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The financial crimes watchdog, one of the lead agencies in the Department of Home Affairs’ push to combat online child sex exploitation, has potentially bungled a case after sitting on evidence of potential crimes for more than a year.
But the watchdog, Austrac, was not only too slow to call in police on that case and a string of others involving Westpac Bank customers, it potentially compromised investigations by releasing identifying details about the alleged offenders without giving police time to act.
Serious questions about the conduct of the $75 million agency during the Westpac child sex exploitation scandal have been raised by law enforcement experts. The affair has also brought into sharp focus the role of its CEO Nicole Rose.
A police expert with decades of experience tackling child sex crimes said authorities should aim for a 24-hour turnaround time to inform police for active crimes, but any longer than seven days is unacceptable.
“You would have to justify any further delay and contemplate the extended harm that may be happening to the child,” said the former senior cop.
Former NSW Police Assistant Commissioner, Clive Small, said generally a report should prompt a fast and serious response.
“Because of the nature, character, and violence of the crime – a quick reaction is justified especially when there is evidence that the crimes are continuing,” said Mr Small.
Widespread concerns have already been raised that Austrac has no specific protocols for the time taken to prioritise and report suspicious matters to police, and it is struggling under a backlog of thousands of reports needing analysis.
Similar questions were raised last week about Austrac’s alleged inaction reporting to police suspected money-laundering activities which had been reported to the watchdog by Crown Casino.
Austrac did not answer questions about whether it has guidelines around reporting deadlines to police, any backlog of suspicious matter reports, nor how many analysts work on child exploitation reports.
Former head of intelligence at Austrac, Todd Harland said Austrac is a small agency reportedly handling more than a billion reports a year.
“There are only a small number of people analysing those reports,” said Mr Harland who now runs AML Solutions International.
Mr Hurley said it is “curious” the way Austrac handled the Westpac breach allegations with law enforcement, and questions should be asked.
Former NSW police officer turned academic Dr Michael Kennedy said there is an obligation to quickly inform the right authorities about an alleged crime being committed and “someone with a law enforcement background would know that”.
At the National Press Club last month when asked about the mechanism for Austrac informing police about potential crimes, Ms Rose said “we will get hundreds of thousands of reports some of that will be triaged by systems others by human beings, who will look at pattern analysis and things that are an issue. Our financial analysts at Austrac will actually review them and actually work up something they think will be useful for law enforcement because we want to provide actionable intelligence, not just pass transactions along, and when we see typologies or methodologies we know are present for certain crime, we would actually refer” to state and federal police.
An eight-month investigation by News Corp into Ms Rose’s meteoric rise from an unsworn executive administrative position in the NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione’s office in 2015 to running one of the nation’s peak law enforcement agencies on almost $500,000 a year, has revealed a trail of puzzling moves and “unique” appointment processes.
By Natalie O’Brien, News Corp Australia Network, 29 February 2020
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