Project with Monash University will use images to train system to recognise pictures of children on dark web
The Australian federal police want the public to donate their childhood photos to an artificial intelligence project aimed at helping save children from abuse.
The project, run by AFP and Monash University, will help detect child abuse material on the dark web, or on devices that have been seized during criminal investigations.
Continue reading...Federal police declines to provide more details about the reports, which were made in the year after Brittany Higgins went public
Federal police received 28 allegations of misconduct by parliamentarians, their staff or “official establishments” in the year after Brittany Higgins’ allegations first became public knowledge.
But the Australian federal police has declined to outline any further details, including which state or territory police force it passed the reports to for further investigation.
Continue reading...Federal police say they did not tell then home affairs minister name of man who was subject of Nauru investigation or that department had contracts with him
Australian federal police investigating an Australian citizen for allegedly bribing politicians on Nauru have told a Senate estimates hearing they did not tell the then home affairs minister his department was paying the man’s company multimillion-dollar accommodation contracts at the same time, because it was not “custom and practice”.
The AFP says it knew a company linked to Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani had multiple ongoing contracts with the home affairs department when it briefed the then home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, on its Nauru foreign bribery investigation on 12 July 2018.
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Continue reading...Tiny traces from videos and images drew detectives to a childcare worker accused of being Australia’s worst serial paedophile
In 2014, detectives from a specialist Queensland police unit came across a small number of videos and images posted online, depicting the abuse of two girls but containing few clues as to where in the world they had been made.
After the discovery by taskforce Argos, the Australia federal police (AFP) and other agencies began an international search for the victims. This included uploading the material to a database that could be searched by other law enforcement agencies.
Continue reading...Federal police statement of facts tendered to court say Alexander Csergo was in ‘an enhanced state of paranoia’ about being detained in Shanghai
Alexander Csergo says his Chinese intelligence handlers would nominate where to meet.
When he would arrive, Ken and Evelyn - he only ever knew them by a single Anglicised name - would already be waiting and the restaurant otherwise empty of people: cleared, he believed, specifically for their meeting.
Continue reading...Matthieu Anthony Rees and Rachid Kachour arrested at ACT apartment after federal police seize 247kg of cocaine
Two men have been accused of importing more than $61m worth of cocaine by sea after Australian federal police seized 247kg of the drug allegedly hidden in a yacht in Queensland.
Matthieu Anthony Rees, 44, and Rachid Kachour, 55, both from Griffith in the ACT, were arrested at their apartment on Thursday as part of an investigation into cocaine seized from a yacht moored in Townsville.
Continue reading...Lawyers say Alexander Csergo brought home list of requests from aspiring Chinese handlers to ensure he would be believed by Australian authorities
An Australian businessman facing a foreign interference charge brought home a “shopping list” given to him by two Chinese intelligence officials as evidence of China’s overt and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to cultivate him as a source, his lawyers say.
The list, which Alexander Csergo slipped between the pages of a magazine to spirit out of China, requests information about whether Australia’s new Aukus alliance is “preparing for [a] Taiwan war”, about competition between the US and China in the Pacific, and about the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
Continue reading...Lehrmann is suing Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in the federal court over their initial reporting of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, which he denies
Federal police have been asked to investigate the alleged leaking of evidence from the trial of Bruce Lehrmann to the media by a lawyer representing Network Ten.
Marlia Saunders, a partner at Thomson Geer, who is representing Network Ten in a defamation case brought by Lehrmann against them, confirmed she had made a complaint to the AFP on 7 June regarding the leak.
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Continue reading...Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani was convicted of bribing two Nauruan officials with more than $120,000
The former Australian government continued to pay millions of taxpayer dollars to a businessman convicted of corruption to provide offshore processing services on Nauru, even after he had pleaded guilty to bribing Nauruan government officials.
In August 2020 Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani was convicted of paying more than $120,000 in bribes to two Nauru government officials, including an MP and government minister, for favourable deals on phosphate mining contracts for his Radiance International group of companies.
Continue reading...Federal police try to identify crime syndicate behind elaborate smuggling scheme into NSW, after drugs found at port inspection in Sydney
More than 300kg of methamphetamine concealed deep inside a steel hydraulic press has been smuggled into New South Wales from Mexico.
Australian federal police say the seized haul has an estimated value of more than $273m and could have made up 3m individual street deals.
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Continue reading...After big-spending Aukus and defence announcements, Labor switches focus to diplomacy
The military and police will expand links with Pacific Island countries as part of a nearly $2bn budget package aimed at boosting Australia’s influence across the region.
After two months of rolling out big-spending defence announcements – including the Aukus nuclear-powered submarines – the Albanese government used Tuesday night’s budget to signal renewed interest in diplomacy and regional engagement.
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Continue reading...The 55-year-old businessman appeared via video link at Parramatta magistrates court. This blog is now closed
‘Really disturbing footage’: David Pocock responds to gas seep video
Senator David Pocock has called the video showing large methane gas bubbles active on the surface of Queensland’s Condamine River “really disturbing footage”.
Continue reading...Alexander Csergo, 55, was arrested in the Sydney suburb of Bondi on Friday on one count of reckless foreign interference
An Australian man charged with a foreign interference offence will remain behind bars until Monday after his case was adjourned in Sydney.
Alexander Csergo, a 55-year-old businessman who normally lives overseas, was arrested in the Sydney suburb of Bondi on Friday for allegedly sharing information with individuals who work for a foreign intelligence service, the Australian federal police said in a statement.
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Continue reading...Anti-corruption watchdog investigating claims federal police pressured Higgins not to proceed with alleged rape case
The Australian federal police is being investigated to determine whether it attempted to pervert the course of justice in the handling of the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by her then colleague Bruce Lehrmann.
The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), the watchdog responsible for probing corruption in federal agencies including the AFP, is also investigating the “potential leaking of documents” related to the case by AFP members to the media.
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Continue reading...Agriculture minister has referred serious allegations of misconduct at the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to police
Police have been called in to investigate the government’s pesticides regulator after a review of its work culture found further allegations of misconduct.
An independent investigation was launched in November into the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) after a Senate committee heard allegations that a senior public servant urinated on his colleagues.
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Continue reading...Company says leak includes details on chronic conditions such as heart disease and people with cancer and dementia
Russian cybercriminals have released a fifth tranche of stolen data from the private health insurer Medibank, including the details of treatment for mental health.
The company’s chief executive, David Koczkar, on Sunday confirmed the hackers, who obtained the records of millions of current and former customers in a ransomware attack last month, had released the details on the dark web.
Continue reading...Group releases file containing hundreds of customer claims as government considers banning ransom payments for cybercrime
Medibank customer data related to claims for mental health treatment are the latest to be posted on the dark web by the Russian hacker group.
On Sunday night the group posted a file on its dark web blog labelled “psychos”, which contains hundreds of claims from policyholders that appear to be related to mental health treatment.
Continue reading...Attorney general Mark Dreyfus has been briefed by the privacy commissioner about hack and is seeking ‘urgent’ meeting with telco
The Australian federal police is investigating after the data of millions of Optus customers exposed during a recent hack was allegedly put up for sale online.
On Saturday morning a post appeared on a data market from a user claiming to be in possession of the information obtained from the breach with a demand for $1m in Monero cryptocurrency.
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Continue reading...Jacob Wayne John Keen, 24, is alleged to have created hacking tool when 15 years old and sold it to more than 14,500 people
Police allege that a teenager living in the suburbs of Brisbane created and sold a sophisticated hacking tool used by domestic violence perpetrators and child sex offenders to spy on tens of thousands of people across the globe – and then used the proceeds to buy takeaway food.
Jacob Wayne John Keen, now 24, was 15 years old and living in his mother’s rental when he allegedly created a sophisticated spyware tool known as a remote access trojan (RAT) that allowed users to remotely take control of their victims’ computers.
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Continue reading...Offenders may be kept in prison after serving sentence, but wrongly made order ‘almost always amounts to arbitrary detention', rights group argues
A tool used by authorities to assess the risk posed by convicted terrorists before their release from prison is unreliable and should be investigated, the Australian Human Rights Commission and a peak body for Muslims have argued.
The Violent Extremism Risk Assessment 2 Revised, known as VERA-2R, is used to measure the threat posed by extremists, often when considering whether they will be subject to strict court orders once their prison sentence is completed.
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