Ironside Operation Nets Dozens in South Australia’s Largest Organized Crime Arrests
Adelaide, South Australia – In what authorities are calling the largest single-day crackdown on organized crime in South Australia’s history, approximately 40 arrests were made across the state on June 7, 2021, as part of the wider, three-year Operation Ironside. The nationwide sting resulted in the simultaneous arrests of hundreds of alleged criminals across 18 countries.
The operation involved around 460 officers searching 80 premises, culminating in a meaningful blow to criminal networks operating within South Australia. Prior to this major sweep, 33 arrests had already been made in connection with Operation Ironside. nationally,the operation had,at that time,led to 224 offenders facing 525 charges,according to the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
Operation Ironside centered on the use of AN0M, an encrypted app secretly developed by the AFP and distributed among criminal groups through individuals police identified as “criminal influencers.” The app allowed authorities to monitor real-time communications, capturing approximately 28 million messages globally, including 19 million originating from Australia. A complex system copied messages as they were sent, collecting them on a separate server before re-transmitting them to a secure server in Sydney accessible to law enforcement.
Recent guilty pleas and prosecutions have been bolstered by a High Court ruling earlier this month, endorsing the legality of using data obtained through the AN0M app in criminal proceedings. The ruling paves the way for continued prosecutions stemming from the operation.
