In almost all cases, up to 4 stolen motor vehicles were being used in these murders and public place shootings, with all of them being pre-staged in strategic areas to enhance the capabilities of the offenders to ensure a quick and successful get away after the offences were committed. The commonality between all of the offences was that motor vehicles had been stolen for some time (previous to the offences) and stored, all had cloned number plates, and all had been strategically put in place and parked in areas that allowed the offenders to drive to the known locations, use the vehicles, set fire to the vehicle after use and quickly get into the next vehicle to make good their escape. Many of these vehicles had been “staged” at the locations and included within them jerry cans of fuel for burning, gloves, balaclavas and on occasions, firearms to commit the offences.

It was evident, that there was a syndicate/s that were specialising in providing these vehicles to Organised Crime Networks for these offences to be committed. It was the belief of Task Force Magnus Executive that if they could stop or supress the access to these stolen motor vehicles, they could supress the violence and offences that were occurring.

Under the guise of the Task Force, the Motor Unit ran Strike Force Duncan to investigate these syndicates and to arrest and disrupt these facilitators supplying the stolen motor vehicles. The Motor Unit quickly adapted to the multifaceted and high paced investigative techniques being employed by the Task Force. The information and intelligence provided was fast flowing and almost always required urgent responses. This was a different type of investigative style that the team were not used to and the dynamic nature of the investigation required the team to be flexible, daring, pivotal and almost always be on-call and be prepared to respond to often dangerous and serious situations. The team developed new and strong relationships with other Strike Force Investigations managed under the Task Force Magnus banner and became the conduit between many of the individual investigations as target links were established. During the Task Force, the team initiated a further 4 Strike Force investigations as off shoots to the original Strike Force Duncan due to the enormous amounts of information and investigative opportunities that were being presented. These included - SF Duncan- Agate, SF Duncan-Citrine, SF Duncan- Phobetor-Nyx and SF Duncan-Vallingby.

Some of the investigative techniques employed by the motor unit during these investigations included:

• Cultivation of human sources (informants) closely linked to the crimes.
• Multiple levels of physical and static surveillance on multiple targets.
• Use of telephone intercepts on multiple targets.
• Use of surveillance devices and listening devices.
• Introduction of Undercover Police Operatives to infiltrate criminal syndicates to gather evidence, purchase stolen motor vehicles and gather crucial intelligence.
• Use of technology to unlock and evaluate encrypted devices, which regularly led to the identification of significant evidence and unrivalled intelligence.
• Collaboratively working with the other Strike Forces and information sharing to ensure vital offender and offence links were uncovered and target deconfliction and adaption was prioritised.
• Creating a forensic dashboard to identify syndicate and offender links to multiple offences across a large range of investigations, allowing for target hardening of significant offenders to be readily adapted and the profiling of offenders for key offences.

The ability of the Motor Unit to both gather and action intelligence swiftly and analyse its benefits led to the effective targeting and arrest of multiple identified offenders. It assisted the on-going recovery of multiple firearms, the disruption and recovery of stolen motor vehicles that had been “staged” and prepared for use in organised crime and violence related activities, and the linking of offenders to multiple other strike forces. The work conducted led to the identification of offenders through unlocking of encrypted devices to a number of conspiracies to murder manifests and the continual identification of arrest opportunities on a weekly basis for the HVP officers that impacted in a positive way, crime within the broader Metropolitan Region.