Steve Symon, who chaired the Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational, Serious & Organised Crime, details the plan to make NZ the hardest place for organised crime to operate

By Gareth Vaughan

A new all-of-government strategy to tackle organised crime aims to make New Zealand the hardest place in the world for organised criminal groups to do business and following the money is key to the fight, says the Chairman of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime.

One of the Ministerial Advisory Group's recommendations is to broaden the legal definition of money laundering, with barrister Steve Symon, who chaired the Advisory Group, saying money is the key driver.

"The reason they operate in New Zealand is money. I'm not saying that we will cure the problem of organised crime globally, but we can make New Zealand the hardest place for organised crime to operate, such that they'll see other markets as more lucrative," Symon says in a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast.

"We're effectively saying 'organised crime don't operate here, go elsewhere to do that.' We have to make it as challenging as possible for organised crime to profit from it, to use money."

"The money laundering regime is a key aspect of that. Obviously there has to be a way for organised crime to take the money that they get from crime and benefit from it. Transfer it, launder it... into a way that they can use it," says Symon.

"The challenges that we have in relation to the current money laundering regime [are] probably best demonstrated by the small number of money laundering cases that go through our courts. We know that the drug trade is driven by organised crime. And...theoretically, for every drug case you should have a money laundering case as well."

Symon says fortunately most New Zealanders won't be aware of the problem of organised crime, but they will see the symptoms of it.

"The methamphetamine use, particularly in our rural communities, [which] is decimating some of our rural communities. The advent of the fraud that is spreading. One in 10 New Zealanders are the victim of fraud and that number is escalating."

"And there'll be touch points that the public are not aware of, where they are interacting with people who are exploited migrants who have been exploited by organised crime," says Symon.

"We will see new and emerging threats through organised crime, such as a black market in tobacco which has been, escalating in New Zealand. And these things are growing and becoming more complex. What we're also seeing is organised crime working in more nefarious ways. So working on corrupting individuals, corrupting New Zealanders going about doing their work to try and maximise the return they can get from their crime."

"Organised crime is working more and more like large commercial enterprises. So when you think of large companies and how they spend their energy on facilitating and maximising the return that they can get for their investors, it's the same logic you should apply to organised crime," says Symon.

In the podcast audio he also talks about the challenge of cash "the primary currency of organised crime" and the recommendation to stop cash payments in certain industries, why the Advisory Group recommends a dedicated Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime Minister, funding the fight against organised crime, why more is needed from Inland Revenue, working across government agencies, the role of the private sector, cryptocurrency, the need for international cooperation and more.

Just before Christmas Associate Police Minister Casey Costello unveiled a new all-of-government strategy to tackle organised crime. Costello released this strategy document, and this action plan. Details on the Ministerial Advisory Group and all its reports can be found here.

*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.