Lets Start the Dialogue: Transnational crime.

On July 1, 2026, the community safety forum at the Penrith Library provided a textbook example of this exact dynamic. Our local Member for Penrith, Karen McKeown MP, deserves immense credit for arranging this vital interaction, showing a genuine dedication to giving her constituents a direct line to the top. Equally, credit must go to NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley for taking the time to travel out, stand before the public, and listen to the raw, unpolished concerns of the community.

Sitting in that room, it quickly became clear that I was the odd one out. The vast majority of the community members present were there to raise deeply personal, heavy, and vital concerns about the handling of domestic violence complaints and the devastating impact of coercive control in our neighborhoods. Those are immediate, heartbreaking crises affecting local families right now, and it was entirely right that they took center stage. The raw emotion in the room reminded everyone of the vital role local policing plays in protecting everyday safety.

When the opportunity given by Hon Karen Mckewon, I stepped up to ask about a different kind of challenge , where crimes are ordered from overseas by hidden actors, paid for via shadow networks, but physically executed right here on our local streets. The Police Minister’s official response was swift and definitive to the effect NSW Police is fully trained to handle transnational criminal activity.

While delivered with programmatic assurance, such standard ministerial replies highlight a broader, systemic issue: the gap between high-level policy frameworks and the complex realities on the ground. Just six days after that forum, on July 7, 2026, the United States Department of Justice unveiled the exact scale of the crisis I was trying to warn our leaders about.

In a massive international sweep called Operation Hard Ball, federal authorities unsealed three separate indictments charging 37 defendants linked to transnational repression and violent, India-based organized crime groups. The complexity was staggering: 24 operatives were arrested across the globe—11 in California, one in Indiana, one in Georgia, three in Canada, and one in Spain—while 10 fugitives remain on the run. Crucially, the investigation revealed that two of the primary ringleaders were actively running their global criminal syndicates using smuggled contraband communication devices while securely imprisoned inside India.

This global crackdown perfectly unmasked the terrifying reality of modern cross-border threats. Yet, when this exact overlap hits our local communities, the response is alarmingly broken.

I have personally witnessed a person in Blacktown being actively targeted and violently threatened directly from India and I assisted that person to report that matter to NSW Police. When this severe matter of transnational crime was reported directly to the NSW Police, it wasn't met with the urgency or global sophistication the Minister promised. Instead, frontline personnel simply treating a dangerous, borderless operation with a complete lack of framework applicable to transnational crime.

This operational failure points to a deeper, unaddressed crisis within our communities. Often, people from an Indian background are deeply terrified to approach Australian authorities. They face sophisticated, cross-border threats to their families both here and overseas, yet there is a total lack of targeted public information campaigns by the government regarding these specific types of transnational crimes. Without clear education, language-accessible resources, and institutional reassurance, victims are left in a state of isolated vulnerability, unsure if local police will take them seriously or understand the global reach of the extortion or other serious crime they face.

Blind confidence in any relationship is dangerous. It is just as dangerous in the relationship between the public and our institutions. True, productive dialogue relies on holding systems accountable to their responsibilities, not blindly assuming that generic assurances match the friction on the streets.

Sometime the start of a dialogue may not get immediate attention, but it does record the impact. The dialogue has officially begun, and we have full confidence that our lawmakers will give it the deep, urgent attention it desperately demands.