trained intelligence analyst will be able to look at various factors and draw together a conclusion or what we call an inference. So you draw an inference and then that becomes a premise later and then that can be the cornerstone of a criminal investigation or arrest team. In essence, it's a bit of a best-guess thing as well, because you may have information that someone's acting in a certain way, and as a good example, there was a civilian employee at police headquarters who was working in the Information Bureau.

7:33I won't identify their gender, I'll call them they. That person had been put in through that public service by a patched member of the Black Units. So they had worked their way through as a public servant into the information section, which was where all classified police documentation was kept. We started working on that. We had some information that may be the case, and then we went through the records of everybody in that section, their length of tenure, their associates, their behaviours.

8:03So it sounds a little bit big brotherish, but it was a defined method of investigation to gather enough intelligence to create an inference on the premise that this person was involved. And they were. They had been placed there deliberately in what we call, and you'd be familiar with the term, clean skin. So a clean skin is someone with no criminal record at all. This person had been put in there for that specific purpose. It then became apparent to us a couple of years down the track of it that bikie gangs were also recruiting clean skin young men particularly and having them apply for the police force.

8:42putting their own mould in to the police force with the objective of having them reach certain ranks where they could be very, very helpful to a criminal organisation. So I used to laugh at people who would tell me that, you know, not all bikies are bad. They donate toys once a year to the children's hospital and, you know, they're just misunderstood guys who like to ride around in motorbikes. And it's far from it. The entire culture of OMGs is that you start hanging around, literally, people who are patched members.

9:12And patched members are those who have the top rocker. Let's say, make it easy, the Hells Angels. And the bottom rocker is the chapter they're located in, and let's say Sydney or Mount George or something. And in the middle is the club logo, and the Hells Angels have the flaming skull. Now, in order to become patched, you need to prove your loyalty and your trustworthiness. through the club. And the club will start you, or they'll start, I suppose, identifying people who hang around the club.

9:43And they're literally called hangarounds. They put seconds of thought into these things. And the hangaround is the one that will go on rides with them. They'll do all the shit with it. they will organise things for them. They can then work their way into becoming a prospect. And a prospect, if you see a patch member or you see a bike gang riding, you'll see that some of them don't have the centrepiece, so that the floating skull or the logo of the club, they simply have the top locker and the bottom locker.

10:13They're prospects. They haven't yet proven themselves. They haven't yet shown that they're capable of being a patch member. They do even more shit work, to use the term, than the hangarounds do. The prospects are those who will carry guns for the club members. They'll carry drugs for the club members. They will run a packet of, you know, shipment of drugs from one side of the city to another. And often they're tested this way. They're deliberately set up so that they will attract police attention.

10:46If they're arrested, then they'll be judged on how well they show up. They just shut their mouths, they say nothing. That proves their worth. It's a twofold thing. It proves their worth to the club, and it also eliminates undercover police, because police aren't permitted unless there's certain circumstances to commit a criminal act. So it's a way to scream that out. It doesn't always work. Particularly in the USA, there have been some fantastic undercover operations where...

11:13ATF agents and FBI agents and police agents have actually infiltrated the Hells Angels and become patch members and become sergeants in arms. So it's a really interesting role over there. But the clubs themselves, they call themselves outlaw motorcycle gangs for a particular reason, because they are outlaws. They refuse to follow convention, they refuse to obey the law, and within those clubs there is always a cadre of organised criminals. So they have the outward appearance of, you know, just good blokes, just knock-a-bound blokes who, you know, drive motorbikes and hang out together, where in fact they are one of the best organised criminal gangs on the planet.

11:59When I was working in that area, I think the Canadians, yeah, it was the Canadians, who had the risk factors of organised crime. The mafia, we're all familiar with the mafia, that was ranked as the number two criminal threat. The top criminal threat were outlaw motorcycle gangs because they had the opportunity, they still do them, they go on things called runs. So it'll be a compulsory run. So you will have to turn up the clubhouse with your bike, load your swag and whatever on the back, and they will ride from, let's make it up, Melbourne to Perth on an organised run.

12:34What they say is that's just all of us getting together, meeting up with our brothers in other states and having drinks and bringing in strippers and just having a good time and just meeting. When in fact, the sole purpose or the underlying purpose of a run is to meet and talk about drug territory, talk about channels of distribution, talk about the methods of either cooking or importation. And that happens, I think a run would probably happen twice a year.

13:02So we were aware of all of that. The other interesting thing for me was that anybody who looks from the outside, I suppose, or watches something like Sons of Aniky, which I quite like, This whole mythology that patch members are brothers for life and they'll never turn on each other. And that's just completely far from the truth. There were a couple of situations where I recruited, I suppose, two patched members from two different clubs. And I won't identify the clubs because even all these years later, revenge is at the forefront of minds of Vikings.

13:35These two guys were patched. One had been in a club for three years. The other had been, from memory, around 11 years. and they'd been screwed over by the club. They'd had their bikes taken, they'd been bashed on the word of someone else that accused them of disloyalty. So within a bikie club, there are all these, just like any other organisation, I suppose, there's all these political movements and backstabbing and power plays and whatever. So they'd been treated pretty badly and they rolled over, and I debriefed them over a course of weeks, and I gained incredibly valuable intelligence about it.

14:10what the alliances were between clubs, who was the mover, who was the shaker, who was actually calling the plays, and criminal activities that they were up to. And I'm not talking about just, you know, going out and drink driving or stealing something from DJs. These were organised drug runs, and they made a fortune. One of the things that they would do quite effectively in those days was each club would run a rock concert. So the Hells Angels ran the famous rock concert at Bordford in Victoria every year.

14:43They would declare a certain amount of tickets had been sold and probably overstate that by 25,000 tickets, I guess, and then launder cash through that. It's a beautiful way to launder drug money because long before mobile phones and QR codes and internet banking existed, It was all about cash. So the way to launder it was to hold a rock concert. And the rock concerts were attended by all these people who thought bikies were just good blokes and it was a ton of fun and they were on a great show and they had some pretty good acts.

15:15But it was more a way to launder money. So I'd been working there for maybe two years, I suppose. The other thing, sorry, just to backtrack, if you see a bikie vest or colours they call it, And there's a little patch that's a 1%, literally 1 with a percentage symbol. That denotes the wearer is an outlaw. That denotes the wearer is actually probably an organised criminal. And that came from a Senate inquiry after World War II. I think it was the early 50s in California.

15:45A small town called San Bernardino, I think it was, was taken over by bikers and basically raped and pillaged and people were bashed and women were assaulted, all that sort of stuff. And there was a Senate inquiry into the activity, and the head of the then American Motorcycle Writers Association made evidence and said 99% of people ride motorbikes are law-abiding. So, of course, then the outlaws jumped on that, well, we're the 1% that aren't. So they openly declare their criminality, which again just amazes me.

16:20So all of that just continued to engender this real fascination is probably one of a good descriptors of how it felt about it. I was fascinated by the fact that they are organized criminals and they're so overt. about it. And I think because they, for a long time, hadn't been touched. A lot of police didn't regard them as a threat. A lot of police fell into the, ah, they're just a bunch of blokes who ride blokes, they're harmless, until we started, when I say we in Australian BCIs, started to gather some pretty serious intel about them and started to then really generate some criminal investigations that sent a lot of these guys to jail.

16:59I'll give you an example. In Melbourne, this would have been in the early 80s, I think. The Hells Angels, one or two of them went to the States, and I think they spent time with the Banditos from memory, and came back with a recipe to cook up methamphetamine. Very, very new in those days, and they made millions of dollars out of it. And they were then targeted by Victoria Police. A couple were arrested. The main cook was arrested, et cetera. And then the response to that was a hitman was flown in from the USA, a Hells Angels hitman, to murder the detective inspector in charge of the whole intelligence area.

17:40Thankfully, the police were alerted to this. And in the good old days of policing, you could take some action you probably couldn't get away with now. They met this bloke at the airport and had a very assertive conversation with him in an interview room and put him on a plane and sent him home again. There wasn't any physical violence, but it was enough of a conversation that the hitman went, okay, I'm done, I'll get the picture, I'm not going to do any of this.

18:06But that just showed this one example of the lengths that Viking gangs went to and would probably, no wrong, and still go to, to deal with opposition. In about, I think it would have been, I went there in 89, so probably, oh yeah, it would have been 1990 and 91, a national task force was started to disrupt the Hells Angels world run. So to think about what I mentioned about having a run and a run is organising a meeting to organise criminal activities and lines of distribution.

18:36The Hells Angels were having a world run in Adelaide and I think it was set to take place in 1994. or not extreme. We were tasked with gathering sufficient intelligence to disrupt it, in other words, to prevent it from happening. I worked for probably two years as part of that national task force in addition to what I was doing locally, and went to every rock concert, every event around the country. We would stand on the roadblocks with the police.

19:06So the police would roadblock everybody who went in. They'd take details of who they were. They'd search vehicles if there was reasonable grounds to do it, et cetera. And rather than being covert, we stood there and we photographed overtly. We took details and made ourselves known. You know, even though in those days I had a shoulder-linked hair and an earring and, you know, all that cool stuff, they knew exactly who we were. And we knew that they knew exactly who we were.

19:31So it became a little bit of a mind game. Some of them spoke to us. Most of them told us in no uncertain terms to go away. But we... There are some people who, you know, you took a business card to someone and he'd give you some information because there might have been something in it for him. So again, the loyalty is not blanket. But after that two years, we gathered sufficient intel to put a massive report into the Attorney-General. And the Attorney-General listened, was briefed via the Australian BCI in Canada.

20:05One of the representatives was with us for these two years as well. And in essence, the Attorney-General made a decision to recuse the visas of all of those Hells Angels who applied to come to Australia for that run. That was the disruptor. They simply couldn't get here. So that whole world run didn't eventually. So apologies to any Hells Angels out there who may be listening. Sorry, boys. That was an incredibly interesting part of my career, is just the exposure to a culture that I hadn't been really aware of before.

20:37And part of my role was to travel the state and educate police about it as well. So, you know, I'd start at the academy. I'd talk to every recruit intake and explain what outlaw motorcycle gangs are all about. I visited or went around, a bit of a junket, went around to the major regional areas in Queensland to literally educate cops, to try to change that mindset about bikies being not much of a threat to a substantial criminal organisation. So that was, gee whiz, 30 years ago, which is scary.

21:09And I look now at the activities of outlaw mysackel gangs throughout the country, and I fear we really missed our chance to disrupt them. Because regardless of what the BCI wing clipping operators tried to do, the message didn't really get through to those in command of police forces, which is quite sad. There was a resurgence of wing clipping investigations back in the late 90s after I'd resigned from the policing, and they did some pretty good work.

21:38But, you know, as I say, I fear our opportunity is lost. Keith, it's such a wonderful insight. And goodness me, there's a lot of old terms that you're popping up there that bring back some memories for me, you know, patch members, prospects and that type of thing. You and I have chatted before and we've chatted off air. You know, I was in the Police New Zealand the same time as you were serving there in Queensland. Of course, New Zealand has a very well-known massive gang issue, population fact.

22:01Interestingly, mate, I had a chap on a chief inspector from New Zealand a year or so back saying the gang numbers in New Zealand increased 75% in the last five years. Wow. It's interesting to hear you talk about this. I know it's different, but it's the same. I was in a riot unit for two years, like a rap door thing that they set up here in New South Wales, and it was a sort of a zero tolerance with the gangs. And then they sort of pulled back a bit from that.

22:26And I'm just listening to what you're saying, and I can't help but think there are some real parallels there that took the foot off the throat a little bit and... You know, these young guys that get attracted into these gangs as prospects and then, you know, they've got to do their time. They become patch members. You know, these are often boys, 15, 16, 17. I know New Zealand, they throw $10,000 at them and a Harley Davidson and suddenly they're committed to this organisation for life.

22:53Prior to this, you were an undercover operative yourself. In fact, one of the first undercover operatives in Queensland. And I was wondering, you see police inside the gangs. That is such a long, slow process. But were you getting any intel at all from, I know we wouldn't have had any police members within the gang, but you're getting any intel from associates and things. Is any of that, would that have been feeding through for you? Yeah, we did.

23:19We had informants who were on the fringes. There were a couple of patch members who rolled over, but that was their own reasons. They felt slighted and hard done by. But we had people just giving us information. And you'd spend a lot of time in the field. And there's an old saying that you don't catch crooks in bingo halls, you meet them in pubs. And we spent a fair bit of time drinking, getting to know people, not declaring ourselves all the time, as in declaring ourselves to be cops all the time, but certainly enough to just get snippets.

23:53And the intelligence area, again, it's a fascinating field. Intelligence analysis is just getting snippets of information and then trying to fit them together. Some don't fit, you discard them, but you'd be surprised at how many things it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle. So you get information from someone about the rebels. You get some information from someone about, oh, the black urans I know this guy from the urans is meaning someone from the rebels.

24:16And you go, okay, it's interesting because three months ago, they were at each other's strokes. So there's a shifting in alliance. It was always about drugs, always about money. So you'd be able to see the alliances. And in fact, we disrupted a black Ulan's motorcade I think it was when they were at war with the Rebels. And they were driving from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast to go to the Rebels clubhouse and shoot it up. And so we got them intercepted by the tactical guys.

24:46And they had a German 9mm Schmeiser submachine gun. If you watch the old war movies, they were a beautiful bit of kit. An M60 that was stolen. So a machine gun would have been stolen from the Army, from an Army Reserve Depo. They had explosives. They had handguns. And they were on the way to do war. And we were able to intercept and disrupt that because of information from someone who was on the fringes combined with some other things. So, yeah, it's a really interesting field.

25:15And as I've said before, mate, it still fascinates me because I just watch it now as it's been in. The way that alliances chop and change, you know? The Black Oolans, now that's the gang that folks would probably, and particularly outside of Queensland, may not even be aware of. They've sort of dissolved and disappeared. But this is a gang that were very front and centre during your time, though, founded in Queensland. And... Back in the day, one of, if not the wealthiest outdoor motorcycle gang in Australia, they had a 15-year reign as Australia's largest supplies of methamphetamine.

25:47Now, this is a motorcycle gang that a huge percentage of the country probably never heard of. They weren't massive in numbers, but the amount of money that was going through, and I always smile like you do, Keith, when we see Comanche Heroes Rebels going on these... drives with teddy bears and stuff to drop them at the children's hospital. And it's a wonderful piece of PR on their part because people say, oh, goodness me, you know, they're not that bad.

26:12There would be very, very few class A and B drugs on the street of any major city in Australia today that doesn't have the fingerprints of motorcycle gangs all over it. For sure. And you look at what's happening now with tobacconists being firebombed, et cetera. That's got biky fingerprints all over it. And, you know, tattoo parlours being shot up, people being bashed, people being shot in car parks of gyms. It's all biky activity. And the thing that, you know, really used to amuse us as well was that every time you have a clubhouse rated, so we'd always send the tactical guys in.

26:48I used to be one of them, of course. Send them in first, then we'd go in. and gather whatever intel we could, any documentation, all under warrant. You would always see posters on the wall, like the wild ones, the Marlon Brando movie that was made after the riot in California, or Godfather posters, or all of this gangster stuff. Can you just go... These guys are living in a little bit of a strange world. They actually think that they're gangsters and they think they're, you know, all these real hard, tough guys.

27:18And it's interesting that very often in my experience, when they were confronted, they were very, very compliant. They would not be like that in the public eye, but they were certainly very compliant with us. So it's just that whole paradox, you know, with the tough gangs and so on. And I notice now that, It has been a real move, particularly in Sydney, to recruit young men into gangs, into clubs, that don't ride motorbikes. They're there because of their connections or because of, I would think, the young guys, because they're expendable.

27:52You know, as I said before, you'd show money at a young guy and money, girls, bike, whatever, my style, and they fall right into that, and then that's it, they're endangered for the rest of their lives. And that's the other side to it too, isn't it? As we well know, Keith, you know, these young blokes that go in as prospects and maybe get patched up, it's not like they can do a year or two and then go and see the boss and say, look, mate, I'm done here.

28:14I'm going to go and get a plumbing apprenticeship. You're in there until such time as they tell you you're not. I used to find too, the guys that were probably most cooperative with the police were the guys in their 40s who'd probably been in the gang for 25 years and they just, they couldn't be bothered with all the drama. We also found with the gangs that were really up to their neck in the drugs, they were They wanted to decrease their presence on the street, so they didn't want to be turned over by the police.

28:47They didn't want to all be congregating, 100, 150 of them at a pub, right, police come through and all that. The more successful they became with regards to the income and money they were making, the more sort of low profile they became. I thought that was an interesting aspect of that environment as well. Yeah, absolutely, mate. We saw that in the late 80s and the early 90s start to take effect. They'd fly from Brisbane to Cairns on drug runs and wear long-sleeve shirts to cover the tats, take off the necklaces and the paraphernalia and just try to blend in.

29:20And it's interesting, when you said guys have been in a club 25 years, it reminded me there was a Gypsy Jokers run from Adelaide to Brisbane and far north, I think. And the Gypsy Jokers are a notorious club based in Adelaide, and they're one of the most violent clubs, or they were. I was happily sitting in my office and police headquarters, you know, and one of the guys came in and said, oh, mate, there's about 150 or so Gypsy Jokers on their way to Brisbane.

29:44I thought, okay, that's going to be interesting. So I strolled down, but before I left the office, I put a 9mm pistol just in my waistband under a, you know, the shirt was sort of tucked out so it wasn't obvious, just in case. So I walked down to where they were and they'd been stopped by police. and trouble was brewing. It was about to get ugly. And I thought, shit, you know, and I had a pair of jeans and a shirt and whatever, long hair. So I walked over and discreetly got my badge out and discreetly spoke to someone who said, where's the president?

30:13And, you know, as usual, who the F wants to know? And I said, mate, just trust me. I need to talk to the president. At that stage, I was a detective sergeant, so I'd been in the job, you know, six seasons, I suppose, mid-30s or whatever, so I wasn't a kid. and spoke to the president. I said, look, this is who I am. This is what I do. I understand what you guys are doing. I understand you just want to go on your run and be uninterrupted. However, the cops have got a job to do.

30:39And I said, I don't want to see it all go badly here because it's got the potential to. And he said, you're the first effing cop that I'm talking to that's got some sense. And I said, well, I appreciate that, mate. Pretty much brokered a deal between him and the commissioned officer in charge of the scene. I reflected on this only a little while ago because I came across a photo. After it all calmed down, I was talking to a guy probably 15 years older than me who had this really cool Socktail Harley.

31:05Because working on biker gangs, I developed a bit of a taste for Harleys, which is quite ironic. And so I'm looking at the bike and having a chat to him about it. And I said, mate, any chance of a photo? And he said, sure. So I've got this photo of this gypsy joker, who'd probably done his fair share of time, with his arm around the shoulder of a detective sergeant who's running the bikey wing clipping desk with the avowed mission to, you know, bring them all down.

31:29And it is a cracker of a photo. You know, we're both bringing it to the camera and so on. And I found it the other day going through some things and thought, that sort of says it all about the ability of police to just diffuse stuff just by talking. and having a little bit of humble pie, you know, not going in and going, right, we run this place, you don't. There's a time and a place for that too. But I just remember thinking, shit, if this kicks off, it's not going to be good for either side.

31:57And we all parted friends. It's such a valid point that you make too, Keith, isn't it? Because whether it's the young beat cop, you know, just out of the academy or like you say, a seasoned sort of de-sergeant, the key to successful or effective policing is communication, isn't it? You're dealing with guys who have been through the ringer that many times. You know, you couldn't have a discussion like that with a prospect because they're just, that's not where their heads are.

32:20But the guy you're talking to, he's been in the gang 20-odd years, mate. He doesn't need to spend another night in the cells. And they want that path of least resistance. And nothing will have changed in that world, Keith. I mean, you've been out of the job for a little while. These gangs are still around. You know, common sheroes, rebels, they're everywhere, Hells Angels. Do we still have a fair bit of intelligence going on, still a fair bit of police resources devoted to the gangs up there in Queensland?

32:46In Queensland, for sure, yeah. Victoria went to a stage where Christine Nixon, I'm happy to use her name, she was appointed commissioner of the Victoria Police some years ago. And unfortunately, she had a position that there was no such thing as a criminal gang in Victoria. That was her policy. So she disbanded the VCI, disbanded all investigations into organised criminal bikey gangs, and Victoria became known as Twitsman in that culture. So bikeys would come from Adelaide, from New South Wales, from Queensland to Victoria to do all their stuff with the knowledge that they just weren't going to be targeted.

33:24And fortunately, when she left, that gang investigation was resurrected. But again, I think she was in a job for four or five years. There was a lot of damage done then. But in Queensland, on the other hand, had written legislation. So legislation was written by a friend of mine, actually, who I used to work with in the VCI, who was in that particular part of the police force. He wrote legislation to do something about the bikies, and it was passed by Parliament.

33:51It was after a riot on the Gold Coast, I believe, where warring gangs were bashing each other in a restaurant in front of normal, nice people. So the government of those who have had enough. So the legislation was groundbreaking. It banned the wearing of colours, banned the wearing of patches, all of that stuff, banned Mikey Club members from associating with each other in groups of more than three. It banned them going to clubhouses, and it basically broke the back of those outlaw motorcycle gangs in Queensland for quite some time because they just weren't allowed to associate with each other, and there were mandatory jail sentences for the member.

34:29And this particular guy was at home and he rang me and he said, hey, guess what I've been up to? And he was giving me a rundown on the legislation he was writing. And I thought, wow. And he said, I have to tell you, mate, I thought about you as I was putting some of this together as well. I just thought it was brilliant. You know, you take away those outward symbols of power, which is what they are, take away the ability for them to associate, you take away the ability for them to go to a clubhouse, which is their sanctuary, to break the back of a game.

34:59So a lot of them left Queensland. A lot of them actually went to police stations and handed in their colours, which was unheard of, and then left Queensland and moved to New South Wales and Victoria. Keith, look, Queensland police historical corruption is well documented. Numerous royal commissions, countless investigations. You yourself as a serving officer in Queensland, you cross paths with a member of the somewhat infamous Queensland police rat pack, Tony Murphy, whose name will bring back all sorts of memories for all the wrong reasons for a lot of folks going back to that time.

35:35Yeah. I'm just interested in hearing your recollection as a serving officer in Queensland at a time where there was some of this sort of stuff that was going on just below the surface. They were interesting days, mate. And it's funny, when you work in an organisation that had corrupt influences, and I have to, I always say the vast majority of men and women I worked with were straight good coppers, but there were sufficient people in positions of authority.

36:03who were corrupt, who ran corrupt rings, to have a major impact on what you did on a daily basis. For instance, I was in uniform in mobile patrols, and we were directed not to go near them. I think there might have been three or four brothels in our patrol division. We were directed not to go near them, because we used to spend some time looking to see what was going on, who was going in, make sure everything was, you know, nothing violent was happening or whatever.

36:29Normal police patrolmen. And at that stage, brothels were illegal. We knew they were illegal, but we just were told that they were tolerated for various reasons well above our pay grade. So no problem. You just accept what you can and can't do again. But in this particular time, we were told to stay well away from them, and I never knew why until the revelations of our Royal Commission came out, and that was because people were going in there and collecting grafts, collecting money.

36:58Just like biker gangs, I had a couple of working girls as informers as well. And, you know, my experience was they treated them respectfully as human beings and didn't judge or look down on them. They were a valuable source of information. That's just one example. Tony Murphy was detective superintendent, I think, when I first heard of him. And his name was literally whispered, literally whispered, on night work generally when there were no one else around to hear what you were saying.

37:29And I remember a senior constable I was working with who probably had 15 years' service or so, was telling me about Murphy. It was bizarre because it was 1 o'clock in the morning or around me. And suddenly he lowered his voice as if we'd be overheard from someone. about this guy, Murphy, who was just feared. He was rumoured to have killed two people that was off the books. He was rumoured to have done all various things. And I remember Stan saying to me, if ever you come across Murphy, do not have eye contact with him.

38:01Get away from him as quickly as possible because if you're here in Mendel's shoe, that's not going to be good. And I didn't understand what he meant again until some time later. And Murphy, if he decided that you weren't beneficial to him or you were some sort of threat to him, your career was over. And I know of young men who were transferred literally overnight from Brisbane to the far out reaches of the state, you know, as punishment or whatever.

38:29And ironically, when Ray Whitrod was appointed commissioner before Terry Lewis, and Terry Lewis was one of the other back now, I was a cadet in the academy and Wichlod was appointed from South Australia as a reformer commissioner. He was well aware of what was happening and he was prepared to turn the place to the ground and get rid of the stench of corruption. So he transferred Murty from Brisbane to Longreach out in the outback of Queensland. He transferred Lewis to Charleville in the outback of Queensland.

38:59And they both then mounted a campaign against him and campaigned misinformation to the then Premier, Joby Ockie-Peterson. And Joby Ockie-Peterson promoted Terry Lewis from inspector to assistant commissioner, so he jumped about three ranks. And that, for which Rod, was the end of it. That was the final story. He just said, I can't change this place. And Lewis was then promoted to commissioner quite quickly after that. Murphy was brought back from the outback into the folds of Brisbane and headed the Metro Criminal Investigation Branch.

39:31So he was in charge of all of it. And it was then just this environment of, I wouldn't say despair, but certainly, wow, what the hell is going to happen to this police force now? Yeah. But having said that, we tended to find other people that shared our values and weren't corrupt cops, and you just did the best you can to work with people you could trust. There were things that occurred. There were things that happened where investigations were stopped without explanation, or a particular identity could walk into the foyer of police headquarters without being challenged, walk straight through the security offices at the front, get into the lift and go straight to the commission's office any time he wanted.

40:21And that particular identity was reputed to have imported substantial mass drugs. So, you know, you'd look at that and go, wow, oh, well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it, so I'll just... try to work around it or try to ignore it. And, you know, there was a bit of a culture with some police who executed search warrants on drug dealers' houses and steal their money, arresting robbers and steal their money, you know, all of that stuff. It was quite bizarre to me and still is because it was joked about.

40:52You're having a beer in the police pub and overhear a conversation about how a couple of guys have ripped off a drug dealer for $100,000. It was a big joke. And that's when you learn as a young cop just to shut your mouth, pretend that you haven't heard anything, and move on and get back to work. I came across something after I'd finished undercover and I went back to, or went to this criminal investigation world. And I was brought into the Great Kineta Squad, which is one of the elite squads, I suppose, that was operating then.

41:20And it was quite an honour that we asked to come and work there. Must have liked something I did. And I came across something that was a parcel of drugs that I'd executed as first one of families, this massive amount of drugs, with an exhibit tag inside it. So the exhibit tag meant they had been seized by a detective who clearly then had put him back on the street. And the genius had forgotten to take the exhibit tag out with his name on it. So I grabbed my sergeant and said, we'd need to go and have a chat.

41:51And I said, look, I'm not comfortable with this at all. In fact, this is really pissing me off. I'll never do something about it. He said, all right, mate, let's go and have a beer and talk this through. And he said, look, he said, I understand. I don't have a problem with it. I understand this is all corruption, et cetera, and you want to do something about it. He said, bust. If you go to internal investigations, as it was then known, and you talk to the wrong boss, because the internal investigations detectives were all commissioned officers or detective inspectors.

42:23If you talk to the wrong boss and he's connected with someone, then you're going to find yourself in the ship. He said, you might come home and there'll be an ounce of heroin in your house. someone will be waiting with a search warrant. Or you might open your garage, there'll be a heap of stolen TVs in there, they'll be waiting with a search warrant. So have a good think, mate, about what you want to do. And that conversation chilled me because I thought, well, if I try to do something about some corrupt activity that I think is completely wrong, then I'm going to potentially be the victim.

42:57So that encouraged a culture of just shutting up and getting on with it. It was almost compartmentalised where half of us were good straight coppers and the other half were in it for themselves. So there was a level of distrust between the two camps because those corrupt cops, they were just as conscious of the fact that they wanted people who thought like they did. But if you were a straight cop, there was a demeaning phrase. So they preferred to associate with their own.

43:27And all of this stuff went on while Murphy was still in the job and Lewis was the commissioner. And then after our corruption or during our corruption inquiry, he suddenly found these corrupt police running for cover. I think there was at least one suicide, maybe two, where they just realised they were going to go to jail and kill themselves. There were people being arrested and charged that just blew me away because I thought they were good straight cops, and they weren't.

43:57And when the evidence came out of that commission of inquiry, a lot of them were subject to peer pressure to take the money. And in fact, one senior police officer was saying he'd never spent any of the cash he had that he'd been given. He hid it in cavity bricks in his house and just hid it there and it just built up over the years and he had no idea what to do with it. You know, and that's quite sad that you didn't feel that you had the ability to stick to your moral compass and your integrity and say no.

44:27It was quite a bizarre time and Murphy was feared. He was literally feared. You know, if you went to the police club, which was a licensed bar, and you saw Murphy was in there drinking, you'd just quietly exit stage right and go somewhere else. You know, in the event that you incurred his loss for some reason. And it was just, yeah, it was a bizarre time, mate. Even when he resigned, he still exerted a lot of power in his process. You mentioned that, you know, a lot of this started to turn back on itself as a result of the, which was the Royal Commission, mate?

45:00Which was the one that really brought this to a head and which one was that? The Fitzgerald Inquiry. Tony Fitzgerald was a QC, I think. What year was that? That was 1987, and it concluded in 1989. And so I guess the obvious question, Tony Murphy, Terry Lewis, I mean, goodness me. Like you said, you're a young copper. Murphy's a detective chief super. I mean, that's a hell of a rank. He's right up there. And then Lewis goes to the rank of commissioner, top of the tree.

45:28What happened to these guys as a result of all that? Did they get locked up? Did they do time? Or what happened to the likes of Tony Murphy? Lewis went to jail for, I think he was sentenced to 14 years for official corruption. They've served 11 or 12. So, yeah, there are still some police in Queensland who'd leaked his defence, probably because he was a personable, applicable guy. And that's why, if you look at any conversations or literature around the Rat Pack, so Murphy, Hallahan and Lewis, it was their plan all along to have Lewis installed as a commissioner because he was a better public face for it.

46:03Murphy was the strategist and this guy Hallahan was the muscle. Hallahan, even in the bad old days when it was really difficult to be charged and convicted of anything, he was charged with corruption by some straight police. So he left. Murphy, during the whole inquiry, you know, the chief witness who was a corrupt cop who organised all of the payoffs gave evidence and he spoke about Murphy a lot. But nothing ever happened to him. Murphy died some years ago, always denying that he was corrupt and it was all just a fit up and, you know, he's just a good bloke, etc.

46:37No witnesses came forward with sufficient information to have Murphy charged. I look back at it and a lot of the cops of my vintage share the same opinion, is that he was just terrifying. No one was prepared to give evidence against him. Lewis, yeah. Murphy, no. No, just that. It's almost impossible to explain the presence the man had. You know, and he was a very effective investigator, a very good detective, just like Roger Rogerson, a corrupt criminal.

47:08Did you ever meet Murphy personally or did you have those sort of fleeting into the bar, he was there, out type of thing? No, I met him a couple of times just through jobs that had happened and he'd walk into the office and want to know what was going on. And I never knew it was because we'd arrested someone who was associated with him or whether he was just wanting to keep his finger on the pulse. Or possibly he was actually doing his job as a boss, you know, which would have been fine.

47:35But he just had this intimidating presence. He seemed to be always around, if that makes sense. You know, you might be on a 2 to 10 shift, locking a cook up, doing interviews, etc. And suddenly Mercury would materialise from the corridor. The first time he used my name, I thought, oh, Jesus, what do you know my name? You know, and as I say, mate, that could have been because he was doing his job or it could have been that he was just wanting to know what was going on and who he could manipulate.

48:01It's just quite a bizarre time. But I had little to do with him, thank God. And you mentioned more of a charismatic sort of a character like a Terry Lewis. It's interesting how, you know, and you've mentioned also Roger Rodson, who was the New South Wales copper. Those who met him said a very similar thing. Extremely charismatic. A very good police officer when he chose to be, you know, working on the right side of the ledger. To this day, some still bat for him.

48:27It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I met Roger a couple of times when I was in Sydney on extradition jobs or something else. And I remember the first time I met him, detectives in those days would have a big lunch at least once a week. And there was a table of, God, 15 or 20 coppers, all detectives, and Roger was sitting at the head of the table holding court. And I remember thinking, boy, this guy, because I had very little knowledge of what he was like then.

48:55This is a good guy. Talking about catching crooks, you know, he's obviously known to his two people. Love him. I thought, wow, what an impressive man. And then within 12 months, he'd organized the attempted murder of McGurray and some other things came out. Just one of those, yeah, one of those striking personalities. Whereas Lewis, Lewis was the affable guy. He was your mate. He was friendly. He remembered your name, you know, and he toured Queensland and did some good work.

49:22You know, he upgraded police stations. He did some various things, but all the time he was taking money. you know, on a regular basis. But he just had that almost self-deprecating approach, whereas Murphy, you could feel the air of menace. With Lewis, it was like, I just felt like your uncle, you know, and it was very clever, very clever. You look at a Murphy, a character of that type, he's probably on a psychiatrist couch, a bloody borderline psychopath, you know, and probably was when he went into the job.

49:51You wonder about a Terry Lewis as a 19-year-old or younger going into the academy and coming out with all the, you know, the dreams of young blokes coming out. You wonder just what happened there, don't you? You wonder what... Yeah, what the turning point was, yeah. And where it got to the point where he couldn't turn back and, you know, lights of Murphy and stuff have them in their pocket and it's an interesting one, isn't it? Yeah, it's the power of personality and all that stuff, I guess.

50:16And, yeah, and, you know, Lewis always denied until he died that he was corrupt. Murphy denied until he died that he was corrupt. And that's the thing, yeah, that was part of your education as a cop and we'd nothing deny everything. You know, demand proof. Make counter allegations. I think there's four of them. And that was the culture. I'm not going to say a thing. And so, sadly, the truth will never come out. But there's sufficient men and women around in those days who would tell the same story I'm telling.

50:45Keith, it's always such a pleasure to get back chatting to you. I know we've done an interview before and we spoke then, Keith, that you did 20 odd years in the job, retired, 95. You said at the time you've made no secret of it. You suffered terribly from post-traumatic stress even before a time and we even had a label for it and it wasn't even diagnosed. And it was some... I think 24 years later that you got your formal diagnosis. You know, you lost a lot of skin in the job, Keith.

51:13On the flip side to that, I know that you've written a couple of books and one particularly looks at that battle that sadly so many police experience. Can you just tell us a little bit about, you know, those couple of books that you've written and the folks listening can still pick those up somewhere? Sure, yeah, yeah. So the first one I wrote was drugs, guns and lies about undercover, working deep undercover back in those interesting days of corruption and so on.

51:40Then I wrote the second one about literally the second half of my career where it's called Gun to the Head, so it's metaphorical and physical. And that was about a particular gun battle that I'd been involved in and some other things as well that really just sent me down a path of just darkness and, you know, just... incredibly bloody joyless and sad and self-medicating and full of anger and all of those things that I didn't realize were a condition.

52:06And I struggled with that for, it was around 30 years from the time of that gun battle until my diagnosis. So I've written very openly about that. I've written about recovery and the fact that there is hope and there is light at the end of the tunnel. And what the publication of those books has allowed me to do is to get into a keynote speaking space. I don't market myself, but it's organic growth, I guess. And I talk to organisations, some emergency services, but a lot of non, a lot of corporations about what it is to have strong mental health, what works for me, the journey I've been through.

52:44And again, I'm quite open about it. There was a stage where I sat at home and put a gun in my mouth and thought about killing myself and it was just, the pain was just so intense. And so I talk about all of that. What I love is the reaction of people. I'm then contacted by... God, scores of people after these things to say thanks for being so open about it. You've helped me understand some things. Or my partner heard you speak today and he came home and, wow, he's a different guy because now he wants to get help.

53:13He admits he's got a problem. So I think all of that's really valuable. It's become my passion in my later life, I guess. And if I can help someone understand way earlier than I did what is happening, why it's happening, and how you can recover from it, then that's great. That's what I want the rest of my life to be. So the books themselves are still available on Amazon. I check it every now and then. So Amazon, Booktopia, and still in some bookstores.

53:39I still pinch myself about the fact that they're still out there selling. If a person who's never had anything to do with the police reads my books, At the end of reading those books and they say, wow, I didn't realise there was a lot more in it than writing traffic tickets. I'm going to change my attitude and actually start respecting or applauding or thanking cops for what they do. And again, you know, I've achieved a mission. And also, current cops who read it.

54:04I was at a National Police Remembrance Day celebration or commemoration in Canberra for the last two days. And a number of young police turned up, and again, it's kind of cool that they know who I am, and they've come up and shaken their hand and said, you know, thanks for what you do, and I've got a lot out of it, read your books, love them, et cetera. So it's a twofold thing. It's for people who've never been in policing that it's also just as importantly supporting those who are, because I still think it's the best job in the world.

54:30Keith, mate, it's always such a great pleasure to catch up. I know we're doing it sort of virtually for you up there in Queensland, in the Sydney studio, but I could chat to you all day, mate. Thank you again for your service to the good people of Queensland over the 20 years there. But also, you know, you're still a tireless advocate for the work that you do and spreading the word and talking about stuff that was never spoken about when you and I were there.

54:52went through the job and you've got to put sunlight on these things, mate. And, and you're doing that better than anybody. So Keith, great to have you, mate. I'd love to do it again down the track. Thanks so much for coming in and really enjoyed our chat as always. Thanks, Brent. I really appreciate it myself. I really enjoyed it myself and appreciate being offered and asked, mate. So thank you. Join us next week for another episode of Crime Insiders Forensics.

55:17I'm Brent Sanders with sound design by Niall Fernandez. This series was recorded and produced on Gadigal land.