Former Sydney drug lord Danny Landini, 74, dies of cancer
Once known as one of Sydney’s “untouchables”, former drug lord Danny Landini, 74, has died of cancer. Here is the dark and colourful history of Landini, who served time behind bars.
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Once known as one of Sydney’s “untouchables”, former drug lord Henry “Danny” Charles Landini, 74, has died of cancer.
At an age when most crooks were retiring, Landini was famously arrested nine years ago along with a who’s who of Sydney’s “grandpa” underworld figures and charged over what was then one of the state’s biggest drug busts.
“I thought they were dead or at least in wheelchairs,'' one former detective said at the time.
After years of being described as one of Sydney’s “colourful identities”, Landini was back behind bars after pleading guilty to supplying 1.345 kilograms of amphetamine between June and September 2010.
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Just two years earlier he had been awarded $230,000 damages after it was proved police including crooked Kings Cross cop Trevor Haken planted heroin on him in the '80s.
His police rap sheet read: "Henry Charles Landini has an extensive criminal history. Between 1 July, 1960, and 20 January, 1998, Landini has been charged on 60 separate occasions. Landini was charged in 1971, 1977, 1980, 1982, 1991 and 1998 in relation to the possession and supply of prohibited drugs (heroin and cocaine)."
Italian-born, Landini came to Australia as a young boy with his mother and grew up in Woolloomooloo.
During the Sydney gang wars of the 80s, Landini drank regularly with the notorious Neddy Smith in inner-city pubs and ran with the men who were shot dead — and those who shot them — like Mick Sayers, Barry McCann and Danny Chubb.
Depending on what side of the blue line they lived, Landini was either described as evil or a mate.
“He was a good guy,” one of his underworld friends said today.
Described at the time as “short fat and 70” Landini was last in the spotlight during the Michael McGurk murder trials when Lucky Gattellari, acting for his friend multi-millionaire property developer Ron Medich, asked Ron Mason over lunch if he knew of a hitman who could “bump” someone off.
Mr Mason, the former chairman of a South Coast Aboriginal land council, gave evidence that his daughter was living with Landini’s son and a meeting was set up. But Landini snr walked away from the meeting believing Gattellari and his associates were ''imbeciles'' and ''hopeless'' and wanting nothing to do with them.
Medich and Gattellari were both convicted over Mr McGurk’s 2009 murder.
Danny Landini was arrested in 2010 after a series of raids on 37 properties across Sydney, the Central Coast and Mudgee in what was called the “bust of the century”. Also arrested was Sydney criminal identity, 52-year-old Victor John Camilleri, who was also a survivor of the 80s gang wars.
“Most offenders appearing for sentence in these courts are young men, some of whom commit crimes regularly until, perhaps because they reach a level of maturity, perhaps because they are tired of the way they are wasting their lives in jail or perhaps for other reasons they finally give up their lives of crime,” Judge Peter Berman said while sentencing the two men in the District Court
“The two offenders for sentence in this case are not in that category.”
The judge said he took into account that Landini’s daughter suffered from cerebral palsy and his son, Daniel, who had been her main carer after their mother died, suffered from polycystic kidney disease and needed dialysis.,
“He is now an old man doing time in prison, which is an environment suitable at most for tough young men. On top of that his health is not as good as it was when he was serving prison sentences as a much younger man,” Judge Berman said.
Landini got 7 years, with 4 years non-parole. He was released in 2015 and had been living in Sutherland.
A who’s who of Australia’s east coast underworld, at least those still alive, are expected at the 74-year-old’s funeral at Rookwood on Monday.
