Airtasker of the underworld, offshore gangs and the uniquely Australian crime

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Morning Edition

Episode: Airtasker of the underworld, offshore gangs and the uniquely Australian crime
Host: Samantha Selinger-Morris
Guest: Marta Pascual Juanola (Investigative Reporter)
Date: April 26, 2026

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Overview

This episode examines how organized crime in Australia has evolved, with syndicates now weaponizing technology, recruiting children, outsourcing operations through app-based platforms, and moving their base offshore to evade law enforcement. The conversation reveals how these uniquely Australian developments are tied into global crime networks, yet also highlight home-grown challenges – particularly the violent illicit tobacco trade.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Modernization & Tech-Savviness of Australian Organized Crime

• Criminals Adopting New Tech: Australian crime syndicates are increasingly tech savvy, using sophisticated financial technology, cryptocurrency, and encrypted communication to operate more efficiently and anonymously.
  • "Criminals, organized crime players here in the country are starting to weaponize financial technology... to move faster, more efficiently, and be able to launder money at an unprecedented scale." — Marta Pascual Juanola [01:03]
• Faster, Elusive Operations: Offenders exploit tech to create pooled funds, funnel cash offshore at "dazzling speed," and fund other criminal enterprises, making it harder for law enforcement to react in time.

2. Moving Offshore: Transnational Gangs

• Overseas Operations: Around 70% of adversaries/targets identified by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) are now based offshore, often in countries with laxer regulations.
  • "They increasingly moving outside of the territory... moving to third countries that might have lax regulations." — Marta Pascual Juanola [02:15]
• Arms-Length Management: This arm’s-length approach, combining remote leadership and local foot soldiers, reduces direct exposure for the masterminds and complicates law enforcement efforts.

Case Example: The Kaz Hamad Syndicate

• Kaz Hamad ("Tobacco Kingpin"): Despite exile in Iraq after prison for heroin smuggling, Hamad continues to direct violent operations in Victoria, including fire bombings and murders, via encrypted communications and a network of lieutenants.
  • "Kaz Hamad continues to control Melbourne's illegal tobacco trade from behind bars in Iraq." — Glenroy Shop Owner [03:20]

3. Outsourcing Crime with "Airtasker of the Underworld"

• Uberization of Crime: Criminal bosses (e.g., Hamad’s network) utilize app-based platforms that mimic gig-economy models to post criminal jobs (arson, murder, extortion).
  • "It's like the Airtasker of the underworld... you just post, look, I need someone to come and firebomb a business." — Marta Pascual Juanola [04:19]
• Benefits for Crime Bosses: This method keeps crime bosses unconnected to actual perpetrators, aiding in evading prosecution.
  • "They actually had never spoken before... it's much more complicated." — Marta Pascual Juanola [04:19]

4. Recruitment of Children & Youth

• Younger Foot Soldiers: Increasingly, syndicates are turning to minors for dangerous tasks, knowing they're likely to receive lighter sentences and less police scrutiny.
  • "There's this sort of element of them being a lot less obvious, but also attracting much lower sentences and being clean skins..." — Marta Pascual Juanola [05:21]
• Economic Exploitation: Teenagers are paid mere thousands for high-risk jobs like firebombings, offering "value for money" for syndicates.

5. Comparisons to Global Crime & the Uniquely Australian Angle

• Global Trends: The use of technology, cryptocurrency, and international coordination tracks with transnational crime patterns seen in Latin America, North America, and Southeast Asia.
• Australian Uniqueness:
  • "The illicit tobacco problem... the scale and the violence we’re seeing in Australia is uniquely Australian." — Marta Pascual Juanola [07:25]
  • Factors include high tobacco prices and an unusually violent black market.

6. Law Enforcement Response

• Playing Catch-Up: Australian agencies acknowledge the challenge and are investing in upskilling, improved financial monitoring, and technological capability—but details are closely guarded to avoid alerting criminals.
  • "There's a lot of effort... to actually upskill a lot of our law enforcement agencies to make sure that they can keep up..." — Marta Pascual Juanola [08:50]
• Complex Money Laundering: Example: A security company used armoured vehicles to shuttle cash and launder up to $190 million via bank accounts and cryptocurrency, integrating illicit funds into legitimate businesses.

7. Reporter Reflections & Surprises

• "Airtasker for Crime" as Standout: Marta finds the transformation of legitimate-seeming technology into platforms for murder-for-hire and extortion most surprising.
  • "You're not looking for someone to come and clean your gutters... you're looking for someone to go and shoot someone or commit an act of extortion. It's quite incredible." — Marta Pascual Juanola [10:44]
• Weapons Stockpiling: Gangs maintain safehouses of weapons for rapid distribution, analogous to Amazon warehouses.

8. Clarifying the "Airtasker" Allegory

• Not the Real Airtasker: The black-market apps are custom-built, not the real Airtasker app. Regular users need not worry about hiring a criminal by mistake.
  • "This is a custom built sort of replica almost of Airtasker... black market app that sort of mimics that with a different purpose." — Marta Pascual Juanola [12:13]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On laundering cash:
  "You're talking about literal piles of dirty money getting picked up by couriers around the country and then taken on flights back to Queensland. It's incredible the scale of what we're seeing." — Marta Pascual Juanola [09:47]

• On technology and youth:
  "Syndicates are tapping into those underage kids because... they get lesser sentences and draw less attention from authorities." — Marta Pascual Juanola [05:21]

• On adapting to law enforcement:
  "The moment that police crack down on something, they find a way around it." — Marta Pascual Juanola [11:42]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:03 — How Australian crime syndicates use technology and cryptocurrency
• 02:15 — The move to offshore management, citing 70% of syndicates now being based overseas
• 03:20 — Specific case: Kaz Hamad and the ongoing illicit tobacco violence
• 04:19 — Explanation of the organized crime app system, the "Airtasker of the underworld"
• 05:21 — Recruitment of children and their exploitation as criminal foot soldiers
• 07:25 — What makes Australia’s crime landscape unique, especially the tobacco trade
• 08:50 — How law enforcement is (and isn’t) keeping up with new criminal tactics
• 10:44 — Journalist’s most surprising discovery: gig apps for criminal assignments
• 12:13 — Clarification: custom black-market apps, not the real Airtasker

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Summary

The episode unpacks the evolution of organized crime in Australia, where gangsters now outsource violence and money laundering through custom apps, relocate operations overseas to avoid detection, and exploit children as disposable assets—all while adapting global trends to Australia’s unique social and economic environment. The scale of violence, particularly in the illicit tobacco market, sets Australia apart even as it mirrors international syndicate models. Law enforcement faces a continual struggle to catch up. The most shocking revelation: the gig economy model now underpins even the underworld—a deeply unsettling glimpse into crime’s digital future.

Transcript

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

When you think of organized crime, a picture may come to you of robbers meeting in dark warehouses to hash out a clandestine heist or burner phones used and then chucked in the bin in order to avoid being detected, if only because criminals have become increasingly tech savvy and elusive, according to our leading criminal intelligence Commission, Samantha. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris and you're listening to the Morning edition from the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, investigative reporter Marta Pascual Juanola on how the underworld is now using apps and children to do their dirty work. It's April 27th. Marta, welcome back to the podcast.

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Thank you for having me.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

Okay, well, you've just written that Australian

[Interviewer/Host]

authorities have said that organized crime in this country and the players in it

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

are, are smarter and more tech savvy than ever.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, that's obviously not good news.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

So tell us first of all, how

[Interviewer/Host]

is that the case?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Yeah, so look, this information comes by Australia's top intelligence agency, that's the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. And basically what they're warning is that criminals, organized crime players here in the country are starting to weaponize financial technology as well as cryptocurrency and all kinds of new technology to be able to move faster, more efficiently and be able to launder money at an unprecedented sc. We were talking about creating pools of dirty cash that they can then funnel through the system really quickly, move that money offshore at dazzling speeds and then use that money to fund other activities which might be like things like drug trafficking or weapons trafficking, also to fund crimes like hiring murderers for hire, that kind of thing. So we're seeing that moving at a much faster pace. They're getting much smarter. And so the window that law enforcement age agencies have to actually catch them in the act is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And so it's becoming more challenging to actually be able to stop them doing what they're doing.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

Okay, and Chris Davie, the head of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, or acic, he has said that the major players have also been increasingly based overseas. So tell us about that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Why is that happening?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Yeah, that's right. So Chris Davy, the national manager at the ACIC, so what he said is that about 70% of all adversaries that are Australia has, are now based offshore. So those are targets in terms of organized crime. And so what we're seeing is that they increasingly moving outside of the territory in Australia here because of the pressure from law enforcement that we have here onshore. And so what they're finding is that they're moving to third countries that might have lax regulations. You talk about, I think you spoke about access to world class technology and communication systems while living in what's like a third world country in terms of rules and governance. So that allows them that free to be able to operate with less scrutiny and to be able to direct everything from afar. And so what that means is it's an arm's length type situation where they can outsource their activities to other people on the ground while being less exposed to the heat, like coming from police, both federal and state here in Australia. And so a great example of that is Kas Hamad, the tobacco kingpin.

[Glenroy Shop Owner]

A business owner whose Glenroy shop has been firebombed three times. Says underworld kingpin Kaz Hamad continues to control Melbourne's illegal tobacco trade from behind bars in Iraq. The man believes he's being targeted for cooperating with police.

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

He's been causing all kinds of mayhem here in Victoria. There's been hundreds of fire bombings, there's been murders that have been connected to his operations to control the illicit tobacco trade. And so he's been based out of Iraq for a long time after being deported from Australia after serving prison sentence for heroin smuggling. And so what he's been doing is being based out of Iraq and directing everything from afar through encrypted communications and through a network of lieutenants that he's got here on ground in Victoria.

[Interviewer/Host]

You've also written about the way this technology is being used and playing out in the syndicates controlled by people like Kaz Hamad because there was talk of an app being used where jobs would be issued like almost uber style, right?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

That's right. It's like the airtasker of the underworld. So this sort of came into play around 2024 and basically it's sort of like an airtasker. You just post, look, I need someone to come and firebomb a business. This is address, this is the time frame. And so people can literally say, yeah, I've got the right person for that, or I'm the right person for that. And booking a job that way where you have like a crime boss that doesn't actually need to know or even be connected to the foot soldiers that are actually carrying out a lot of that dirty work. So that also gives that sort of degrees of separation when it comes down to prosecution being like, well, they actually had never spoken before, they actually never spoke directly. And so it's just becoming this much more complicated space where they actually being really smart about the way that they used to technology to facilitate a lot of this criminal offending.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I mean, it's not just the technology, is it either? Because we also know that the head of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission said that children were more and more being recruited by these gangs. So how much is this happening and why?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Yeah, look, it's happening across the board, almost like a pipeline, I guess, in terms of like recruiting children as food soldiers to join into those syndicates. Traditionally, children tend to age out of offending, so when they hit their sort of twenties, like mid twenties sometimes, sometimes they drop off and go back to sort of leading reasonably normal lives. But what we're seeing is that those syndicates are tapping into those underage kids because effectively what it means is that they're getting lesser sentences because of the way that the law operates here in Australia and the justice system. And they also draw less attention from authorities because police will be probably less likely to stop a kid on his way from a train station than some 2 meter tall guy with big muscles and tattoos all over his body. And so there's this sort of element of them being a lot less obvious, but also attracting much lower sentences and being clean skins, which means they don't have any criminal record and therefore they're more likely to be released on bail. They also very gullible and a lot of that is also happening online and we've seen that happen previously as well. Casamat himself came from a street crew, was recruited at a young age. And so they gullible and they'll do it for very little money. Some of those firebombings where they were getting paid as little as a few thousand dollars to just go and buy, burn down a shop. So it's a lot of money for a kid, but very little money for a crime boss. So it's just value for money.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

After the break.

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

The scale and the violence that we're seeing in Australia is uniquely Australian.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

And so this new picture of organized

[Interviewer/Host]

crime that you've written about that we're seeing here in Australia, the technology, cryptocurrency, the lack of real cash, which is enabling people to funnel just massive amounts through digital means, does all of this reflect what's happening in crime globally, or

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

is there something uniquely Australian about it?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Look, I think in a lot of ways it's global in the sense that I think crime syndicates are becoming more and more transnational. Some of the syndicates that we've got here have connections to syndicates in Latin America, North America, in Southeast Asia, and so they all Connected and sort of following in on all those trends. So they're using technology to be able to operate more effectively. We've seen this, for example, in Southeast Asia, there's a lot of scam farms where, like, the scammers are now using AI, for example, to look differently, to be able to catfish prospective victims in, like, video calls. Those filters have become so good now that these people can touch their face and move, and the filter doesn't move away like the old Instagram story filters, like the dog filter and whatever, where you turn your head around and all of a sudden your face would be in the other end of the room. These are really, really, really good filters, like really good technology. So that we've seen across the board. What I think is uniquely Australian, for example, is the illicit tobacco problem. I think that's created because of the high prices here in Australia. And even though other countries have similar problems and a black market with tobacco, the scale and the violence that we're seeing in Australia is uniquely Australian.

[Interviewer/Host]

And so if all of these problems are relatively new, do you have any information on whether our enforcers here are agencies which are there to crack down on it? Are they across it, like, are they developing new skills, new talent pools to crack down on this, or is this just their new challenge that they have to come up to speed on?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

I think it's definitely a challenge. And then Chris Davy at the acic, the national manager that we were just talking about, he was very open about it, that it's becoming challenging, that it's a source of concern. So I think there's a lot of effort that's going on behind the scenes to actually upskill a lot of our law enforcement agencies to make sure that they can keep up with this kind of offending. And also in terms of bolstering things like our financial institutions and that kind of thing, to try to crack down on the money laundering side of things. Because we had a case recently in Queensland, for example, where a security company was using armored vehicles to transport cash from different parts of Australia to launder it through a network of bank accounts. Cryptocurrency, we're talking about $190 million in transactions being investigated. And basically they were able to mix dirty cash with king cash and then funnel it through these financial institutions as well as crypto sites. And then they were able to, like, use that money and put it through legitimate businesses like sale promotion companies, car dealerships, that kind of thing, and then flooded back into the market. And so you're talking about, like literal Piles of dirty money getting picked up by couriers around the country and then taken on, on flights back to Queensland. So it's incredible the scale of what we're seeing. So I think there's a lot of efforts that are going towards from a regulatory point of view but as well from like a law enforcement techni techniques sort of point of view. But they always very cagey about this kind of thing. They don't like talking about investigative techniques. They don't want to tip people off elsewhere like criminals off about what they're doing. But I think it's definitely a source of concern and something that they increasingly doing.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I'm so curious because you've been reporting on criminals, it has to be said, for quite a while. So was there anything that really surprised you that you learned about in this space? You know, perhaps it's the air Tasker stuff that kind of drives me wild because air taskers, you think of innocent tasks, you know, like hiring someone, a teenager or someone in their, in their early 20s to hang your pictures or something. But that's not what's happening here.

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely one of the things that surprised me the most. And it's, it's. Right, it's not, you're not looking for someone to come and clean your gutters. You're looking for someone to go and shoot someone or someone to go and ex, you know, commit an act of extortion. And so I think it's, it's quite incredible how they're weaponizing that because like a lot of the time when we think about cryptocurrency, we associate that with money laundering and criminal syndicates. Same with online casinos and all that kind of stuff that it's notorious for being connected to that kind of underworld. But when it comes down to something so innocent, I guess in principle to be sort of like transform into what's effectively like a murder for hire type platform. It's incredible. And they also stockpiling weapons so that they can dispatch them in an Amazon warehouse style. So they'll just have safe houses full of weapons stockpile so that people can get them on demand. They very clever in the way that they approach it, which is really concerning. So those are the kind of things that I find the most fascinating is how inventive they are and how they immediately, the moment that police crack down on something, they find a way around it.

[Interviewer/Host]

And just one question of clarification for anyone out there who's actually been using Airtasker to sort of get people to hang their pictures or clean their gutters. These people aren't actually on Airtasker, are they? As you know, it's actually a different app that's like this. Like you're not going to hire someone to sort of, you know, get rid of your boxes and you're accidentally getting an extortionist. That's probably. I mean, I know you can't say for sure, but do we know that's not necessarily what's happening?

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

That's right. So this is a custom built sort of replica almost of Veritasco. It's like grabbing the model and like building like a black market app that sort of mimics that with a different purpose. So you can rest assured that if you're looking for someone to walk your dog or mow your lawn, it's likely not going to be a Casimat Lieutenant, as far as I can guarantee. Obviously, there's always. It's always open to, you know, you

[Interviewer/Host]

don't know who you're getting.

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

You never know what you're getting. And that's the other thing people like. Even if you're using the real Airtasker, you never know what you're doing. So be careful.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

Wow. Well, thank you so much, Marta, for your time.

[Marta Pascual Juanola]

Thank you for having me.

[Samantha Selinger Morris]

Today's episode was produced by Josh Towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.