PEOPLE-SMUGGLERS who have fraudulently obtained refugee status are operating inside Australia - and the federal government has been aware of the practice for a long time.
ABC's Four Corners revealed last night that senior people-smugglers and their families were among the thousands of asylum-seekers who had arrived by boat in order to continue their lucrative trade from Australia.
Using an Australian-based informant, Hussain, a refugee living in Australia, the ABC tracked down an alleged Iraqi people-smuggler known as "Captain Emad". Captain Emad and several of his agents were allegedly sent by Jakarta-based smuggling kingpin Abu Ali al-Kuwaiti to establish a beach-head in Australia in 2010.
"Emad, he's the head of the smugglers, he's the head of the snake," Hussain told the ABC.
"He's very clever, and all the technique of the other smugglers, even we can call them famous smugglers in Indonesia or Malaysia, all of them (are) under his techniques."
Having passed himself off as a refugee to immigration authorities, Captain Emad - or Ali al-Abassi, the name he supplied to Australian immigration authorities - is now living in Canberra with his wife and children, whom he sent by boat in 2009, according to the ABC. The program suggests a web of agents is at work in Australia, drumming up and facilitating business for the smugglers.
The Australian Federal Police last night declined to say if it was investigating any of the people featured on the program.
But the growth of domestic-based smuggling rackets has long been a concern to law-enforcement agencies. "The commonwealth has known for a long time there have been operatives here," a senior government source told The Australian.
The revelations came as the fourth asylum-seeker boat in as many days was intercepted by Australian authorities northwest of Ashmore Island.
The boat, carrying 85 passengers and three crew, was detected yesterday by a Customs and Border Protection aircraft. It brings the total number of asylum-seekers who have made the dangerous boat journey to Australia to 331 this month. The latest arrival comes a day after a large boat carrying 150 asylum-seekers and crew was picked up north of Christmas Island by Customs and Border Protection officers, and another vessel carrying 87 passengers and one crew member was intercepted on Saturday evening.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the ability of an ABC crew to track down people-smugglers operating only 450 arrivals a month. The high number of arrivals in the first four days of June follows a near-record of 1176 asylum-seekers arriving last month - the highest number since August 2001, when the Howard government moved to implement the Pacific Solution after the Tampa crisis.
So far this year, 3700 asylum-seekers have arrived by boat compared with the 4565 who arrived here in all of last year.
Tamils are again among the boatpeople arriving here, following a long hiatus in the Sri Lankan smuggling pipeline.
The Australian has been told the security agencies have voiced concerns about funds flowing to the people-smugglers from Sri Lanka's relatively affluent Tamil diaspora.
The Australian government has been advised that members of the Sri Lankan community are engaging in criminal activity to fund the passage of former Tamil Tiger guerillas to Australia by asylum boat.
It is understood the advice from the security agencies related to a credit-card skimming racket operating from Perth involving Sri Lankan Tamils. The racket was running in 2009 and was estimated to have netted $6.5 million from about 6000 victims.
West Australian Police Assistant Commissioner Nick Anticich said the type of fraud detected was favoured by criminal elements among the Tamil community the world over.
"Of the 20 persons arrested for offences regarding this crime type in Australia, 19 are confirmed to be of Tamil origin," Mr Anticich said in 2010.
