''There is nothing strange in organised crime having better access to technology than the authorities,'' said Michael Kennedy, a former NSW detective and an academic at the University of Western Sydney. ''The bikies are becoming more entrepreneurial and, after all, organised crime is a business enterprise. Crime groups will share technology if it helps them.''

The Comanchero are thought to use the Mexican phones with global roam activated. It costs a great deal of money to constantly use the roaming facility but for criminals, communications that cannot be monitored are priceless.

What makes the BlackBerrys so hard to tap is that Mexico has no reliable register of handsets, mobile numbers or users. Vendors are unregistered and sell the phones and SIM cards for cash, no questions asked. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports Mexico has 83 million mobile phones and government attempts to set up an official registry are failing.

As well, the encrypted BlackBerry messaging service is routed through a server Australian authorities haven't been able to access.

It is not known how many of the phones are in Australia and in the hands of organised crime groups. But experts agree the criminals will keep the technology among themselves as long as they can.