Australia to establish taskforce to combat corruptions in Customs

A new taskforce will be set up to combat "hard-to-detect corruption" in the government's Customs and Border Protection agency, Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison announced on Wednesday. Morrison said Task Force Pharos was designed to catch and "weed out" those corrupt customs officials "who think they can lay low while the heat passes." "The task force will identify officers or groups who pose significant risk to the service as a result of their on-duty or off-duty behavior, their associations outside the workplace or their involvement in criminal activities," Morrison told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday. "It will act as an intense check to ensure that the integrity measures introduced in the past 12 months are robust and effective. " Michael Pezzullo, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, said at Wednesday's press conference in Sydney that the taskforce would use "big data" to investigate unexplained wealth and catch any customs officers "who are not what they seem." Eight customs officials have been arrested since August 2012 over corruption.