NSW Police charge members of alleged criminal group ‘The Commission’

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Sydney police say they've disrupted a major criminal network known as 'the commission'. The group is alleged to have supplied 1-point-8 billion dollars’ worth of cocaine across the city -- in only four months.

Transcript

00:00So this actually began back in April when police began investigating a significant supply

00:08chain of cocaine in the Sydney area, allegedly linked to a 21-year-old man and a number of

00:13his associates.

00:14Now, jump to July, and that 21-year-old man was arrested and charged with a number of

00:18drug-related offences.

00:20His matter remains before the court.

00:22But at the time of his arrest, police actually seized $20 million worth of cocaine.

00:28Now, police continued with their investigation and launched an official operation into this

00:33alleged syndicate, but what they actually found was a larger criminal network known

00:37as the Commission.

00:39They allege this group actually is in control of the supply and the price of cocaine across

00:44Sydney.

00:45Now, yesterday, they executed a number of search warrants across Sydney, and they seized

00:50a further $55 million worth of cocaine, and they've arrested six men in relation to this

00:55investigation, all of which have been charged, and their matters remain before the courts.

00:59But the New South Wales police actually gave a bit of an update into their investigation

01:04this morning to the media, just to give a bit more detail about the extent of this operation,

01:09but also the significance of this alleged criminal network.

01:13Here's what they had to say.

01:14We're alleging that at six million deals, that's $50,000 a day.

01:20That is a massive appetite in this city.

01:23And that concerns me greatly.

01:26The market is driven by a demand, and that concerns me, and what we need to have a conversation

01:31about is, how do we affect demand?

01:36And that's a bigger question than just law enforcement.

01:38We're at the end of that chain, and we arrest those involved in the supply.

01:41We're very concerned about the supply, if there's a health issue around consumption,

01:46and it should be dealt with, but it's obviously addictive.

01:50This appears to be certainly one of the larger cocaine busts that we've seen in Sydney for

01:55quite some time.

01:56In fact, police say that they've uprooted, allegedly, one of the most dangerous and destructive

02:02groups Sydney has seen to date.

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