While AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw fronted a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra, some of his most senior officers were planning a series of carefully coordinated raids to dismantle what they say is one of the country's biggest money-laundering operations.
The "go" decision came early on Wednesday morning when police raided offices and expensive homes across Melbourne and around the country to dismantle an alleged huge money-laundering operation worth $229 million over the past three years.
In its raid on the Changjiang Currency Exchange, which the AFP alleged is being secretly run by the Long River money laundering syndicate, police seized a huge number of high-end luxury goods including Phillipe Patek and Rolex watches, a Porsche sports car and a Mercedes Maybach worth around $800,000. Luxury homes and investment properties were also held as suspected proceeds of crime.
Seven members of an alleged Chinese organised crime syndicate accused of secretly running a prominent, multi-billion-dollar money remitting chain in Australia, have been charged under the most complex money-laundering investigations conducted by the AFP.
More than 240 AFP members, plus 92 specialist members, executed 20 search warrants across every mainland state while simultaneously restraining more than $50 million in property and vehicles under AFP-led Operation Avarus-Nightwolf.
Four Chinese nationals and three Australian citizens have been charged for their alleged involvement in the money laundering syndicate and are expected to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday, October 26.
Police alleged the Changjiang Currency Exchange, which has 12 shop fronts in every mainland state, was the company's attempt to look and act like a law-abiding remittance company.
The Changjiang Currency Exchange has transferred in excess of $10 billion in the past three financial years.
While most of these funds were from customers engaged in lawful actions, the AFP will allege the company facilitated a system for organised criminals to secretly transfer unlawfully obtained money in and out of Australia. The AFP alleges the amount of money laundered between 2020 and 2023 was $228,883,561.
It is alleged some of the money laundered by the syndicate was from the proceeds of crime, including from cyber-enabled scams, the trafficking of illicit goods and violent crimes.
It is alleged the syndicate would coach its criminal customers how to create fake business paperwork, like false invoices and bank statements.
The AFP will allege the Changjiang Currency Exchange avoided its tax liabilities on legitimate money remitted and other income, depriving Commonwealth taxpayers of millions of dollars.
It is alleged the co-mingling of legal and illicit funds enabled the company to transfer up to $100 million a day for customers in Australia and throughout the world, with the volume of transfers masking the alleged laundering of tainted funds.
Further, it is alleged the Changjiang Currency Exchange sought to avoid undue regulatory attention by actively making efforts to appear legitimate in its reporting.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Dametto said one aspect of the investigation was linked to COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney.
"During COVID-19, AFP members were still coming into work, and while most of Sydney was a ghost town, alarm bells went off among our money laundering investigators when they noticed Changjiang Currency Exchange opened and updated new and existing shopfronts in the heart of Sydney.
"It was just a gut feeling - it didn't feel right. Many international students and tourists had returned home, and there was no apparent business case for Changjiang Currency Exchange to expand."
The AFP will allege syndicate members were able to amass a significant amount of illegal wealth from their criminal activity.
"We allege they lived the high life by eating at Australia's most extravagant restaurants, drinking wine and sake valued in the tens of thousands of dollars, travelling on private jets, driving vehicles purchased for $400,000 and living in expensive homes, with one valued at more than $10 million," Assistant Commissioner Dametto said.
The company is now subject to regulatory action by AUSTRAC.
