The NSW Government has described its 2025 organised crime laws package as the state’s toughest ever, and the latest rules are now in force. With new criminal offences targeting encrypted communication devices, expanded asset confiscation powers, and the ability to direct people to unlock their digital devices, the framework represents one of the most significant expansions of police and prosecution powers in NSW in decades. Here is what the new laws actually do, and what your rights are if you’re caught up in them.
What Are These Organised Crime Laws And When Did They Take Effect?
The NSW Government passed a package of organised crime legislation that came into effect in April 2025. Announcing the package, it stated it put police in the strongest position to cut organised criminals off at the source and incapacitate them financially.
The reforms target three core pillars of organised crime: communication, money, and the financial proceeds of criminal enterprise. By attacking each of these, the legislation aims to make it significantly harder to operate a criminal network in NSW, and significantly easier for police and prosecutors to detect, investigate, and prove that operation.
New Offence: Possessing a Dedicated Encrypted Criminal Communication Device (DECCD)
One of the most significant new criminal offences targets dedicated encrypted criminal communication devices, modified phones or other devices specifically configured to prevent law enforcement from accessing communications.
Under the new laws, possessing a DECCD without a lawful excuse is a criminal offence in NSW. The device does not need to contain evidence of any other crime, the possession itself is the offence.
This raises important questions that will be tested in court as the first prosecutions proceed:
(1) What precisely constitutes a ‘dedicated encrypted criminal communication device’, as distinct from a legitimately encrypted personal phone?
(2) What constitutes a ‘lawful excuse’ for possession?
(3) How does the prosecution prove the device was dedicated to criminal use?
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New Power: Directing A Person to Unlock A Digital Device
The new laws give police the power to direct a person to provide access to a digital device. This operates like compelling someone to hand over the keys to a safe, except the safe is a phone, computer, or encrypted drive.
This power sits uncomfortably alongside the traditional right to silence and the privilege against self-incrimination. The right to silence protects a person from being compelled to answer questions in an investigation. Compelling access to a device has been treated, under these laws, as a different category, explicitly addressed as a distinct power rather than as compelled testimony.
If you receive a direction to provide access to a digital device, you should seek specialist legal advice immediately and before complying. The legal basis for the direction, and the consequences of both compliance and non-compliance, require careful assessment.
Unexplained Wealth and Asset Confiscation:
Organised Crime Laws
The 2025 reforms significantly expand NSW’s unexplained wealth and asset confiscation framework. The key changes are:
(1) New powers to confiscate unlawfully acquired assets of major convicted drug traffickers, without needing to trace each individual asset to a specific offence
(2) Enhanced powers to require people to explain the origin of their assets where law enforcement establishes a reasonable suspicion that the wealth was unlawfully acquired
(3) New money laundering offences targeting those who deal with, or attempt to disguise, the proceeds of general crime, not just specific predicate offences
The unexplained wealth provisions shift the burden of proof in a meaningful way. Ordinarily, the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. In unexplained wealth proceedings, the evidentiary position is reversed, a person may be required to demonstrate the legitimate source of their assets. The consequences of failing to do so can include permanent confiscation, even without a criminal conviction.
Read our criminal law factsheets.
New Money Laundering Offences Under Organised Crime Laws
The expanded money laundering offences are broader than their predecessors. They capture a wider range of conduct involving the proceeds of crime, including dealings with the proceeds of offences that were not specifically charged or proven as predicate offences in prior proceedings.
For people in industries that handle large volumes of cash, complex financial structures, or clients whose financial backgrounds are not fully transparent, property, construction, hospitality, and professional services, the expanded framework creates compliance risks that specialist legal advice can help navigate.
What This Means If You’re Under Investigation
Being investigated under NSW’s organised crime framework is serious. But being investigated does not mean being charged, and being charged does not mean being convicted. At every stage, the strength of the evidence and the quality of legal representation can make a decisive difference. Specifically:
(1) You have the right to legal representation at all stages of an investigation and prosecution.
(2) Any direction to produce documents or provide device access should be reviewed before compliance, the legal basis for each direction matters, and not every direction is lawful.
(3) Unexplained wealth proceedings are civil, not criminal, but they can permanently strip assets, and the procedural rules differ significantly from a criminal trial.
(4) Money laundering charges often arise alongside primary charges. Understanding how they interact with the overall prosecution strategy is essential to building an effective defence.
Why This Matters: Organised Crime Laws In 2025
NSW’s organised crime laws represent one of the most significant expansions of police financial investigation and digital access powers in decades. The creation of the DECCD offence in particular marks a shift: it criminalises possession of a category of device on the basis of its likely use, rather than requiring evidence of the criminal acts it was used to facilitate.
To learn more about white-collar crime and financial crime defence, visit our white-collar crime page.
Seeking Specialist Legal Advice For Organised Crime
Whether you have been charged, are under investigation, or believe you may have a civil claim arising from the matters discussed in this article, O’Brien Criminal & Civil Solicitors offers a free initial consultation. Our team regularly appears in Australian media as expert commentators on criminal, civil, and defamation law, and we bring that expertise to every client matter.
Phone: 02 9261 4281
