Stan 'The Man' Smith was a feared enforcer for Sydney's underworld. George Freeman's right hand man; he was a cold-hearted assassin, drug trafficker and murderer, turned man of God.
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00:00Hey, it's all set.
00:28My name is Deborah Wallace, and I'm now a retired detective superintendent with the
00:33New South Wales Police Force.
00:43It was just a little job started in a little town by a small group of police.
00:52So we were happy to let it run up in Sydney.
00:56And now we're into a cross-international drug importation all the way to China.
01:04It's a major job.
01:06You're talking over 13 million hits of ice.
01:13The social harm would have been enormous.
01:36In 2014, I'd just transferred from the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad, where I was
01:41the commander, to take up the new position as the commander of the gang squad.
01:50We were based in Parramatta, where I grew up.
01:53So you can imagine my surprise when I went back there to work and saw the streets crawling
02:01with warring biker gangs.
02:07Members of the Comancheros and Hells Angels were involved in the lunchtime fight on Church
02:11Street.
02:14That worried me.
02:15This is my hometown, and I like people to be comfortable.
02:18I like to be comfortable.
02:26The mere reputation of outlaw motorcycle gangs is that they're confrontational, they're in
02:31your face.
02:34They rely on a visible presence.
02:37They are self-declared, by the mere term, we are outlaws.
02:44And they wear a 1% patch on their colours, which tells everybody, and themselves, that
02:50we're the 1% that operate outside the law.
03:02I spoke to Darren Beachy, who was an inspector with Strike Force Raptor, the highly visible
03:07arm of the gang squad.
03:10And I said, what can we do about these bikies?
03:14The thing about Deb, she created an environment that encouraged creativity and acceptance
03:22of risk.
03:23I said, well, we can do something about it.
03:30It was Darren who came up with the clever idea of using the Move On legislation to help
03:36clean up the streets of Parramatta.
03:39There was a time that bikies completely dominated any public space.
03:45That's no longer.
03:49We got rid of them.
03:50We were successful.
03:56We might have been taking these outlaws off the streets, but they were still congregating
04:01in clubhouses all over the state, planning their next criminal enterprise.
04:07Psychologically, the clubhouse is a massive thing.
04:11It is like planting a flag in the middle of a suburb and declaring, this is ours.
04:18It's also a massive recruiting tool.
04:22So the young blokes come in and they're ployed with alcohol, drugs, to see the strippers.
04:28They get to feel important.
04:29They get that sense of discipline and belonging.
04:39Our next mission was to disrupt the bikies on their own turf.
04:44We set about going into clubhouses right across New South Wales.
04:54The rebels were probably the biggest outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia at the time.
05:01And in fact, they had a huge clubhouse in the middle of Newcastle in King Street.
05:08They have to do a door knock, announce their presence.
05:15Before they've used their 12 pound hammer to basically knock the door in.
05:18I was quite amazed at the format of a clubhouse.
05:29There was a fully stocked bar like you see in any licensed premises.
05:32I think there was a boxing ring.
05:34There was paraphernalia all around the walls.
05:38A man's cave on steroids, I guess.
05:43So bit by bit, they dismantled it.
05:47It was huge.
05:48It went out on the back of, you know, about three Pantech trucks.
05:51We take away the bars, tables, chairs, everything on the walls, the stripper poles, the stage.
05:58And I even swept the floor.
06:04By sweeping the floor, it's symbolic in clubhouses, because we want to show them that we're taking
06:10every remains of a biker clubhouse.
06:27Overall, we got rid of 60 clubhouses at the time I was there.
06:49Really systematically went through and dismantled just about everyone in New South Wales.
06:55You can walk down any street in Sydney now and not see bikies.
07:05And while Raptor cleaned up the streets, another team at the gang squad did their policing
07:10more quietly.
07:11My name's John Edwards.
07:13I've been in the police force since 1992.
07:18Back in 2015, I was a detective sergeant working at the State Crime Command gang squad.
07:26Deb Wallace ran the show.
07:29Raptor was one side of house.
07:33The other side of house were the investigators, and that was my side.
07:39The Royal Hotel, country pubs, they're the centre of the community, real community hubs.
07:46The Royal was not one of them.
07:52A job that went for two years started right here in this place, the Royal Hotel in Timora.
08:07What really interested us was the company these people had.
08:15These guys were the importers.
08:17We had to identify the high-risk container that we were looking for in amongst millions
08:22of containers that crossed the Australian border.
08:26Illegal Chinese workers who'd been smuggled into the country to work as drug cooks.
08:30It's all about organised crime.
08:33It's about money.
08:35It's about greed and influence.
08:45Timora is a beautiful town in the Riverina, an hour from Wagga, two and a half hours from
09:00Canberra.
09:04So beautiful, you know, picturesque town.
09:13The local detectives had got some information.
09:16There'd been lots of complaints about drug dealing and other activities both in and around
09:22the Royal Hotel.
09:30The local police did an amazing job in trying to combat that problem.
09:36They did hear that the person possibly running or controlling the distribution was a guy
09:42called Kevin Burns, the president of the Timora chapter of the local bikie gang, the Rebels.
09:53Pretty much as soon as they realised that the Rebels were involved, that's where they
09:57tend to come to the gang squad.
10:02The matter was brought to the attention of John Edwards and his off-sider, Luke Stibbard,
10:07who came to see me.
10:10My first question was, Timora, why are we going to Timora?
10:14But they are the best salesmen and they explained to me, in a town like Timora, which is small,
10:22it's a big deal.
10:23So off they go to Timora.
10:34In the initial stages, of course, you've got to get your head around what you've got.
10:39It takes some time to gather momentum.
10:43So we were down there for a long time.
10:49I guess you'd have to say they were pretty slim pickings.
11:02I was ready to shut the job down.
11:05I said, look, you know, I'm not getting bang for the buck.
11:08He wouldn't have pitched to me if he didn't have faith in this job.
11:11So I had to have faith in him.
11:14And I was so pleased I did.
11:21Strike Force Kindra first went to Timora in November 2015.
11:27And it took 18 visits for John Edwards and his team to make a breakthrough.
11:34It wasn't until February 2016 that they first got a contact with Kevin Burns, the chapter
11:43president.
11:44Now, when I say they established contact, our contact wasn't wearing a police uniform
11:58and wasn't meeting Burns to arrest him.
12:02We were trying to confirm what he was trafficking and supplying.
12:08It turned out to be prohibited drugs, including methamphetamines, the scourge of many country
12:16towns in Australia.
12:23Going way back to the philosophy of Sun Tzu, you can't beat them unless you understand
12:27them.
12:30We wanted to understand how the rebels worked, who were their suppliers and how were they
12:36transporting drugs to little country towns like Timora.
12:40We needed those answers before we started making arrests.
12:46Kevin Burns, he'd been a member of the rebels for over 30 years.
12:50He'd started up the local Timora chapter about five years before we heard.
12:56He wasn't a big chapter by any matter of means, but they were happy to pretty much make a
13:00buck on anything illegal going around.
13:05Our team were able to convince Mr Burns to sell them drugs.
13:12We were on the move.
13:16However, after a number of discussions with Burns, it became apparent that he really didn't
13:25have access to drugs at his place.
13:29He quite openly said, look, I have to go to my boss.
13:34We'd heard that he was paying two and a half thousand for an ounce of gas or amphetamine
13:40and five thousand for an ounce of ice, but he got it from Canberra.
13:46His upline supplier was in Canberra.
13:52That was a fella called Lee Slater.
13:55He was the state vice president for the ACT, a fairly big fish.
13:59The Australian Federal Police had been interested in him for quite a while, but he was obviously
14:04fairly high up in the hierarchy.
14:07So that, of course, meant quite a change.
14:12So now we've gone from Timora into a cross-border jurisdiction.
14:20Now we have moved up a level.
14:22Little did I know what was to come next.
14:36When Strikeforce Kindra was launched back in 2015, it had a simple mission.
14:41To investigate drug supply in Timora by Kevin Burns and his associates, which allowed us
14:51to target Lee Slater as well.
15:04We'd won the confidence of the motorcycle outlaws Slater and Burns, who'd agreed to
15:08sell drugs to our team.
15:11But of course, now we needed to pay for the drugs.
15:16The police team led by John Edwards and Luke Stibbard started asking around.
15:22They said, look, Deb, we've had some discussions with Border Force and we have a great relationship
15:27with our federal partners, particularly Border Force.
15:32So we were fortunate at the time that the superintendent for investigations in the Australian
15:36Border Force was a former New South Wales police officer.
15:40So that relationship was already there in terms of our relationship with the New South
15:44Wales police.
15:46Our team said Border Force told us that they've got a whole warehouse full of confiscated
15:53tobacco that's been, you know, illegally imported and that they just destroy it.
16:03That's tonnes of tobacco sitting around waiting to be destroyed.
16:08So Border Force came up with a very clever idea.
16:13To use tobacco that we'd already seized at the border that was illicit, then to facilitate
16:20that tobacco and provide it to the organised crime groups.
16:25Tobacco for cash.
16:26It's genius.
16:28But was it the right idea?
16:31So that idea was one that had to obviously be agreed, considered by New South Wales police
16:36going forward.
16:37And I went, oh, immediately I was, my mind said, on an emotional sense, said no, because
16:45my dad had died of emphysema.
16:50So I knew that cigarettes were harmful, but then I had to put my logical hat on and think
16:58The game is drugs.
17:00Getting drugs off the street, OK.
17:02So off we went on that line of offering tobacco in exchange for drugs.
17:13Kevin Burns bought it and he said, my boss is Lee Slater and he's the person that will
17:20have the capacity to provide you the drugs we need.
17:35The first big exchange occurred at a car park next to a sports oval in Canberra.
17:48Slater handed over two ounces of crystal methamphetamine, that's ice, in exchange
17:56for $10,000 in illegal tobacco supplied by us.
18:11During other discussions with Lee Slater, he was interested as to how we could provide
18:17tobacco.
18:18And the discussion, I think, went around the lines of, well, we can get unlimited amounts
18:24of tobacco because we have access to the borders.
18:29Through our pretend border force agent or someone corrupt on the wharves or however,
18:35we can get tobacco.
18:36And he said, really, well, I've got a mate I know in Sydney, around Penrith area, he's
18:45really interested in tobacco.
18:49He introduced the name of Breed and Drees as the Penrith connection.
18:57So now we've got another name, Breed and Drees, in Sydney.
19:04The question is, why was he interested in tobacco?
19:08We of course are much more interested in drugs.
19:15By August 2016, we had enough evidence to arrest both Burns and Slater.
19:24If we arrest them, then we're done because the balloon's up, everyone shuts down, right
19:29up the food chain.
19:30But it was too intriguing.
19:33We knew there was someone in Sydney.
19:35Who is that person?
19:39And what are they doing?
19:41It was time to keep going.
19:54When police arranged to buy ice in exchange for tobacco from ACT rebels boss, Lee Slater,
20:01a whole new world of opportunity opened up.
20:05Because Slater introduced Breed and Drees to the conversation.
20:17Now Breed and Drees was at Penrith.
20:21He was absolutely interested in tobacco.
20:23We didn't know why at the time.
20:26But he was certainly known as a cook or a manufacturer of methamphetamine or ice.
20:35He made it and he sold it.
20:40In fact, through Slater, we were able to establish that Drees was Slater's upline ice supplier.
20:49So he's obviously someone that we want to cultivate.
20:54We're sort of assuming that there'll be potentially connected with other rebel chapters up in
20:58Sydney, which is, you know, straight up and down our charter as the gang squad.
21:03So we were happy to let it run and try and identify his sources and his contacts up in
21:09Sydney.
21:10And that's where we ended up.
21:21Our team first met with Drees at the Nepean Village shopping centre in Penrith.
21:30Discussions took place, firstly, about how we can provide him tobacco.
21:38But in the discussions about tobacco, the conversations were then about, well, what
21:44else can you get in?
21:49Drees revealed he was interested in large-scale drug importations.
21:53He told us he had big overseas dealers waiting in the wings in Lebanon, Canada and China,
22:00ready to ship drugs into Australia.
22:04So then the discussions were, well, we can probably help with that too, you know, not
22:09just limit ourselves to tobacco.
22:11We can probably assist you with whatever you want.
22:16Now we're getting closer to where we want to be, uncovering a major drug importation
22:21racket.
22:23But to win the confidence of Drees, he wanted us to do a trial run.
22:28And guess what that involved?
22:30Tobacco.
22:31We said, oh, yeah, how much do you want?
22:34Thinking, you know, a small amount, but it turns out he wanted a large amount.
22:39So he said he wanted three deliveries, all separate.
22:44His first delivery, he wanted 100,000 cigarettes and then he wanted it pushed up to 1.3 million
22:55and then he wanted 1.5 million, done over a two-week period.
23:00So that was OK.
23:01We, Border Force, was happy to facilitate that for us.
23:06So it was that collaborative approach in terms of what have we got here, how can we assist
23:11and what can we offer to support you to achieve the ultimate outcome?
23:31After receiving nearly three million cigarettes from Border Force, the team delivered the
23:36first instalment, 100,000 cigarettes, to an industrial state in Lansvale, south-western Sydney.
23:45They met out in the car park.
23:50And the first delivery, Drees, was there.
23:56And lo and behold, driving the van were two Asians.
24:06So we're going, what's the connection here?
24:26The first thing is to identify who they are.
24:28And then, of course, you're stuck in the position, well, what are they?
24:30Are they just a couple of blokes buying cigarettes?
24:37With ongoing surveillance, we were able to identify they'd bought a whole bunch of cigarettes,
24:45but then they took the cigarettes to a different group of Asians who ran tobacco shops.
24:51They were a family, a family who owned tobacco shops in western Sydney.
25:01And they were able to simply go from delivery to retail.
25:04So it was really to stock their retail outlets.
25:08And we referred to them because they were all a family business by the surname of Tran.
25:18The next question, was the illegal tobacco business linked in some way to the much bigger
25:23game of importing ice?
25:26We found the answer by taking a closer look at the ice cook, Breeden Drees.
25:32Having a look at Drees being a cook, to then be an importer is a big step.
25:40We heart of hearts knew he probably wasn't the brains behind any import operation.
25:47But by targeting Drees, we had a breakthrough and he led us to who he was meeting with.
26:03We captured a number of meetings with an Asian group operating out of industrial units at
26:14Powers Road, Seven Hills.
26:22What really interested us was the company these people had.
26:29And it was Global Marine Imports.
26:37Global Marine was in the business of importing aquarium products.
26:42And an essential ingredient for fish tanks is sea salt, as it makes it much easier for
26:46the fish to breathe.
26:51But what if the sea salt was in fact a cover for something else?
26:57Drees had indicated to us that he wanted us to import ephedrine, which is the chemical
27:04needed to make methamphetamine.
27:11So we started to wonder, were they going to substitute sea salt for ephedrine, as sea
27:18salt looks a lot like ephedrine?
27:25Drees, whilst he was pulling the import together, wasn't the main guy.
27:30We started looking at Global Marine.
27:34Bok Kim Tran was the guy running the place there.
27:39And Jeff Acosta, another one of the people that we'd sighted in the back of a truck unloading
27:45cigarettes.
27:48So we start getting a sense, OK, well, maybe the Asians are the ones actually pushing the
27:52importation side.
27:54Of course, that all comes together when they all go on a trip to China.
28:16We started off at Timora.
28:20We went into the ACT upline.
28:25We went to Drees, who's a cook.
28:30And now we're into a cross-international drug importation, all the way to China.
28:38It's a major job.
28:45An importation would normally be done by the Federal Police.
28:49But by this stage, we're, you know, 10, 11 months into an investigation.
28:58One of the great things that happened was the Federal Police bedded within our actual
29:04unit a team called the National Anti-Gang Strike Force, NAGS.
29:10That ensured that New South Wales Police retained control of Strike Force Kindra, with
29:15all the government agencies working together.
29:29We monitored many meetings at Global Marine in the second half of 2016.
29:40Drees was spending a lot of time with the company owner, Quoc Tran, and his running
29:44mate, Jeff Acosta.
29:47In October, they began the next phase of their operation, by travelling to China.
29:58They all leave a few days apart.
30:01They all go by different routes.
30:06One was flying into Vietnam and then ends up in China.
30:11Another one's gone into Hong Kong, catches a ferry to Macau and then flies into a different
30:16part of China.
30:18And another one catches a direct flight from Sydney to Shanghai.
30:23So they really mixed it up to avoid detection.
30:31When they all come back, they walk through Sydney Terminal, not talking to one another,
30:36not looking to another.
30:37They go out the front door, get in the one car.
30:46That cemented in our minds that these guys were the importers.
31:05Once Chinese New Year had wound up, we learned that they were heading off for another trip
31:10overseas.
31:11We might be on again.
31:19They would have been going over to buy the Precursor.
31:24They were talking about a ton of ephedrine.
31:28They were going for the big one and bringing in a large amount.
31:33But you can't just, you know, stick a pile of drugs in a container and label it drugs
31:37and bring it into Australia.
31:39So they've obviously got to find some sort of a mechanism or a guise to bring it in.
31:46They'll look for the cover load, the legitimate products that they will put on the paperwork.
31:54Of course, with Kwok Kim Tran running Global Marine, he has a legitimate business and a
32:01legitimate reason to bring materials in.
32:04Things like ceramic rings, aquarium stones, coral and sea salt.
32:18Were they going to hide the ephedrine in buckets of sea salt?
32:22That was our suspicion.
32:25But now we had to prove it.
32:33When we start getting information, the shipment is on the water.
32:41What ship is it on?
32:43And where is it in the ship?
32:46That's Border Force's area of expertise.
32:54We had to identify the high risk container that we're looking for in amongst millions
33:00of containers that cross the Australian border.
33:05So it was through those short, sharp little pieces of information that through our intelligence
33:10teams we were able to narrow down the vessel that this particular container was on.
33:16Then the container itself.
33:24So we got all the way to June 23, 2017.
33:30It's arriving.
33:36So Border Force was ready, the AFP were ready and we were ready.
33:42So as soon as that arrived, it was taken off the vessel discreetly so no one knew and the
33:48contents searched.
33:56So we looked through the legitimate cover load.
34:01We looked at the paperwork that had been submitted and were able to marry that up with our crew.
34:09They had imported 216 20 litre buckets full of sea salt.
34:19And when the federal police forensic experts went through this, they found that 160 of
34:27them didn't contain sea salt.
34:30And we were able to then identify that there was actually 1.4 tonnes of ephedrine concealed
34:35within the container.
34:46Now that 1.4 tonnes of ephedrine, being a precursor for methamphetamine and ice, would
34:51have, if not intercepted, created around 1.3 tonnes of ice.
35:02Now that would have delivered significant damage to the Australian community.
35:07You're talking over 13 million hits of ice.
35:13It's worth around $680 million in terms of street value.
35:20The social harm would have been enormous.
35:38It was the largest importation of precursor in Australian history at that point in time.
35:47It came in on the 23rd.
35:49We seized it on the 24th.
35:51And then on the 28th of June, we were going to do all our lockups.
36:00Police say they've nailed some of Sydney's most dangerous drug kingpins after the biggest
36:04seizure of ephedrine in Australian history.
36:08It was swift.
36:15Synchronised raids at dawn.
36:21Heavily armed police storming houses across the city in a landmark blitz on drug syndicates.
36:30You're looking at 230, 250 staff in the field.
36:37We set up a command post.
36:39It's a bit like a military operation.
36:41It has to be done like that.
36:50Deb was the one running this show.
37:05I was running the arrest and interview side of things, but we never left the building.
37:09We were just flat strap all day.
37:12More than $2 million in cash was seized along with large quantities of drugs and five handguns.
37:1912 people were arrested.
37:22The 12 men arrested are alleged to be a mix of key organisers, house sitters and drug
37:27cooks.
37:30We seized a whole bunch of computers, mobile phones, a whole bunch of blackberries.
37:37Getting them out of their hands so they didn't do anything to wipe them, etc, like that.
37:41So all of that had to be fast, quick and safe.
37:45And that was done like clockwork.
37:54The other big thing we're looking for out of the resolution day is confessions.
38:02A couple of them saw the writing on the wall and were happy to help us.
38:07And one search warrant would lead to another.
38:11The ephedrine was destined to be brought here to this George's Hall house, where police
38:15discovered an elaborate clandestine drug lab inside.
38:19They say it was staffed around the clock by illegal Chinese workers who'd been smuggled
38:24into the country to work as drug cooks.
38:35The second phase of the resolution was the tobacco syndicate, the trans syndicate.
38:40So we did them over.
38:46In Sydney's southwest, Strike Force Kindra was investigating a legal tobacco supply.
38:53These were coordinated strikes.
38:57Because the balloon's up and we're public with both the trans syndicate and the import
39:01syndicate, we do a press conference.
39:03This will have an impact from not just Sydney metropolitan, but rural right across Australia.
39:09And it's all about organised crime, it's about money, it's about greed and influence.
39:2113 million potential street deals off the street is significant.
39:29Our most important arrests on the day were the leaders of the Asian syndicate, Kwok Tran
39:35and Jeff Acosta.
39:40And the next most important arrest, of course, was Breedon Drees.
39:46We swooped on lease later in Canberra, but left the best till last.
39:58And then we go all the way back to Timora, where it all started.
40:10And I'm sure Johnny Edwards got such satisfaction to knock on that door of Kevin Burns as the
40:19final phase to say, we're done.
40:28It was important for me, I wanted to go back there.
40:31We were locking up the president of the Timora chapter, the sergeant at arms and a number
40:37of their associates.
40:42So that was a nice little touch.
40:52I was on cops for 36 years.
40:57You know, you look back and I was so lucky to have so many highlights in that time.
41:04Kindra is one of the first ones I refer to and we say, well, what's so special about
41:07Kindra?
41:08For me, it was just a little job started in a little town by a small group of police.
41:16And then all the way up over two years now, how can I encapsulate and do justice to the
41:24commitment, the passion, the dedication and the hard work and the tenacity of all those
41:32police involved in Kindra to get to the final stage.
41:36But not only that, when they get to court, the majority of those arrested, nearly 30,
41:46they almost all pleaded guilty.
41:49And that shows the strength of the prosecution brief, but the professionalism of the officers
42:27Results of this nature don't come without sacrifice.
42:30People worked on this type of job 24-7, they cancelled holidays and that's from officers
42:37at all levels.
42:38I think the key to me is that collaborative, collegiate approach.
42:45We brought the powers of a number of agencies together, noting it was led by the New South
42:50Wales Police.
42:52People like Deb Wallace were instrumental in ensuring that they did work as a team.
42:58And without that sort of collaborative, collegiate approach, you just wouldn't have delivered
43:02that outcome.
43:08For tomorrow, keep the information coming in.
43:11If any of these blokes are still up to no good down there, then they need to ring the
43:15local police and we'll kick it all off again.