DANIEL RYAN chose an audacious name for one of the four businesses he began while he was a police officer: Off Duty Enterprises.
But the former senior constable gave a less-than-slick explanation for why he had never sought official approval for secondary employment from the police service to a credit union officer in a tapped telephone conversation in 2004.
Cause if I do that then it's secondary employment, you gotta go through all that shit so I don't, he said.
Mate, that, especially cause [my business] it's, it involves alcohol and all that, it's just not worth it.
Mr Ryan, a man accused by the Police Integrity Commission of taking thousands of dollars from automatic teller machines in Sydney with the help of an associate, had worked a second and third job while in the police service for a decade, according to the commission's Operation Sandvalley. Yet he had never declared any of those jobs.
He is hardly a typical example of a police officer working a second job, as he has been accused by the commission of engaging in criminal activities. But the way he was able to escape the notice of the official system while being in secondary employment is worrying.
He had worked as a bus driver from about 1994 to some time in 2001, earning from 1998 onwards about $150 gross per week.
He worked as a Frosty Boy driver from mid-1996 to 1998, earning about $200 gross per week.
And he was the proprietor of DNA Distributions from at least 1998. He then went on to his other companies, Frozen Concepts, from 2000, which was involved in the production and sale of alcoholic drinks, and Off Duty Enterprises, which he established in 2002.
Suspicious activity by Mr Ryan first came to the attention of the commission in June 2003.
During the investigation, it was found that Mr Ryan took $250,000 in cash to Melbourne and gave it to a business associate whom the commission gave the witness name SV1. There was evidence that the cash may have been stolen from automatic teller machines in Sydney, the commission said, and the investigation into Mr Ryan and his businesses broadened.
The commission found that between November 21 and December 24, 2001, $713,920 was stolen in separate thefts from five ATMs in Sydney.
Access was gained using a Chubb Security Services security code, and one of Mr Ryan's associates was employed by Chubb at the time.
Unfortunately for Mr Ryan, the commission says, he decided to give the $250,000 to SV1, who, the commission heard, used $30,000 to pay off a debt incurred by Frozen Concepts, and then frittered away the rest.
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