Category Archives: Australian federal police

Sydney man charged over alleged fake terror plot as AFP crack secret messaging app

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The 31-year-old allegedly used the encrypted ‘Ghost’ platform to talk about machine guns, bombs and flags with terrorist insignia, the AFP said

A Sydney man has been charged for allegedly using an encrypted messaging platform called “Ghost” to fabricate a terror plot as police swooped on multiple targets after breaching an “un-hackable” system.

The alleged fabricated plot involved high-powered weapons and explosive devices and had been devised to get authorities to withdraw charges for a person involved in a separate criminal matter, Australian federal police said.

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Former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty gives up Order of Australia honour six years after Ben Roberts-Smith tip-off

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Federal court judge in last year’s defamation case found Roberts-Smith tried to evade surveillance after Keelty alerted him to pending war crimes investigation in 2018

The former Australian federal police commissioner Mick Keelty has relinquished his Order of Australia honour, six years after he passed information received from serving police officers to Ben Roberts-Smith, alerting him to a pending war crimes investigation.

Keelty retired from the AFP in 2009 after a 35-year law-enforcement career, including eight as AFP commissioner.

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Police legally detained 15-year-old terror suspect in hotel without lawyers knowing location, solicitor says

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Ahmed Dib says legal team spent three days trying to find boy who was held with his mother in western Sydney

Asio and federal police officers legally detained a 15-year-old terror suspect in a hotel for multiple days without charge and without his lawyers being aware of his location, his solicitor alleges.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was one of seven people arrested by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team in the aftermath of the high-profile stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in April.

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Ex-Australia Post employee and friend plead guilty in Australian of the Year insider information betting scandal

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The men faced a Melbourne court after being charged following a three-year investigation by federal police into gambling on the annual awards

Two high school friends used insider information to bet on the winner of three Australian of the Year awards, and pocket thousands of dollars, a court has heard.

James Dawkins, 39, and 38-year-old Dean Young fronted Dandenong magistrates court in Melbourne on Thursday after details of their plan came to light.

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Albanese tells Russian embassy to ‘back off’ over criticisms of spying charges

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Prime minister’s comments come as embassy claims agency bosses were trying to fuel ‘anti-Russian paranioa’

Anthony Albanese has told Russia to “back off” after its embassy accused Australia’s security heads of fuelling “anti-Russian paranoia” over the arrest of two alleged spies accused of trying to access classified defence information.

The Russian-born Australians – including one who is an army private – were arrested over an alleged spying scheme targeting the defence department, with authorities emphasising concerns over espionage and foreign interference.

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Indonesian boys jailed by Australia claim no translation provided in court

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Minors who were locked up in adult prisons for people smuggling say they could not understand proceedings and thought they were going home

Vulnerable Indonesian children say they were either given no interpreter or an interpreter who spoke the wrong language during deeply flawed people smuggling prosecutions, leaving them unable to understand court proceedings before their imprisonment by Australia in maximum security adult jails.

The Australian government last year agreed to pay $27.5m in compensation to more than 200 Indonesians who were wrongfully prosecuted and detained as adult people smugglers while they were children.

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Teenager charged with planning terrorist attack after allegedly entering NSW MP’s office with ‘intention to kill’

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Labor MP for Newcastle Tim Crakanthorp said he and his staff were safe and unharmed after the ‘very serious incident’

A New South Wales teenager has been charged with planning a terrorist attack after he allegedly entered Labor MP Tim Crakanthorp’s office carrying items including “knives and tactical equipment” with the “intention to kill”.

Jordan Patten, a 19-year-old from Raymond Terrace, was arrested in Newcastle after midday on Wednesday and was charged with one count of preparing or planning a terrorist act.

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Federal court dismisses defamation claim by AFP officers against Shane Drumgold

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Officers had sought $1.42m in damages, claiming former ACT chief prosecutor defamed them in complaint about Bruce Lehrmann prosecution

The federal court has dismissed a defamation case brought by a group of Australian federal police officers against the former ACT top prosecutor Shane Drumgold.

On Tuesday a court registrar dismissed the case, which had sought $1.42m in damages, alleging that Drumgold defamed the officers in a written complaint about their handling of the Bruce Lehrmann prosecution.

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Australian Muslim leaders call out ‘questionable law enforcement tactics’ that led to arrest of minors

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Muslim organisations say they were not consulted before counter-terrorism raids that resulted in arrests relating to a church stabbing in Sydney

Representatives of the Australian Muslim community have called out what they called “questionable law enforcement tactics” after seven minors were arrested and six of them charged with counter-terrorism-related offences this week.

Three major bodies, the Australian National Imams Council, the Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, have also demanded the government revise Australia’scounter-terrorism laws, saying they “target specific communities”.

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How do Australian police taskforces get strange names like Tromperie?

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In NSW, you can blame a computer which generates names at random, while in the Northern Territory ‘generic categories’ deliver operations named after rivers and battleships

New South Wales police last week arrested 15 people as part of Strikeforce Wessex – an investigation into alleged organised criminal networks operating “dial-a-dealer” schemes.

But what does Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Great Britain, have to do with drug dealing and mobile phones across Sydney?

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AFP officers mistakenly handcuffed and arrested Iraqi refugee after acting on bad tip-off

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Agency says bad intelligence led to the wrongful arrest of Nahi Al Sharify at his Sydney home in February, leaving him traumatised and distraught

Australian federal police agents mistakenly handcuffed an Iraqi refugee on strict visa conditions due to bad intelligence, the agency has confirmed.

Nahi Al Sharify has been in community detention since January 2023 but his case has been included in the NZYQ cohort when about 150 detainees were freed in November, despite the 40-year-old having no criminal record in Australia or elsewhere.

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Asio boss defends undercover police operation targeting boy with autism

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Mike Burgess says security agencies ‘don’t radicalise people’ and stands by actions of police in case of 13-year-old with Islamic State ‘fixation’

The Asio chief has insisted security agencies “don’t radicalise people” but admitted “dealing with minors is incredibly difficult” after court findings criticising an undercover operation targeting a 13-year-old child with autism.

Guardian Australia revealed last month that the boy, known by the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was granted a permanent stay on terror-related charges last October, after a magistrate found police “fed his fixation” with Islamic State during the operation and “doomed” his efforts at rehabilitation.

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Australia detains alleged key player in North Korean tobacco smuggling scheme after US request

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Exclusive: Jin Guanghua was arrested by the AFP in Melbourne last year and is facing extradition to the US

A Chinese national has been quietly arrested and detained in Australia for 11 months at the request of US authorities investigating an alleged tobacco smuggling conspiracy that generated an estimated A$1.1bn (US$700m) in revenue to North Korea.

Jin Guanghua, 52, was arrested by the Australian federal police in Melbourne last March. Described in US court documents as an Australian resident, Jin was kept in custody in Melbourne for several months before being transferred to immigration detention while awaiting extradition.

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Criminals tipped off after law enforcement staff shared photo of intercepted shipping container on WhatsApp

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The 2020 blunder, whereby more than 400 Australian public servants received the photo, revealed in annual report of former corruption watchdog

A criminal syndicate was tipped off to a covert operation after federal law enforcement staff shared photos of an intercepted shipping container with more than 400 public servants across multiple agencies.

The blunder compromised the investigation, prompted a multi-agency corruption investigation and led to written warnings to the heads of the Department of Home Affairs, the federal police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

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Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial live: Brittany Higgins’ mother tells court hearing of her daughter’s alleged rape was a ‘mother’s worst nightmare’

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The defamation action against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson was due to finish on Thursday but may extend until Monday. Follow the latest news and updates from the trial today

  • A warning for readers: this blog contains graphic details of allegations of sexual assault.

Defence liaison officer told Higgins found in ‘state of undress’, court hears

Payne gave evidence that early in the week following the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, he had been told by minister Linda Reynolds’s chief-of-staff, Fiona Brown, about an incident involving Lehrmann in Parliament House.

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Sixth former immigration detainee arrested in Melbourne for allegedly breaking curfew

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Government scrambles to respond to last month’s high court ruling which led to the release of at least 148 detainees

A sixth former immigration detainee has been arrested in Melbourne after being released due to last month’s high court ruling.

A 36-year-old Eritrean-born man was arrested after allegedly failing to comply with a curfew, the Australian federal police said in a statement on Friday night.

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Australian federal police tested controversial facial recognition search engine, FOI documents reveal

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Exclusive: The AFP told Senate estimates it is now aware the PimEyes and FaceCheck.ID platforms may have been tested for operational purposes on around 10 occasions

The Australian federal police have tested a controversial facial recognition search engine, possibly for operational use.

Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show hundreds of connections between AFP devices and the website PimEyes between 1 January and 4 August this year.

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Australian federal police officers’ details leaked on dark web after law firm hack

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The AFP is the latest organisation revealed to have been caught up in the HWL Ebsworth hack, perpetrated by a Russian ransomware group in April

The personal details of Australian federal police officers have been leaked on the dark web, according to the police association, as part of a wide-ranging data breach that could threaten other high-profile agencies.

The AFP is a client of the law firm HWL Ebsworth, which was hacked by a Russian-linked ransomware group in April, sparking fears that highly sensitive information would be widely distributed.

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UK espionage saga a ‘wake-up call’ for Australian parliament, opposition says

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Calls for further security measures including vetting of staffers after UK parliamentary aide arrested on suspicion of spying for China

An espionage scandal in the UK should serve as a “major wake-up call” for Australia, a senior opposition member has said.

Australia’s shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, called on both countries to “harden” their political systems to reduce the risk of alleged compromise, including wider use of vetting of staff members.

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Chinese academic raided by Australian police and offered $2,000 for information during trip

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Exclusive: Sino-Australian relations expert had phone confiscated and was asked to provide information during ‘heavy-handed’ and ‘counterproductive’ episode

A Chinese academic visiting Australia on a research trip had his accommodation raided by Asio and the Australian federal police, and was offered $2,000 in cash by a man purporting to be from “the federal government” for information on his networks and contacts in China.

The academic, an associate professor at a major Chinese research university, is an expert on Sino-Australian relations and was visiting Australia between July and August. His surveillance comes as Australia seeks to restore its relations with China, with a confirmed prime ministerial visit to Beijing later this year.

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