Chair of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Organised Crime, Steve Symon. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
The head of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Organised Crime says police need greater powers to monitor bank accounts and seize suspects' assets.
Chair Steve Symon said cash and assets seized by police were less than five percent of the $1.6 billion of criminal profits each year.
"The police have powers under the Search and Surveillance Act to watch a person or to intercept their cellular communications but we don't have a method by which they can obtain their bank transactions over 30 days. What police would have to do is ask for a new order every single day," Symon said.
The Ministerial Advisory Group on transnational and organised crime was set up in February, to provide independent, expert advice and recommendations to improve the cross-government response to what Associate Police Minister Casey Costello described as "an increasing threat".
It had since met with a number of agencies, including Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Inland Revenue, Customs, Police and the Serious Fraud Office, as well as non-governmental stakeholders like banks, NZ Post, Auckland Airport and gang members.
The group was providing monthly reports on different facets of organised crime in the country which Symon said would culminate in a final overarching report in September.
This month's report was focused on ways to restrict criminals' ability to launder money and export profits, thereby reducing the country's attraction to transnational criminal groups.
Symon said lawmakers needed to be bold if the country was to shift the dial on the growing problem of organised crime.
"Organised crime is now effectively acting like large corporations who are there to make money and not concerned with how they make that money.
"Illicit tobacco, methamphetamine, exploiting migrants is a way they can make money. Using all these opportunities to take advantage of the good will of the New Zealand public," Symon said.
Tougher controls on cash
Symon said tougher controls on large cash purchases, carrying cash across the border and industries paying cash to fly beneath the radar would limit the potential for criminal exploitation.
He said police and border control agencies needed to establish better communication and co-operation with financial institutions to enable them to stop scammers getting access to victims' money and to seize criminals' assets and funds more efficiently.
"One of the things that keeps coming up is the need for us to work as a team. It's not just the police, not just Customs, not just these other enforcement agencies that can support them but it's looking more broadly than that.
"Looking at our team as [including] the private sector, the banks, the telecommunications companies, the airfreight companies. All these different businesses than can help us collectively to work as a team to try and stamp out organised crime," he said.
'By the time we get to conviction, the money's gone'
He said safeguards intended to protect from unjust seizures were instead contributing to a situation where confiscation processes were too slow and inefficient to provide effective disruption and deterrence.
"We're trying to be very mindful that we don't want to interfere in a person's rights [but] what we're also trying to do is to offer up tools that might help the police and other enforcement agencies to immediately deal with the problem. To avoid situations where by the time we get to conviction the money's gone.
"So to give agencies the opportunity to seize funds and seize assets now and then to go through the correct process to go through any court processes that might follow," Symon said.
The group's report recommended the government attack organised crime by:
- Strengthening the asset recovery framework to provide for an efficient and effective process, while maintaining core Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 protections and oversight.
- Improving responsiveness to stop suspicious money transfers.
- Strengthening investigative powers to focus on likely offenders.
- Broadening the money laundering offence to address criminal behaviours that enable and facilitate organised crime.
- Making cash a less attractive option for organised crime by tightening controls to improving oversight.
- Enhancing financial intelligence capability through collaboration and involvement of the private sector.
- Building public awareness about the risks and signs of illicit transactions.
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