- Police have been unable to recover data from gunman Adam Lanza’s computer after the 20-year-old deliberately sabotaged the machine’s hard drive, investigators have said.

Forensic experts revealed the damage was so extensive that attempts to retrieve potentially crucial evidence such as emails had failed.

A joint effort to piece together the remains of the hard drive, reported to have been damaged with a screwdriver or hammer, was undertaken by Connecticut State Police and the FBI.

Authorities had hoped its data would shed light on Lanza’s deadly killing spree. Detectives have so far been unable to provide any definitive link between the young man and the school he attacked. “It looked like he took steps to damage it – he smashed it,” an official connected to the investigation told the New York Times.

Federal investigators have interviewed at length both Lanza’s father Peter, a tax specialist, and his elder brother Ryan, 24, in aneffort to determine the catalyst behind the attack. But despite hours of questioning it is understood the pair were unable to explain why Lanza acted so violently.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Paul Vance, a spokesman for state police, said investigators were continuing to examine everything and anything relevant to the shooting, including mobile phones and computer game consoles.

Officials said they were also aware that Lanza had been a keen computer gamer, and enjoyed some of the particularly violent varieties of war games.

FBI investigator Robert Paquette said: “Many of these games are very violent. I can’t help but believe these can affect the mind of someone unbalanced.”

No letters or notes from Lanza have been found offering a motive.

Police are also likely to concentrate their efforts on statements provided by vice-principal Natalie Hammond, 40, who is recovering in hospital after being injured in the shooting.

The teacher, along with a second survivor who is understood to be an employee at the school, will be vital in helping piece together an explanation for the tragedy.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington, Connecticut, confirmed that no family member had yet come forward to claim the body of Lanza or his mother.

On the first school day after the Newtown shooting, an 11-year-old boy brought a gun to his Utah elementary school, apparently fearful a similar massacre could happen there, officials said.

Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley said the sixth-grader at West Kearns Elementary School allegedly waved a .22 calibre handgun at three students on Monday during a lunch break. A teacher was told about the gun, which was found in the student’s backpack and unloaded – James Orr

- No federal cyber-stalking charges will be brought against the biographer of former CIA director David Petraeus.

Prosecutors had been weighing whether to file criminal charges against Paula Broadwell, whose emails to a Tampa socialite, Jill Kelley, set in motion an FBI investigation that ultimately exposed Broadwell’s relationship with Mr Petraeus. “We believe that it is appropriate to advise your client that out office has determined that no federal charges will be brought…relating to alleged acts of cyber-stalking,” Assistant US Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow said in a letter to Broadwell’s attorney, Robert Muse.

In a brief statement, Mr Muse said he and his client were pleased. It is not immediately clear if Mr Muldrow’s letter marked an end to an inquiry in which investigators were also reviewing Broadwell’s handling of sensitive government documents – The Age

- Police are searching for a woman after a racial attack on two Indian women in Melbourne’s CBD.

The woman in her 30s threatened the two women in their 20s and slapped one across the face after they got off a bus at the corner of Queen and Collins Streets.

The incident began when the two victims got on the Bay Street bus in Port Melbourne at 12:30 pm on December 12th.

One of the victims accidentally bumped her bag into her would-be attacker.

She turned to apologise but the woman launched into a racist verbal attack.

After continued abuse the victims left the bus but were followed by the angry woman and a friend.

The attacker slapped one woman across the face and slapped a phone from the other victim who was trying to call police. The phone was smashed on the ground and the attacker warned them not to call police before fleeing in a taxi.

Police are searching for any witnesses to the incident.

The offender is described as about 160 cm tall, short spiky blonde hair and solid build.

She was wearing three-quarter length blue pants and a black short sleeve shirt with Burberry written on the front.

Another woman with the offender was described as being aged in her 30s, Caucasian, about 162 cm tall and thin with blonde medium-length hair tied in a ponytail.

She was wearing a white collarless shirt and a black skirt below knee- length.

The latest attack comes after an internet video went viral showing a French woman on a bus to Frankston being attacked by racist passengers.

That woman was sitting at the back of the bus and started singing in French before the passengers turned on her.

The incident was largely condemned and Transit and Public Safety Command detectives are investigating two men and a woman who made the verbal threats and racist taunts – Alex White

- One of the customs officers entangled in an airport corruption scandal allegedly had links to a Victorian crime figure implicated in drug importations.

The Custom’s man’s Melbourne connection, a prominent underworld identity, has been a target of law enforcement for years.

He has been charged over major shipments of ecstasy, psuedoephedrine and cocaine. The man is an acquaintance of the Melbourne underworld’s biggest names and was for years associated with drug tsar Tony Mokbel.

The Australian Federal Police said yesterday it had arrested eight people including two Customs officers, in a scandal uncovered in a two-year investigation.

The Community and Public Sector Union, which represents Customs officers, is seeking information fro members and will cooperate with any reviews – Mark Buttler and Stephen Drill

- Three weeks ago make up artist and public relations consultant Krystle Hill returned from the Philippines where she had been working for Sydney businessman Jim Byrnes.

Yesterday, the 27-year-old was in the dock at Sydney’s Central Local Court, accused of being a drug mule. She is charged with conspiring to import a commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine from Thailand.

Ms Hill is at the centre of a case in which eight people, including Customs officers and quarantine inspectors, have been arrested over the alleged importation of narcotics into Australia.

It is alleged Ms Hill was working as a waitress in a Sydney hotel when she and another woman were recruited by two men – Joseph Harb and a Customs officer who cannot be named for legal reasons – and offered $10,000 to go to Thailand and bring the drug back in their luggage.

The Customs officer allegedly told the woman everything would be ok and assured them their suitcases would not be searched, as he would be working on the day of their return. He also advised them not to get too dressed up as they would draw too much attention to themselves, details tendered to the court alleged.

The court was told Mr Harb left for Thailand on June 10th, 2009 and bought 10 kg of psuedoephedrine from a chemist in Phuket. Ms Hill and her accomplice allegedly arrived three days later and, after a six-day stay, came home with the drugs hidden in their suitcases.

Another Customs officer, Paul Katralias, who was charged last August with drug offences, was allegedly paid $5000 cash and human growth hormone worth about $1800 to not search the women at the airport.

But Mr Katralias was allegedly diverted to other duties on the day the women returned.

The court heard the Customs officer, who was later to become Ms Hill’s boyfriend, was arrested on Monday and charged over his role in the drug importation.

Ms Hill, who spends six months of the year working in Cannes, was arrested at her grandmother’s Adelaide home on Monday night.

She was extradited to Sydney to face the charges yesterday. Defence barrister Wayne Baffsky told the court there was no proof the pseudoephedrine was intended to be used in the manufacture of drugs.

Ms Hill sobbed as magistrate Beverley Schurr agreed the prosecution did not have a strong case, and granted her conditional bail. Jim Byrnes who sat at the back of the court during the bail application, attempted to pay Ms Hill’s bail with $20,000 cash.

Ms Hill, who said she would fight the charges, will reappear in court on February 27th – Daniela Ongaro

- A man who disappeared on the Bellarine Peninsula four years ago may have been killed in his own home, new evidence has revealed.

Douglas Kally seemed like a normal dad, but he had a criminal past and detectives have called on his associates to dob in anyone who may have played a part in his disappearance.

The search for the 48-year-old fisherman yesterday returned to his backyard, in Indented Head, where the Police Search-and-Rescue Squad dug up a patch of lawn, hoping to uncover remains or any clue that could lead to his killer.

Mr Kally, also known as Dragon Dordevic, was reported missing in October 2008, after his family had not heard from him in months.

The father of five had told colleagues in July of that year he would be travelling to the NSW south coast town of Kiama, but he failed to arrive. He was seen at Moolap marine centre in July and again between then and October of that year.

Police now believe Mr Kally may have been killed in the McDonald Street home he shared with his wife and two children.

Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Snare, of the Homicide Squad, said new evidence had been uncovered this week, after a public appeal from Mr Kally’s siblings.

About 20 State Emergency Service volunteers joined police and rescue squads in a search of nearby wetlands, as uniformed police door-knocked homes.

Locals shied away from commenting publicly on Mr Kally’s background, with a number saying they were fearful it could lead to trouble.

It was believed Portarlington police had been watching a McDonald Street home in 2008 after reports of drug activity in the area.

Senior Sergeant Snare confirmed Mr Kally was known to police.

Mr Kally’s siblings, Alex and Elizabeth Dordevic, this week said their elderly father was having nightmares as he wondered what had happened to his son – Andrea Hamblin

- A boy has told police a man in a dark car with no number plates tried to grab him and force him into the vehicle.

The shocking abduction attempt happened on Paramount Way, Pakenham, , about 8:30 pm on Tuesday, after the 12-year-old noticed the sedan following him.

“Shortly afterwards the car has pulled up and the male driver has asked the boy to get in the car and help him look for his dog,” Victoria Police spokeswoman Natalie Webster said.

“The boy has refused and the man has gotten out of the vehicle and attempted to grab the victim.”

Detective Sergeant Shaun Allen, from Dandenong Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team, said the boy ran off.

Police do not believe the incident, which happened as the boy walked home from a sporting event, is linked to the abduction attempt of a 10-year-old girl in Pakenham last month.

The man is described as caucasian, aged 20 to 30, possibly with grey stubble, and wearing black pants and hooded top – Jon Kaila

- Up to two dozen illegal handguns – including some bought by Sydney crime gangs – passed through Port Botany after customs officers falsified paperwork to wrongly claim they had X-rayed the container in which the weapons were hidden.

A six-month Fairfax Media investigation – conducted in association with the ABC’s “7:30 Report” – can also reveal that customs is investigating about 100 criminal allegations involving its staff – the highest number in the agency’s history – and has received more than 1300 allegations of misconduct since 2008.

It has also emerged that acting Customs Service CEO Michael Pezzullo was frozen out of parts of the federal police’s probe into corruption at Sydney Airport because his brother, a customs officer, works and associates with several members of the allegedly corrupt customs airport cell.

In other revelations, which come after Thursday’s expose of an allegedly corrupt cell of customs officers at Sydney Airport:

- Dozens of pages of sensitive customs documents were leaked to a crime syndicate controlled by drug and illegal tobacco smuggler Mohamad Jomaa, who ran a syndicate that boasted of having several contacts inside customs.

- A joint police taskforce has identified up to 12 suspected corrupt customs officials working on NSW’s maritime border security, adding to the cell of 15 allegedly corrupt officers at Sydney Airport, including some still working there.

- Employees of Menzies Aviation Services with federal government security clearances are being investigated over their links to alleged drug trafficking within customs. Menzies provides baggage handling services at the airport.

The smuggled handguns were identified by a police operation code-named Otford, which discovered that the guns were smuggled in engine parts that a small number of customs officers falsely claimed they had scanned. Further investigations found that the officers falsified paperwork to give the engine parts the all-clear.

While the customs officers were caught lying about their failure to scan the container, there is no evidence they knew it contained guns.

It is unclear if any of the smuggled guns, which included four semi-automatic pistols recovered by police, were used in any of Sydney’s spate of gangland killings.

Customs has dealt with the case as a matter of misconduct and incompetence and said in a statement that the officers involved had been subject to code of conduct provisions and in October received remedial training and workplace counselling.

However, senior NSW police are believed to have been furious about customs’ role in the affair, especially after it followed a string of so-called misdetections by customs staff of drug shipments.

Regarding the ongoing airport probe, there is no suggestion that Mr Pezzullo’s brother is involved in corruption. (Fairfax made several attempts to contact Mr Pezzullo’s brother but was not successful.)

One of the aspects of the probe is whether customs staff not involved in corruption nevertheless knew that some of their colleagues may have had inappropriate associations or may have been engaged in questionable behaviour in or outside of work hours. At least four customs officers still working at Sydney Airport attended the court case of an allegedly drug-using officer without informing their bosses.

Asked about his brother’s relationship with suspected corrupt customs officials, Mr Pelluzzo said: “I was advised by the previous CEO that I was to be excluded from all briefings and information related to allegations concerning possible corrupt activities at Sydney Airport on the basis that I had a family member who worked at the airport.”

Of the suspected corrupt customs officers on the waterfront identified by the joint agency Polaris Taskforce, several are suspected to be involved in facilitating illegal tobacco or drug importations.

A confidential Polaris report from this year states that the Customs Examination Facility at Port Botany has been infiltrated by criminals.

One of the customs officials suspected to be aiding maritime drug and tobacco importations was allowed access to highly sensitive information despite having two brothers known to NSW Police as drug traffickers.

This officer was also one of at least two customs staff with strong ties to a criminal syndicate led by convicted drug trafficker Mohamad Jomaa, as well as to two alleged tobacco smugglers who are currently before court and are facing charges of bribing a third customs official.

Asked about the suspected corrupt customs officer with links to Mohamad Jomaa, Mr Pezzullo told Fairfax that he chose to resign while customs…..was making an assessment of his suitability to continue to hold a security clearance.

Dirk Scott, the general manager of Menzies Aviation, said on Thursday that he had heard nothing from federal police or the federal government about any of his staff having suspected links to allegedly corrupt customs officers or crime figures.

Allegations of corrupt baggage handlers emerged in 2004 after supports of Schapelle Corby alleged that airport staff had put drugs in her boogie board bag. Federal police later discredited these claims – Nick McKenzie & Richard Baker

- A double-storey house in Craigieburn full of cannabis plants has been destroyed by fire.

Neighbours raised the alarm at about 11 am after noticing the blaze, which apparently started as the result of an electrical fault. The house was extensively damaged with the entire top floor burnt out.

Firefighters found an estimated 200-300 mature cannabis plants growing in all the bedrooms and a bottom-floor lounge room.

There was no one in the house during the fire. Hume Crime Investigation Unit detectives are investigating who was renting the premises.

Dodgy electrical work at cannabis grow houses has caused a surge in house fires across Melbourne, with six houses burning down in the past two weeks – Stephen Cauchi

- A judge has jailed multi-millionaire accused drug kingpin Mohammed Oueida for at least five and a half years for drug trafficking.

County Court judge Liz Gaynor on Thursday said Oueida had played a major role in a large scale drug manufacturing and trafficking operation to help fund his lavish, flamboyant lifestyle.

But the judge said she accepted Oueida, who has been married four times and drives a Hummer and Ferrari, had committed the crimes when under pressure to pay money to two notorious crime families in Melbourne – the Kheirs and the Haddaras.

Oueida had been part of a posse with Fadi Haddara, Nasser Kheir and Mahmoud Kheir to rescue a kidnap victim being tortured in a house north of Melbourne in November 2009. Oueida and both Kheirs were wounded during the gun battle which erupted at the Coolaroo house.

As a result, Oueida claimed the Kheirs and Haddaras blamed him for what happened and demanded money to pay their legal fees after they had been charged for the shootout.

Oueida had been forced to pay $250,000 to Nasser Kheir, hand over his chicken shop and butcher shop to the Kheirs and pay many thousands of dollars to the Haddaras.

Judge Gaynor said there was dispute over the role Oueida had played in the drug trafficking operation, with police claiming he was the drugs boss who had organised everything but his defence lawyer claimed Oueida only became involved to pay off the Kheirs and Haddaras.

The judge accepted Oueida had profited handsomely from the drug trafficking but had also been under pressure to pay off the Kheirs and Haddaras.

When Oueida was arrested in April last year, police claimed he was living in a $2.8 million mansion with an eight-hole golf course, a swimming pool, tennis court and wine cellar, and had a Ferrari 360 Spyder, a light plane, and $6 million in a Swiss bank account.

Oueida, 36, pleaded guilty to trafficking and manufacturing methamphetamines, dealing in the proceeds of crime, and possessing an unregistered semi-automatic rifle.

Judge Gaynor said she accepted that without Oueida’s participation and organisation, the enterprise would not have been as successful and profitable as it was.

She jailed Oueida on Thursday for a total of eight and a half years with a non-parole period of five and a half years.

An investigation involving the Australian Crime Commission, Victoria Police, the AFP and Customs had been set up in March 2010 targeting Oueida and included the use of telephone intercepts, listening devices, surveillance and an undercover police operative – Mark Russell

- Convicted paedophiles in Canberra’s jail have allegedly set up a pornography ring, sharing electronic images of child sex abuse under the noses of prison guards.

Several investigations are under way into how the three prisoners, including two of the ACT’s most dangerous child sex predators, were able to obtain and share files containing the material while serving their sentences at the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

It is even alleged that a child pornography website was hosted from within the prison before police swooped on the jail on Tuesday. The ACT government’s Justice and Community Safety directorate is set to come under intense scrutiny in coming days to explain how the alleged ring was allowed to develop.

Fairfax Media has established that digital TV set-top boxes, legitimately obtained with the knowledge of corrective authorities, personal video recorders and USB portable hard drives were allegedly used to store and distribute the material.

The prison’s intelligence unit began passing information to jail authorities about the men’s suspected activities months ago but it is unclear what led to the delay in calling in police.

Central to the alleged plot was a laptop computer that a fourth prisoner, who has since been released, had permission to bring into the jail despite the misgivings of some guards.

The USB drives, which look like cigarette lighters in prison X-ray security screening images, are easy to smuggle into jail and can be plugged into ports on the set-top boxes.

The technical expertise is believed to have been shared by an offender, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who served four years of a nine-year sentence over what a judge described as premeditated and predatory rape of a 10-year-old boy.

The paedophile, an IT expert, was deported to his native South Africa after serving his four year non-parole period and being found to have been of good behaviour while in jail.

But before his release he was allowed to have a laptop computer, which allegedly led to the development of the child porn ring. Another man suspected to be involved is serving a 16-year sentence for offences against young boys. he has been described as a computer expert.

A police spokesman confirmed detectives were examining several devices seized on Tuesday. “ACT Policing’s Criminal Investigation detectives conducted a search….and seized several items suspected to contain child exploitation images,” he said – Noel Towell

- An academic known as an international founding father of health economics, Gavin Mooney, is said to have been murdered in southern Tasmania.

Professor Mooney and his partner Delys Weston were found dead by police called to their rural home by her 27-year-old son, according to the ABC. Nicholau Francisco Soares has been charged with their murders.

Police say they were called to a house at Mountain River, south of Hobart, early on Thursday, where the couple were found dead with severe head injuries.

Professor Mooney, 69, and Ms Weston moved to Tasmania in 2011 from Perth, where he had been director of the Social and Public Health Economics Research Group and professor of health economics at Curtin University.

His book “Challenging Health Economics” was published in 2009, and his website said he was working on two other book, on citizens’ juries in healthcare, and on healthcare reform. In June 2009 he was awarded an honorary degree in social sciences by the University of Cape Town as one of the founding fathers of health economics, and he consulted on priority setting, equity, Aboriginal health and social determinants of health.

Ms Weston studied the politics of genetic engineering.

Soares, from Fremantle, was to face court later on Thursday – Andrew Darby

- The federal government has admitted the culture of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service needs a major overhaul, following allegations that some if its officers have been involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and organised crime.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said Thursday that a new board had been appointed to root out corruption in the customs service, including Justice James Wood, who oversaw a royal commission that exposed corruption in the New South Wales police force.

But he said details on how the structure and culture of the customs service would be reformed would not be announced until next year.

A six-month joint investigation between Fairfax Media and the ABC’s “7:30 Report” has revealed that at least 15 officials in Sydney Airport border security posts are suspected of involvement in serious misconduct or corruption. The number may be as high as 20.

Their alleged conduct ranges from criminal association and leaking information to drug trafficking, drug manufacturing, money laundering and bribery.

The Australian Federal Police announced on Thursday that eight people had been arrested over suspected airport drug trading, including a customs officer and a quarantine inspector. They are believed to be members of a syndicate exploiting major gaps in airport and customs security at Sydney Airport.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus said it would be alleged that couriers were sent overseas to collect drugs before returning through customs with the help of people in trusted positions.

“Certainly, what has been alleged before the courts so far is that the customs officers involved in this would meet drug couriers off the plane,” he said.

“They would then walk them through the primary line of customs and then out into the waiting hall, so they would facilitate their entry through the normal checks and the normal law-enforcement processes that everyone goes through when they enter this country.

“It will be alleged that they (the customs officers) certainly played a role in organising the couriers themselves to go overseas, and to actually facilitate their collection of the narcotics oversea, and then again played a key role in bringing them back through the airport without any detection or any scrutiny from the normal process.”

Mr Clare said three distinguished Australians had been appointed to the new Customs Reform Board, which would report directly to him. They are Justice Wood, former NSW police commissioner Ken Moroney, and David Mortimer, the former CEO of TNT Limited, former deputy chairman of Ansett and former chairman Australia Post and Leighton Holdings.

Major reforms had already been introduced to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service this year as a result of the AFP investigation, including covert operations to test the integrity of customs officers, and drug and alcohol testing, Mr Clare said.

Customs and Border Protection Service acting chief Michael Pelluzzo said he was disappointed but not surprised by the corruption revelations.

He said nobody had been stood down from their jobs – Megan Levy and Harriet Alexander

- Police are investigating a new development in the case of a man who disappeared from a fishing village on the Bellarine Peninsula four years ago in suspicious circumstances.

Homicide Squad detectives combed the Indented Head area on Thursday with Search and Rescue police and SES officers, looking for evidence about Douglas Kally’s disappearance. They have set up an information caravan in the town about 1 1/2 hours south-west of Melbourne in the hope of learning what happened to the Bellarine man, who was also known as Dragon Dordevic.

Detective Senior Sergeant David Snare said police were treating Mr Kally’s disappearance as suspicious and believed somebody in Indented Head knew what happened to him – Jared Lynch

- Minus the sound, the federal police surveillance video reveals a seemingly innocuous scene – just two friends chatting in a Sydney street. But restore the volume and you can hear two men with the distinctive Australian accents plotting what they hoped would be an extremely lucrative drug importing operation.

The shorter man, Craig Nicholson, wears an over-sized red jumper draped over his middle-aged paunch. His companion, Wayne Cleveland, is taller, with muscle-bound shoulders broadened by years of paddling out at his home break of Maroubra in Sydney’s inner south-east.

As a member of the “Bra Boys” – gang of teenagers and adult men bonded through surfing, booze, drugs and petty crime – Cleveland has a typical rap sheet, including prior convictions for cannabis possession and carrying an unlicensed pistol. But he had always aspired to bigger things. As a man more partial to surfing than working, but who wanted his children to attend private schools, he had turned to one of the most profitable commodities in Australia.

Cleveland had connections in California’s surfing scene – and they could get him cocaine. The trick was bringing it in, which was why he was meeting Nicholson on a grey winter’s day in August 2009.

Nicholson had only recently been made redundant as an operations manager for the airline catering and cleaning firm, Gate Gourmet. A few years earlier he had arranged for several of his former colleagues to go on his mate Cleveland’s payroll.

In return for payments of up to $25,000 each, they smuggled blocks of cocaine through Sydney Airport that had been hidden in airplane toilets by drug couriers posing as international passengers. Not far into the AFP surveillance recording, Cleveland asks Nicholson “how much are you comfortable carrying?” aboard a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. “Whatever I’ve got to,” he replies.

With $20 million worth of cocaine in an Adidas sports bag on his lap, crime boss Mohamad Jomaa thought it would be a perfect time to play a joke on his square-jawed companion. “Oh fuck!….there’s a tape recorder down there,” he warned Brian Blackman, a fully patched member of the Lone Wolf outlaw motorcycle gang. “There’s a fucking tape recorder.” Jomaa paused, then erupted into laughter. A few minutes later when his car was surrounded by the red and blue of flashing police lights, the irony may have occurred to him.

During the 48 hours before Jomaa’s arrest in September 2010 – a period in which he’d arranged for bags full of drugs to be removed from a shipping container at Port Botany – he and his associates had been watched by the very audience he had hoped to avoid. There actually was a police listening device in the grey Holden Calais carrying the precious cargo. It recorded Blackman unzipping the sports bag to look at the cocaine and exclaiming: “Fuck yes, that’s it.” Next it had recorded Jomaa’s ill-timed attempt at humour. A few minutes after that came the sound of the arrest.

It had been a long time coming. Since at least 2005, the Mohamad Jomaa syndicate had been linked by NSW Police and federal law enforcement agencies to multiple drug and tobacco imports that moved undetected through Sydney’s wharves.

At the time of his arrest, Jomaa’s network included two suspected corrupt customs officials, a relative who worked in a customs broker’s business and an array of contacts on the waterfront. To get to the cocaine-filled sports bags, Jomaa’s associate Blackman had arranged for a corrupt waterfront worker to get access to a shipping container before customs officers could X-ray it.

Jomaa’s suspected contacts inside customs were, according to NSW police sources, most valuable because they could tip off his syndicate if law enforcement agencies began sniffing around Jomaas’s importing activities. As a result, many in Sydney’s underworld considered Mohamad Jomaa untouchable.

While they had never met, Jomaa and Cleveland’s importing schemes shared some notable features. For years, both had bee run under the noses of law enforcement authorities. Both also relied on corrupt waterfront or airport insiders. Cleveland’s scheme was pioneered in the early 1990s by Sydney private school teacher turned drug trafficker Kevin Geraghty.

After Geraghty’s arrest for importing cocaine in 2000, Cleveland assumed control over his enterprise, steering it through some of the biggest airport security shake-ups in Australian history. This included new laws that required all maritime and aviation workers to undergo background checks before being issued government security cards. But even with the increased vetting, Cleveland’s corrupt Gate Gourmet contacts all passed muster.

Nicholson, who had criminal associations and convictions for assaulting a police officer, was granted his Aviation Security Identity Card, as was another corrupt Gate Gourmet employee, Matthew Hay, who had convictions for dishonesty and assault. (Both Nicholson and Hay were later charged alongside Cleveland with drug smuggling).

Mohamad Jomaa’s network, however, went deeper than Cleveland’s – into the customs agency itself. When members of the syndicate were raided over illegal tobacco imports in 2010, police discovered confidential customs documents, including photographs from inside the highly restricted Customs Examination Facility at Port Botany.

The home of the customs officer who was the prime suspect behind the leak was also raided by NSW police, who discovered something troubling. Not only did he know Jomaa, two of his brothers were suspected traffickers. The same customs officer also had multiple phones registered in false names. He resigned quietly from customs in early 2011, but a second customs insider suspected by police to be on Mohamad Jomaa’s payroll was never identified.

Confidential police documents reveal that Mohamad Jomaa is not alone in having customs contacts inside customs. Several other alleged tobacco and drug smugglers in NSW have similar reach. Police files seen by Fairfax reveals that members of NSW Middle Eastern crime groups have been especially successful in cultivating contacts in customs.

According to security expert and former government official Neil Fergus, a corrupt customs insider can help organised criminals defeat any security system. “Corrupt customs officers, they know how the system works,” he says. If they are in a position where they can support organised crime….(they) are undermining the entire organisation.

In 2005, Fergus was one of three leading security experts (including Sir John Wheeler) who led Australia’s biggest review of airport security. The review was prompted by allegations of corruption inside Australian airports, first made in late 2004 by supporters of drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and later, in May 2005, in a leaked customs intelligence report that warned baggage handlers and other workers at Sydney Airport were involved in drug trafficking.

Wheeler and Fergus’ final report in 2005 (known as the Wheeler report) was damning. It found that policing at major airports in Australia is often inadequate and dysfunctional, and security systems are typically unco-ordinated. It also said there was a culture of under-reporting, and tolerance, of theft at airport and cargo areas, and that terminal staff who had major criminal associations were gaining access to secure areas, including baggage screening zones. “At its most basic, a culture of lax security or petty criminality can provide opportunities for terrorists to exploit weaknesses in airport security,” the report warned.

Not surprisingly, the report led to federal government promises of an immediate overhaul of airport policing, with federal agents to take the lead policing airports role.

The AFP and the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) were put under increasing pressure to identify organised crime activity at airports baggage screening areas and passenger terminals. The ACC responded by summoning airport staff for questioning at secret star-chamber hearings, where suspects were required to answer questions honestly or risk jail. Soon, it was looking at the waterfront as well.

In 2009, the ACC gave state and federal police forces copies of its investigation, the “Crime in the Transport Sector” inquiry. A public summary of the ACC’s confidential findings said they included a comprehensive picture of control system weaknesses, which provide opportunities for criminal exploitation within these (maritime and aviation) environments.

Confidential crime commission intelligence distributed to state police forces at about the same time went further, identifying specific criminal groups working with corrupt insiders. Among names featured were the Bra Boys and Mohamad Jomaa’s syndicate.

Within the next 18 months, in operations by the AFP and NSW police, Cleveland and Jomaa were arrested. But these successful operations – both men have recently been convicted of drug trafficking – only increased mutterings in policing and political circles about serious problems in customs. Much of it was generated by policing agencies, who believed customs had become more of a drug facilitator than a drug detector.

But corruption was also a concern. Former NSW Labor senator Steve Hutchins led last year’s parliamentary probe into the gaps in aviation and maritime security. He recalls that as his committee prepared its July 2011 report – which again warned that organised crime had deeply infiltrated airports and ports by exploiting security gaps – senior police officials provided private briefings that some customs officers had compromised their integrity and need to be dealt with quickly and harshly.

A confidential report in February 2012 by a NSW waterfront corruption policing taskforce Polaris left no doubt that this indeed was the case.

That warning has been realised spectacularly in the past 24 hours, with Fairfax’s expose of dozens of corrupt customs staff at Sydney airport and on the waterfront. Seven years after the Wheeler report was completed, Neil Fergus says change is still needed and the reforms his work helped realise have been “less effective than we hoped.”

Fergus says that given the litany of warnings over the last decade, a commission of inquiry with judicial powers may be needed to deal with the latest revelations. Hutchins is calling for a royal commission, while also pointing to the Gillard Government’s failure to implement all the recommendations from his parliamentary committee’s 2011 inquiry into border security gaps. “We are not talking about a case of whiskey being knocked off the waterfront,” says Hutchins. “We are talking about the importation of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs.” – Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker

- Australia’s powerful police integrity watchdog is running a covert inquiry into alleged corruption at all the nation’s airports and ports.

The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity’s Taskforce Natio has spent at least six months using phone taps and star chamber powers – in which suspects must answer questions in a confidential hearing or risk jail – to probe corruption on the waterfront and in airports.

It is believed to be investigating dozens of allegedly corrupt customs officials and has sent small teams of investigators across Australia to pursue leads.

The Natio probe highlights just how deep the problems in customs are and the scale of efforts needed to tackle them.

Fairfax Media can also reveal that a crime figure convicted this year of smuggling drugs through Sydney Airport with the help of allegedly corrupt customs officers attended a customs Christmas party last year.

In response to questions about this matter, acting Customs Service chief executive Michael Pezzullo said officers who knew about such activity and did not report it could face termination or other disciplinary measures.

It is believed that Facebook pictures of the Christmas party show customs officials in the company of a crime figure, who was arrested in August for smuggling drugs through the airport and bribing a customs officer. He recently pleaded guilty to these charges.

Pressure continues to mount on the Customs Service amid ongoing revelations of misconduct and corruption in its ranks.

The federal government’s handling of the scandal – which includes revelations this week that allegedly corrupt customs officers at Sydney airport have been smuggling drugs and taking bribes – is under fresh attack from the opposition, which says the government has failed to ensure customs had proper anti-corruption oversight.

The opposition’s latest attack is centered on a speech in June 2006 by Labor’s then shadow attorney-general Nicola Roxon.

In the speech, she described as a massive failure the Coalition’s decision not to put customs under the watch of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

The federal opposition has said that after Labor won government in 2007, it failed to give ACLEI the power to investigate corruption in customs for more than three years, a period in which the allegedly corrupt customs airport cell entrenched its activities.

When ACLEI was finally granted the power to investigate customs in January 2011, it immediately launched Operation Marca, which is targeting corruption specifically at Sydney Airport.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Michael Keenan said the failure to ensure customs had appropriate oversight was further evidence that we have had a Labor government completely asleep at the wheel.

Home Affair Minister Jason Clare this week announced that former judge James Wood, former New South Wales police commissioner Ken Moroney and former TNT chief executive David Mortimer would form a panel to combat customs corruption.

Mr Pezzullo has also ordered a review of customs culture and leadership.

Customs’ handling of the corruption scandal was criticised on Friday by independent senator Nick Xenophon, who raised the case of the customs officer turned whistle blower Allan Kessing.

In 2002 and 2003, Mr Kessing wrote two internal reports warning of crime and corruption at Sydney Airport.

After they were ignored by his bosses, Mr Kessing briefed Labor opposition transport spokesman Anthony Albanese.

In 2005, Mr Kessing was convicted of leaking the reports to the media, a charge he has steadfastly denied.

Mr Xenophon said if Mr Kessing’s reports had been acted on, we would not have had the problems we are now seeing within customs.

He said: “You have to ask the question: how many Australians have overdosed on narcotics as a result of corrupt customs officials allowing these drugs into Australia?”

This week, a six-month Fairfax Media investigation – conducted in association with the ABC’s “7:30 Report” – has revealed the existence of dozens of suspected corrupt customs officers at Sydney Airport and on the waterfront – Nick McKenzie & Richard Baker

- It has taken two trials, two appeals, a million-dollar reward, several police investigations and 15 years to finally convict the man who killed Mersina Halvagis in the Fawkner Cemetery in 1997, but in the end it came down to just one phone call.

In June 2005, former high-flying lawyer Andrew Fraser was just another inmate – serving time over cocaine offences – when he was summoned to the guard post at Fulham Prison, Sale, to take a phone call.

It was from Senior Detective Paul Scarlett, who was re-investigating the Halvagis case and knew Fraser had spent more than a year in Port Phillip Prison with the main suspect, Peter Norris Dupas.

For the policeman the call was more about tying up loose ends. The whisper was Fraser had acted as the serial killer’s unpaid legal adviser, so no one thought the former lawyer would offer assistance.

“I was furious with him, actually,” Detective Scarlett recalled.

“I couldn’t believe he would help someone like that. I expected the call to be short. I thought he’d tell me to get lost and hang up.”

The inquest on the Halvagis case was about to start and the then director of public prosecutions, Paul Coghlan, had made it clear that while it was obvious Dupas was the killer, police lacked the evidence to lay charges.

But that was about to change.

When Detective Scarlett explained the reason for the call, Fraser responded: “What took you so long?”

Fraser would make a statement that he had witnessed Dupas mime a confession in his prison cell, indicating how he stabbed Ms Halvagis as she was tending her grandmother’s grave in November 1997.

It was the breakthrough police needed.

When Mr Coghlan (now a Supreme Court judge) read the new material he decided to charge Dupas.

In fact, the former prosecutor underplays his own role. Dupas had already been convicted of two murders (Margaret Maher, October 1997, and Nicole Patterson, April 1999) and sentenced to life with no minimum.

Justice Coghlan grasped that the Halvagis family deserved their day in court and so he ran the trial. Dupas was convicted – a verdict quashed on appeal.

Again the Office of Public Prosecutions ran the retrial, again he was convicted and again he appealed.

On Friday he learnt he had lost his appeal and the conviction would stand. He knows he will spend the rest of his life imprisoned.

For the Halvagis family it was more relief than triumph. Father George has spent years campaigning over his daughter’s case and on behalf of other victims – John Silvester

- First a little secret. Confidential research conducted for this journal shows the “Naked City” column draws a loyal, if eclectic, band of followers.

Sure, focus groups indicate the readership falls into three distinct categories: those with criminal records, police who should have criminal records and members of the public who tend to wear hoods to social gatherings.

The editor-in-chief – a once naive police rounds cadet fashioned into a media mover and shaker by this columnist – is constantly urging urging us to engage with the reader, which we find bizarre as we are already married.

In a bid to comply ( a failed attempt to qualify for an end-of-year bonus) we met the researchers, who sadly appeared to be suffering from early summer hay fever. Which would explain why they wore sunglasses indoors, sniffed constantly and went to the bathroom frequently.

Regardless of their methodology we are supremely confident the usual weekly readership (est 55) will drop markedly today as a by-product of Christmas office parties.

Sadly, many readers will only look at the paper, or online through the World Wide Web (see, Mr Editor-in-Chief, we are keeping up with the times) to check the date and to ensure the previous evening’s behaviour has not made the headlines.

Just the other day, for example, a major financial institution’s Christmas party turned into an end-of-year bash – literally. Four staff were taken to hospital after making too many withdrawals from the open bar and others were involved in a punch-on near the punch bowl.

It is also the time of year when columnists tend to reflect on the events of the previous 12 months before adjourning for a scrumptious festive luncheon of hot Christmas turkey accompanied by iced Wild Turkey.

First, it is our melancholy duty to announce the longest-running underworld show in town is finally shutting down.

It has taken more than 11 years, three trials, three chief commissioners, a guilty plea and a truckload of frequent-flyer points to finally turn Tony Mokbel from a five-star fugitive to a one-star prisoner.

At most of his many court appearances Mokbel chose to wear a smile, his trademark white shirt and a striking red tie.

In July when he arrived to be sentenced after pleading guilty to two counts of drug trafficking Purana Taskforce members turned up dressed the same.

Although he arrived in his customary good humour, he left feeling slightly aggrieved when Justice Simon Whelan gave him 30 with a minimum of 22 years. So much so he appealed, saying the sentence was manifestly excessive and crushing for a man with heart problems.

Mokbel is not the only crook happy to roll the dice by heading to the appeal courts for a second opinion. Increasingly, police and prosecutors feel the Court of Appeal is as out of step as a drunken accountant trying to dance Gangnam-style with a lampshade on his head.

We therefore welcome with some relief the appointment of Justice Paul Coghlan to the role, beginning in the new year. A former director of public prosecutions, he has helped deal with the backlog of murder cases listed for trial with his no-nonsense approach.

Even though Mokbel won’t leave jail until he is a pensioner (and having lost a fortune won’t be troubled by the means test), he remains as optimist.

Which is why he recently renewed his driver’s licence until 2022, although the former Ferrari driver will have to be content for now with the occasional spin on the prison ride-on mower.

One man of the colourful variety who still knows the joys of owning a luxury motor car is Mick Gatto, who can be seen cruising around Melbourne in his splendidly shining Rolls-Royce.

Certainly such displays of wealth rarely go unnoticed and Gatto recently copped a $10 million tax bill – a matter he intends to dispute in court.

“They are trying to put me out of business. Now, I’m not crying because I’m a big boy and I’ll get by because I have plenty of friends, but how is the average person supposed to fight something like this when they freeze all your money? It is simply not right,” he told your columnist, who wrote it down immediately.

Other charismatic characters to end up in the Supreme Court are Tony Mokbel’s two former partners, the delightful Danni McGuire (domestic) and jovial Jacobus Smit (business).

They were in dispute with the mysterious Jennifer Shaw, a former member of the Victoria Legal Aid Board.

They were fighting over a company that was attempting to redevelop The Nursery Cafe in Mount Alexander Road, Essendon, into an apartment complex.

And complex it was, with stories of faked documents, broken promises and unexplained cash payments.

Even before the matter went to court, Ms McGuire was attacked and bashed outside the family-friendly cafe, leaving her both shaken and stirred.

Then, during the hearing, police raided the property and took truckloads of allegedly hot white goods on sale at remarkable discounts.

In the end Danni was vindicated when Associate Justice Rodney Randall agreed she controlled the company but as the whole deal threatens to go guts up, with receivers hovering, the victory may turn out to be as impressive as finishing second in an egg-and-spoon race.

Sadly, even her Mercedes four-wheel-drive was repossessed and sold for $66,000 – pocket money in the good old days.

Another well-known character returned to the headlines for a few days during a May siege in East Keilor. Christopher Dean Binse, known as “Badness”, kept police at bay for 40 hours before the stun grenades and tear gas persuaded him he had outworn his welcome.

Badness headed into the street carrying a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest. Instead of gunning him down Butch Cassidy-style, the Special Operations Group hit him with bean bag shots (eight of them) until he lost interest in proceedings.

Momentarily dazed but unhurt he was checked at the scene where his heart rate registered just 80, indicating stress was not a major issue.

Now inside, Badness has taken to writing his memoirs on what has indeed been a colourful life. We have read some of his musings before and he is not without talent and now has time to refine his caustic style even further. After all, a writer’s garret is usually small with a tiny window – just like a cell really.

After years of controversy and ugly infighting, Chief Commissioner Ken Lay’s 2012 pledge was to provide no-frills, traditional policing without any political spin.

This did not mean ducking the hard issues and police took a commendably tough line over allegations senior members of the Catholic Church had failed in child molestation cases.

One thing is certain: there will be sweat stains on some prominent dog collars when the royal commission kicks off some time in the new year.

After ignoring the problem for years, police are now actively investigating outlaw motorcycle gangs through a specialist taskforce code named Echo. On all available evidence it can expect a busy 2013.

The crime that shocked, horrified and seemingly galvanised Melbourne was the tragic case of Jill Meagher, who was killed while walking a short distance from a Brunswick bar after drinks with work colleagues.

The Homicide Squad’s Suspicious Missing Person’s Unit (Crew Four) was assigned the case and within days released CCTV footage taken from a Sydney Road shop of Ms Meagher apparently being approached by a man in a blue hoodie.

Five days after she disappeared police arrested Adrian Ernest Bailey, 41, who lived nearby in Coburg.

It is a matter of public record that Bayley took police to Gisborne where the victim’s body was recovered.

As the matter is yet to be dealt with in court, the details of the case and the background of the accused cannot be discussed.

Suffice to say there will be many questions asked as to whether more could have been done to avoid this tragedy.

Within days of the arrest, up to 30,000 people, connected through social media, marched in Sydney Road not only to express a collective grief for Jill Meagher but to show the overwhelming majority of Melbourne’s citizens know violence is never acceptable.

Police are concerned that the Meagher case has left some women so frightened they won’t venture out at night – even though by any definition Melbourne remains a safe city.

This week Chief Commissioner Lay launched a social media campaign inspired by the people who marched in Brunswick. GO4ZERO is a project designed to prevent violence and support those who feel threatened with violence or intimidation. Which shows that even in times of great grief there is always hope – John Silvester

- A woman has been charged with the murder of missing father-of-five Douglas Kally, who was last seen in October 2008.

Homicide Squad detectives charged the 43-year-old woman on Friday following an out-of-sessions hearing at the Geelong police station.

The charge follows the discovery of what appeared to be human remains at a residential address in Indented Head on the Bellarine Peninsula, police said.

Angela Williams, of St Leonards, was remanded in custody to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday.

Police are yet to formally identify the remains believed to be those of Mr Kally, also known as Dragon Dordevic – Daniel McCulloch

- Chief Commissioner Ken Lay has moved to break the grip of bikies controlling strip clubs, bars and the security industry.

The Herald Sun can reveal officers from anti-bikie Taskforce Echo have been working for months to identify and prove links between outlaw motorcycle gangs and a series of venues around Melbourne.

There have been strong suspected links between bikie figures and certain Melbourne nightspots and the security provided for them.

Among gangs suspected of involvement are the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Comanchero, but the bikies have always been careful to distance themselves from direct evidence that they are connected.

Asked what would be done if links could be proved  between OMCGs (outlaw motorcycle gangs) and a venue, Mr Lay said: “We are exploring all options.”

One notorious gang is understood to have used its muscle this year to force security at one Melbourne strip club to install its own people.

Mr Lay would not name the venues under scrutiny.

Comanchero boss Jay Malkoun is said to be an influential figure at King Street venue Spearmint Rhino, a claim he has denied.

The plan to move bikies out of venue operation and security is part of a concerted push begun under Mr Lay.

Earlier this year, police swooped on bikies in a series of raids and seized 120 guns after ruling them not fit people to have the firearms under the Firearms Act.

Police have also rejuvenated intelligence gathering on gangs after a period in which critics say the force dropped the ball on bikies.

Meanwhile, some Melbourne late-night venues have taken their own action against the visible bikie presence, by rejecting members in club colours.

Some have also banned bikies parking motorbikes outside, fearing potential customers will be intimidated and not want to enter.

Police are telling licensees not to allow patched-up bikies entry to avoid violent confrontations with rival members.

Strip clubs, bars and nightclubs are refusing entry based on a dress code standard.

Inspector Paul Ross, of licensing enforcement, told the Herald Sun bikie gang activity was monitored closely at late-night venues.

He said police advised licensees, especially those running seedy haunts in King Street “it’s probably better if they don’t allow outlaw motorcycle gang members inside….wearing colours”.

Inspector Ross said police continued to research the relationship between bikies, venue owners and security.

One operator, who enforced the ban, said police asked him and others to sign an agreement that the dress code standard relating to bikies was upheld – Mark Buttler