One of the biggest leaks of police files in Victoria's history was discovered by chance - and pure luck will play a role in stopping it from happening again.
Thousands of pages of police documents, dating back over three years, were found at three Melbourne properties last year, triggering a major investigation into police links with drugs and bikies.
Nine months later, the force's anti-corruption Keel taskforce is drawing to a close after eight officers, including the suspected ringleader, were charged or suspended.
At least 20 others, who are not officers, are also facing charges.
Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay says the force is now on top of the leaking, but there's no guarantee it can't happen again.
"It's almost impossible to protect the organisation from that sort of behaviour," he said on Friday in announcing the Keel taskforce's closure.
He said other officers, however, will be deterred from committing such crimes after seeing what happened in this case.
Police union secretary Greg Davies said he, too, hoped the taskforce's hard work had rammed home the message.
"How do you guarantee that no one is going to break the law, no matter who they are?" he said.
The leaks were discovered by chance during a series of drug raids in May last year and were sourced back to Fitzroy police station in inner-Melbourne.
Police say the station was mismanaged at the time with the taskforce finding links to a large scale drug operation, theft, counterfeit money and even an unsolved shooting.
Printouts from the police database were scattered throughout three properties, revealing the names of more than 1000 informants and known criminals.
Mr Lay said it was "extremely lucky" that no one was targeted as a result of such information being disclosed.
"There was a very, very real risk that some people may have been assaulted or worse as a result of this security leak," he said.
Senior Constable David Branov, 41, quit the force after being accused of having links with bikies, stealing and selling drugs, and disclosing information from the police LEAP database.
Police allege Branov used a password supplied from another officer to commit the massive information leak.
He faces a committal hearing in May along with Dean Murphy, 38, of Seddon, and Jamie McNally, 34, of Tarneit.
The state's new anti-corruption body is reviewing how police handled the internal investigation.
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