Border Force's corruption overhaul comes after it promised a similar overhaul following a corruption scandal in 2012. Also under scrutiny is the federal Coalition's decision to abandon a Customs anti-corruption board led by former chief commissioner Ken Moroney, which was formed when a corrupt cell of Sydney Airport customs officers was detected in 2012. In 2016, Mr Moroney told Fairfax Media that the scrapping of the Customs Reform Board by the Coalition risked "an escalation or increase in corrupt activity". Fairfax Media can reveal that a female customs officer quit Border Force in October 2015 after she was suspected of tipping off Sydney criminal identities closely tied to the Jomaa family. She allegedly told them they were under investigation for drug and tobacco importations. Despite leaving Customs in October 2015 under a cloud of suspicion, the female officer retained connections with serving officers, providing her with ongoing access to confidential government information.

One of these serving officers was identified in an internal 2014 anti-corruption sweep codenamed Pharos. However, he retained his position in Border Force until recently. One senior official said the two officers had "burnt" or compromised multiple operations since 2014. In 2015, a third officer gave a member of the Jomaa family access to a Border Force gym and worked in a small taxi company with him. police suspect this officer was leaking information from Border Force computers at Customs House at Sydney Airport. Leaked documents obtained by Fairfax Media include a "protected" briefing in 2010 from Customs (since renamed Border Force) to the then federal police commissioner Tony Negus that warned the Jomaa family had infiltrated Customs. The allegedly corrupt female officer who left in 2015 is believed to have taken over the role of Jomaa syndicate insider from a man, "Officer X", who quit Customs in 2011 and is also identified in the briefing to Mr Negus. Police documents detail evidence that Officer X was cultivated by the Jomaa family in the early 2000s, and worked with the family while he served as a Customs officer.

A police report states that Officer X had "brothers... extensively involved in the distribution of ATS [amphetamines], heroin, gang activity, illegal weapons and drug usage", and had used up to 11 phones registered in fake names to communicate clandestinely with alleged criminal figures, including the Jomaa family. Officer X was suspected for compromising a police operation codenamed Heybridge, which targeted tobacco and drug trafficking. The briefing to Mr Negus warned that when Officer X left Customs, evidence emerged that the Jomaa family had a second allegedly corrupt officer inside the agency who continued to work for the family. " POL Middle eastern Organised Crime Squad informant [has claimed] the Jomaa family had lost one of its informants [Officer X] within Customs and Border Protection. The information suggested there were two Customs and Border Protection officers" working with the Jomaa family, the Negus briefing states. Mr Negus was also warned that two female customs officers had connections to the family. One of the officers was allegedly "passing on sensitive information directly to members of the Jomaa family, including information about a specific member of the family who has been charged and is on bail".

Both officers were friends with the ex-wife of one of the Jomaa family members, an alleged trafficker based in Dubai. Both these officers left the agency once suspicions about their conduct were raised. The report to Negus also identified a fourth officer "suspected of being involved in the supply of sensitive information to criminal syndicates" connected to the Jomaa family. "The AFP indicated that [this officer] had asked questions and sought information from the AFP that in hindsight raises suspicions," the 2010 report states. By the end of 2010, five Customs officers with links to the Jomaa family had been identified. But even once all these officers had left Customs or Border Force, evidence continued to be received by the police that the Jomaa family was receiving inside information. Since 2013, Border Force has implemented anti-corruption reforms, but concern about the Jomaa family is behind a fresh push to clean up pockets of corruption and improve agency culture.