OPINION: Just damn brilliant - and it's about time too.
Smart, creative police work across several countries - smashing the gangs. This is what the public wants, I don't doubt that.
And don't underestimate the impact of this takedown. It won't end gangs tomorrow but it'll sit them on their arse for a bit - they'll be wary and cautious and won't trust technology for a while.
There were 35 arrests and almost $4 million in assets seized in NZ alone - this is not to be sniggered at.
I just hope Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis is ballsy enough to keep them behind bars, rather than send them to a Labour Party summer camp for colonised youth who deserved better.
But the priceless bit is the humiliation on the way through. The gangsters wrote their own downfall over 18 months by using an app they thought was top secret, but what they didn't know was it was planted by the FBI.
The gangs had snapped up the app and were effectively writing their own evidence for the police to sit back, put in a file and make a date to arrest them. The bit I love the most is that these hoods paid up to $2500 each to be part of this supposedly secure network.
But in reality, it was like an open book - the cops watched and gathered the evidence as it came in. Never before has their job been this easy.
The hard work had been done - finally, our cops got ahead of the gangs.
So the doors have been kicked in at Gang HQ. A whole bunch of bad guys allegedly peddling human misery now face the courts and the cops can plan their next one.
Don't take your foot off their throats now.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
