Breakthrough

Saddle up and meet the men and women of the fabled Queensland Police Service Rural and Stock Crime Squad. This legendary unit was formed in 1959 as the Queensland Stock Investigation Squad, pivoting through the years to the Stock and Rural Crime Investigation Squad then to the Major Organised Crime Squad Rural. Whatever its name, the squad’s core function has remained steady through the decades fr...

In this episode, we continue our deep dive into the murky world of the Dark Net, an online haven for drug dealers, gun merchants and other nefarious criminal activities. Come inside Operation Oscar Fetters, as the Synthetic Drugs Operations Unit and other crack teams within the QPS Crime and Intelligence Command take down a multi-million-dollar drug operation, nabbing the mastermind only to have h...

In this episode, we take you behind the façade of respectable Australian suburbia and into the murky world of the Dark Net, an online haven for drug dealers, gun merchants and other nefarious criminal activities. Come inside Operation Oscar Fetters, as the Synthetic Drugs Operations Unit and other cracks teams within the QPS Crime and Intelligence Command take down a multi-million-dollar drug oper...

For eight years one of Queensland’s worst serial sex offenders prowls the suburbs of south-east Queensland, casing granny flats and townhouses, attacking women then disappearing under cover of darkness. He becomes known as the Night Stalker. He targets women alone in their homes and attempts to hide his identity by wearing hoodies and gloves. In one case he even steals his victim’s mobile phone, d...

A lonely Brisbane woman decides to try and meet the love of her life online and hooks up with a young and attractive member of the U.S. military, based in the Middle East. But all is not as it seems. Before she knows it, Wendy Smith has been trapped in a well-organised romance scam and loses a fortune to cyber-criminals. But she soon turns the tables on them with the help of QPS cyber experts who...

In September 2008 a man’s body is discovered on the spillway of the Poona Dam near Nambour on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. A police search of his belongings, however, reveals no identification items, and he has not been reported as a missing person. So who is the man investigators have dubbed Poona Paul? After years of hard work police take a punt on genetic genealogy to try and locate living rela...

Breakthrough, the official podcast of the Queensland Police Service Crime and Intelligence Command, allows you to peer over the shoulders of real-time investigators and invites you to collaborate on outstanding cases – from missing persons to cold case murders to sexual assault to fraud. You may just be the listener who has information that may be critical in helping police with their next breakth...