Ken Gamble

What was your first proper stakeout that you did solo?

Tell me about that.

I did a job in Marrickville on a guy who actually was on a big compo claim, an old guy, and his name was Fred.

And he was actually selling...

refrigerators and white goods on a weekend.

So he was doing these garage sales and everybody had tried to catch this guy.

A few of the guys at Webster's had even tried and they'd been burnt, what we call burnt.

They'd been spotted by Fred.

So Fred was very surveillance aware.

And he was claiming what, that he was injured, couldn't move, couldn't work?

He would go to the doctors and he was saying he was totally incapacitated from any employment.

But I think it was a neighbour tipped off the GIO that this guy was very active and he was running this business.

A few of the guys got burned and he would sometimes get in his car and chase them and he was quite aggressive.

So why do they put the rookie like you on this old hand?

That's a great question.

They actually did it thinking that I'd be burned because everyone else was getting burned, even the most experienced people were getting burned.

They decided, look, we'll put you on this guy, see what you can do with this guy.

Because during my training, I had expressed a keen interest to do surveillance outside the vehicle, like get out of the vehicle and hide in the bushes.

And, you know, don't just sit there in a car, you know, climb a tree or something or, you know.

So I had all these weird ideas about how I could spy on people.