NCA bomber Domenic Perre: the mafia boss behind one of South Australia’s biggest crimes

Domenic Perre was a criminal, who was also under surveillance by cops investigating Italian organised crime across NSW, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Domenic Perre was described during his trial as a dope grower who would swagger about South Australia “like a wannabe gangster”.

But he seemed to enjoy the notoriety that came with his trademark smirk when almost immediately after the March 1994 NCA bombing he was nominated as a prime suspect.

Perre – who migrated to Australia with his family from Plati in the notorious Mafia state of Calabria in southern Italy in 1962 – had been suspected for involvement in cannabis cultivation through the 1980s.

But in 1993 a week-long surveillance operation in the Northern Territory about Happy Valley brought him into sharper focus.

Frank Perre and Antonio Perre – Domenic’s brother and uncle – were arrested for a large cannabis crop worth at least $20 million along with 10 other men, mostly Italians. Initially police kept the arrests quiet as a man named “Dom” would ring and officers would impersonate those arrested in the hope of snaring other suspects.

Watch the special investigation video above.

Convicted NCA bomber Domenic Perre. Picture: Supplied

Eventually they allowed Frank to call Domenic, he (Domenic) would later ring police back and threatened to “waste you” for the trick. This, a court would hear three decades later, began his pathological hatred toward law enforcement. It would fester, the court heard, into his bomb attack on the NCA headquarters in Adelaide that killed Det Sgt Geoffrey Bowen and severely wounded his colleague Peter Wallis.

Detective Sergeant Geoffrey (Geoff) Bowen who was killed in the NCA bombing.

National Crime Authority bombing victim laywer Peter Wallis in 1995.

Between October 1993 and March 1994, the National Crime Authority put Perre under surveillance as part of a wider brief looking into Italian organised crime centred around Griffith in NSW, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Bowen was not involved in the Hidden Valley bust but was assigned to Operation Cerberus – the huge multi-agency task force looking into the Italian Mafia in Australia. The operation led to Domenic Perre’s house being searched by Sgt Bowen and other officers in September 1993.

From that Perre was charged with telephone intercept offences.

Domenic Perre, who collected guns and was involved in running drugs.

Perre was an avid collector of legal guns but at that stage was also discussing going into business with a gunsmith to illegally convert semi-auto firearms into fully auto weapons to sell on the black market. He expressed the financial and mental strain the constant police focus on him and his family was having at that time.

In 1997 and 1998 Perre did jail time for drug offences and again in 2020 for drug and firearm offences.

Dominic Perre in handcuffs after being arrested for bombing NCA building in Adelaide.

Going back to when the NCA bombing happened though, Perre was arrested within weeks but no charges laid due to a lack of evidence. Police reviewed the case over subsequent years until a 1999 coronial inquest that lasted a record 56 days. The by then convicted drug dealer Perre was named as the person who made the bomb and he was charged but with insufficient evidence, the case never made it to court.

Then in 2006 police reviewed the case again, after lobbying from the Bowen family, with focus on Perre but again detectives could not find evidence to the level that would satisfy a court prosecution.

Domenic Perre being led into the Adelaide Magistrates Court. Picture: NINE NEWS

Almost a decade later in 2015 Task Force Cornus was created with 15 full-time investigators to again probe the case and would continue for two and a half years led by SAPOL, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the SA DPP. That led to Perre being arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. In 2021 Perre was tried in the Supreme Court with 170 prosecution witnesses and 373 exhibits presented and on June 30, 2022 Justice Kevin Nicholson, sitting without a jury, found him guilty.

It was Det Sgt Bowen’s son Simon, who was seven at the time his father was murdered but would follow in his footsteps to join the police force, would later tell the Adelaide Supreme Court he failed to understand Perre’s motivation to harm his family.

“I struggle with the motive and relevance of your actions,” he told Perre in a victim impact statement. “You caused so much irreparable damage and suffering all so you can grow some dope and walk about South Australia like a would-be gangster with your big black glasses.”

Originally published as NCA bomber Domenic Perre: the mafia boss behind one of South Australia’s biggest crimes