Proceeds of crime is being used to fund a new campaign aimed at getting the public to help identify members of criminal gangs and organised crime syndicates importing and selling illicit drugs.
Crime Stoppers was given a $3.5 million from seized criminal assets to fund its new six-month national campaign, which carries the theme of "they will never know it was you".
It's a campaign aimed at reassuring users of the anonymity of the Crime Stoppers website and 1800 333 000 call line and shows scenarios in which using these tools can help police break open these illicit drug organisations.
In the advertising, the faces of those using Crime Stoppers are pixellated to indicate anonymity, which has always been critical to winning trust.
Intelligence gathered by the Australian Federal Police during its extraordinary drug-busting Operation Ironside, in which police and the FBI secretly tapped the phones of drugs dealers and distributors, has revealed how the Italian mafia and organised crime gangs were arranging the bulk importation and using bikie gangs and other criminal networks "onshore" as their distributors.
The success of Operation Ironside, in which drug dealers were duped into using an encrypted phone app which had a "backdoor" connection to police, reaped more than $50 million in seized cash.
Midway through last year the Criminal Assets Confiscation Team had restrained about $19 million in assets, including bank accounts, real estate, luxury handbags, high-end watches, cryptocurrency and cars - including a Holden VL Walkinshaw and a Shelby Mustang in climate-controlled vehicle bubbles.
Ironside, the largest and most successful anti-organised crime operation in the AFP's history, revealed how baggage handlers and postal workers were among those truted insider helping the drugs get through.
"The breadth and the scale of drug trafficking and other criminality uncovered has been staggering," AFP Commissioner said.
But the drugs keep on coming because the potential profits - with Australian prices some of the highest in the western world - are so lucrative.
Late last week, police arrested a third man in Perth in connection with the 300kg cocaine shipment which foundered when the seven metre cabin cruiser picking up the shipment - presumably from a freighter - capsized off the WA coast in February.
Crime Stoppers Australia chair Dr Vince Hughes said that people involved in the illicit drug trade often reach a point where they are feeling concerned for their personal safety or that of their family and need a way out.
"The [drug] trade provides a highly lucrative and profitable market for organised criminal networks such as outlaw motorcycle gangs, cartels, triads and Italian organised crime," he said.
"In fact, with the illicit drug trade estimated to be worth more than $10 billion per year the profits they make are now the lifeblood of their illegal activities.
"Those profits are often used to fund other illegal activity, including human trafficking and sexual servitude."
He said that it was well understood that "some people who may be in, or linked to, the drug trade may not want to deal directly with police".
"Crime Stoppers provides the perfect option for anyone who has information because they can anonymously share what they know without needing to get involved or risk their own safety," he said.
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