Australian Border Force employee charged for conspiracy to smuggle drugs

Publisher
ABC
Date published
March 2025

Relevant impacts: Government outcomes impact, Reputational impact, Security impact.

An Australian Border Force (ABF) employee and an alleged crime figure have been charged with bribery and drug offences. Fifty-year-old ABF employee Rita Gargiulo and 67-year-old Mount Pritchard man Cosmo Commisso allegedly conspired to smuggle 6.9 kilograms of cocaine into Australia. 

The Australian Federal Police said Ms Gargiulo worked as a supervisor, allowing her to search cargo and ABF systems to determine if parcels were flagged for examination. Ms Gargiulo was reportedly paid in cash and luxury items to bypass security checks. She was charged with receiving a bribe as a Commonwealth official, abuse of public office, unauthorised disclosure of information by Commonwealth officer, and aiding and abetting the importation of border-controlled drugs.

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Related fraudster personas

The Organised

The Organised are groups which use a combination of methods in planned, coordinated and sophisticated ways to dishonestly gain benefits.

The Exploiter

The Exploiter uses something for a wrongful purpose to dishonestly gain personal benefits.

The Coercer

The Coercer influences, manipulates or bribes another person to act in a desired way to dishonestly gain personal benefits.

Related countermeasures

Defined decision-making powers

Clearly document decision-makers using delegations, authorisations and instructions. Clearly defined decision-making powers increase transparency and reduce the opportunity for fraud and corruption.

Staff and contractor rotation

Rotate staff and contractors in and out of roles to avoid familiarity. Staff and contractors can become too familiar with processes, customers or vendors, which can lead to insider threats.

Random allocation

Randomly allocate requests or claims to staff for processing. This removes the option for staff to select which claims to process.

Privileged access restrictions and monitoring

Limit and monitor privileged system accesses (those that allow staff, contractors and providers to perform special functions or override system and application controls). The Protective Security Policy Framework outlines the government protective security requirements to safeguard information from cyber threats, including to restrict administrative privileges.

Coordinate disruption

Coordinate disruption activities across multiple programs or entities to strengthen processes and identify serious and organised criminals targeting multiple programs. It can also include referrals to law enforcement agencies for those groups that reach the threshold for complex criminal investigations.

Investigate fraud

 Investigate fraud in line with the Australian Government Investigation Standards (AGIS).

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