Fifty-five people have been charged following coordinated dawn raids across South Australia as part of a major AN0M sting targeting alleged organised drug trafficking networks.

Among those arrested and charged was Michael Theoharis, 29, of Paradise, who faces 21 counts of drug trafficking, including large commercial drug trafficking.

The Adelaide Magistrates Court ordered a home detention report for Theoharis, and his bail application was adjourned until next week.

The arrests form part of a broader investigation into the encrypted messaging app AN0M, a platform secretly created by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and FBI to monitor criminal communications.

Since Operation Ironside began on June 7, 2021, hundreds of alleged drug traffickers, bikies, and organised crime figures have been charged across Australia after authorities intercepted millions of AN0M messages.

The latest statewide operation follows a High Court ruling earlier this month that upheld the legality of the AN0M surveillance, rejecting claims by Comanchero bikie members that the app’s use amounted to unlawful interception.

As of Wednesday evening, 28 of the 55 accused had faced court, with police confirming the investigation remains ongoing.

Source: The Advertiser.

Prosecutors in Melbourne’s Easey Street double murder case allege that DNA found at the 1977 crime scene is “highly likely” to have come from Perry Kouroumblis, the 66-year-old now accused of murdering Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett and of raping Armstrong.

Kouroumblis, who was 17 and living nearby in Collingwood at the time, has denied all charges, with his legal team arguing that the decades-old DNA evidence was contaminated, unreliable, and should be excluded.

During the committal hearing before Magistrate Brett Sonnet, prosecutor Zubin Menon told the court both women had been stabbed dozens of times, and that DNA testing linked Kouroumblis to several samples, including material on vaginal swabs from Armstrong, that were “650 million times more likely” to have originated from him.

Defence barrister Dermot Dann KC described the forensic material as “explosive,” insisting the samples were mishandled and warning that any public reporting of the DNA ratios could prejudice a future jury.

Magistrate Sonnet rejected the application for a suppression order, ruling it was not “necessary” under Victoria’s Open Courts Act.

Dann said his client would plead not guilty to both murders and seek to have the rape charge dismissed.

The prosecution claims Kouroumblis left forensic traces at the scene before fleeing Australia decades later, flying to Greece in 2017, four months after providing a voluntary DNA sample.

He was arrested in Rome in 2023 and extradited to Australia that December.

The committal hearing, which will resume later this year, will determine whether Kouroumblis stands trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Source: The Australian.