As has been said ‘Life is not all buttercups and roses. That was brought well home by our Guest Speaker Lachlan McCulloch, formerly an undercover cop, to our genteel group of Rotarians and Guests at our Tuesday evening Meeting on August 29th. In front of a packed room of 41 attendees Lachlan gave us an enthralling insight into a life, thankfully, of which we are not part.
In a police career spanning two decades, Lachlan McCulloch was commended for bravery, exposed police corruption, tracked heavy drug gangs and went deep undercover to infiltrate Australia's most dangerous crime family.
 PP Ian Salek, Lachlan McCulloch & President Mark Howlett |
In an often, emotional presentation, he also told us of his realisation and sickening disappointment that a superior, whom he looked up to and shared information with was involved with the crime gang he was pursuing. Other colleagues warned him of the dire consequences of exposing corruption. Get something wrong and you’re dead was Lachlan’s life for those wild years. Nevertheless, he stayed resolute and was commended for bravery.
Lachlan told us his best years in the job were spent on the street dealing with the bad, the sad and the mad. Amusingly he told us he posed as a drug user in Fitzroy Street St Kilda wanting to ‘score’. He was approached by a dealer. Supported by a police colleague ‘miked up’ close by they arrested the man as the transaction was made. The man was charged at the Prahran Police Station and bailed on the Friday. On the Monday Lachlan was again back on Fitzroy Street and the very same drug dealer approached asking again if he wanted to ‘score’. Lachlan was incredulous. Arrested again the dealer said to Lachlan “I remember your face but **** **** I forgot you were a cop”!!!! Obviously, the dealer was one of the ‘sad and the mad’.
A family man throughout, now a grandfather and an avid fisherman, Lachlan is still chasing wrongdoing but in a much safer environment. He has written three books and can be heard on a Podcast ‘Undercover Cop’ with Journalist Andrew Rule.