 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming along. I just wanted to talk to you in relation to Task Force kilo perpetual. Since December the Queensland Police Service has been investigating a number of Graham raids and then in February it was obvious that there were other offences being committed by a number of youths and young people. And this has been commenced in relation to Operation kilo perpetual. As a result of the weekend's arrests we have dedicated a Task Force with resources from all five regions in southeast corner, Metro South, North Coast region, southern region and southeast region with State Crime Operations Command property crime investigation team coordinating the investigation. The offences are in excess of 190 offences which include burglary offences in both businesses and residences. 77 enterate premises offences, 30 unlawful use of motor vehicle offences, 30 stealing offences and one armed robbery offence and three dangerous operation of motor vehicles as well as 30 evade police. Since February there have been 18 offenders charged on over 100 charges. I don't have the exact breakdown of those charges at this time. I'm prepared to ask and answer any questions. Now we believe there's more than one group. There's probably two to three groups of offenders working. We believe that quite a lot of the offences are copycat offences and quite a number of them are opportunistic and sneak type offences. There's not a lot of organisation. Now there seems to be a lack of sophistication but the offences are quite dangerous. The dangerous driving members of the public are put at risk. The ram raids members of the public, the offenders themselves are at risk of injury and the huge amount of property damage that occurs is the issue for us. Can you mention the three dangerous operation of the motor? No, that's dangerous driving on the roads. So that's other offences than those that have already been charged recently. How many ram raids? I haven't got the actual breakdown of the actual offences here at this time. There's quite a number of burglary on businesses amongst those. And these statistics are since February, did you say? They go back to December. The operation, when it was obvious that these offences were occurring across a number of regions or districts, the operation was brought in to ensure that we coordinated our resources to investigate these offences. Offences that includes all those lesser statistics that you just gave us? Yes, yes. Are the people charged after Monday's chase being linked to the operation? Those people will remain persons of interest in our operation and we will be looking to see if there are other offences that they have committed. Has there been any new offences since the task can start? Yes, there has been at least one overnight. I haven't got the confirmation of the others but there is at least one offence overnight down at Logan Division. Some of the suspects and some of the offenders involved in the car checks are from regional areas, you know, up from Rockhanton to Chinchilla. Do police suspect they're being drawn in to commit these offences? How have they been... I'm not prepared to speculate on that. The groups of people come together for whatever common purpose that they have. In this instance, it's obvious that these people are coming together to commit these offences and how they actually get together. I'm not prepared to speculate on. Is it likely there will be more than 30 persons of interest? It is likely. This change, we have not closed their mind to anything. We are looking to see how many of these people are together, how many of them are actually committed the offences and whether they're committing them in groups or individually. Most of them are in groups and there's more than three or four offenders at least and many of the offences. How many extra resources will be committed to the task force? The task force has a core group of 15 people led by the Inspector of Property Crime. Any other resources that we need on a day-by-day basis will be drawn in to be able to support that task force. But this task force is dedicated to only conducting these investigations. The operation's been going on for a while though. The task force was informed overnight is that when you came into being? Or has it been going for a while as well? The operation has been going for some time. The task force is bringing together resources to work out of one area so that there is a coordinated response and they are not doing any other jobs other than these. Is that wrong today? Yes. How many children? No, I don't have the breakdown of that. There would be juvenile offenders amongst the offences. But I don't have any breakdown at this stage. Do you know where the bulk of the offences have been occurring? Is there a particular offence? The south-east corner. There is in any particular... There's some areas probably where there's been a couple more than others but I would be more comfortable in saying that's the south-east corner of Queensland. You mentioned since February there's been more than 100 charges in relation to some of these matters. Have those charges made any impact on the rate that these offences are happening? Those charges have made an impact but there are so many of these offenders that they just fill in and are continuing to do the offences. Just too many. I suppose. There are a number of groups of people that are committing the offences. So does it mean you're now on any sort of break-in anti-all-gram rate that happens in the south-east will be investigated by these task force? The task force has a charter and we will look at whether there are offences that are linked with that. The day-to-day policing will be conducted by the regional police and all offences will be reported to the regional police who will conduct their investigations. If in our analysis of it, because we have some trained and specialist analysis and intelligence officers working with the investigators, if in any analysis shows that there is a link to these groups of people or the offences being committed, well then the task force will take that on board as well. On that, there was a smash-and-rabble overnight at Cameroa service station to young offenders, aces and crowbars. Are they investigating that? I can't answer that at this time. They will look at every offence to see if it comes within the task force charter or how old it needs to be. Can you tell us about the Logan job that you mentioned before that's linked to the task force that you're now looking into that happened overnight? It was a smash-and-rab at a business premises and right at the moment I can't remember the name of the business premises but we can give you that information afterwards. Can we get an indication of how much this type of crime has grown because you mentioned the stats from December. How much has it escalated as opposed to year on year statistics for this sort of crime? Do you have any information with me at this time? I've already mentioned this but why is the Ram raid style of attack being favoured by these people? Do you have any reason to look at why this particular style of crime is occurring so much? No, I'm not prepared to speculate on that as to why they would be doing that. Is it more convenient or easy? I'm not prepared to speculate on that. It is a very dangerous offence Ram raids. It causes a significant damage to property. The offenders in the vehicle can be injured quite seriously and if they're young people and they're hit in the vehicle they could die. So that is the issue for us. Is there an element of a thrill with the Ram raid for these people? Quite likely. Lee Taylor becoming increasingly anxious over this and the retailers association was suggesting that maybe some were even resorting to vigilante tactics. Are there any message from retailers who might be concerned about this sort of activity? The retailers need to look at their security. There is the crime prevention units in each of the regions and districts who can provide them some advice in respect to the security that they have. I'd be saying don't take on a vigilante role. That's not what you're trained to do. You may need to employ security. Again you have to look at your own circumstances as a business and we will continue to investigate and do everything to protect and to decrease the number of offences that are occurring. In terms of car thefts the commissioner yesterday mentioned the use of remote engine disables. Is that something that you'd like to see embraced or when would you hope to see people start to embrace that? Well if they have a vehicle that has that feature on it people can use that. There are other ways they can, as the commissioner said yesterday, they can take the keys with them and make sure that their vehicles are secure. Many of the home offences and residential offences are occurred because the house is not secured. So I would be asking members of the public to ensure that their home security is also tightened up and that they don't make it easy for these people to sneak in through unlocked doors or windows etc. to obtain these things. Perhaps some businesses they're targeting so I don't have to list them. They seem to be businesses that are closed so sometimes they aren't targeting the 24 hour service station. No generally they are businesses that are closed and generally small businesses but other than that there's no specific type of business. You mentioned that there were two to three groups and offenders. How many people are in that make up those groups and what is their make up? What age and gender? As I said there are some juveniles and there are some young adults. There are potentially some females in there as well. In respect to anything further I'm not prepared to comment on that at this time. How many of those 30 persons of interest are many of them from outside Brisbane say Sunshine Coast? Again in respect to specifics I'm not prepared to talk about that. We have offenders that come from all of the southeast corner and there potentially come from a little bit further afield. What message then do you hope the setting up of the task force will send to people who are involved in this activity? That we are out there. We have expert investigators and intelligence. We have the resources. We are out there to investigate and we will do everything we can to arrest those people and bring them before the courts. Do you think the penalties and the courts? I'm not prepared to discuss that. Our job is to make sure that we investigate the offences. I'd be particularly asking if there are any members of the public out there who have any information and with this many offenders there is quite likely to be people who have that information. I'd ask them to ring crime stoppers on 1800 triple three triple zero and provide that information so that the task force can get that from the black market like if they on-selling the items that they steal. There's a potential that they may be sharing within themselves. There is no level of sophistication and most of the times the stealing are cigarettes, alcohol, food. There is no sophistication to get fingerprints for DNA. In relation to any specific I'm not prepared to discuss that. Would your message be to the families of these? There's a lot of young people involved in this. If they know their kids are out doing something wrong they need to contact police. As far as a parent or guardian of any of these young people they are putting their own lives at risk as well as other lives at risk. It's up to the parent to do what they can and if they want to contact police or any of the providers to provide some assistance or advice they can do so.