Melbourne crime: Alfio Granata, Darren Saltmarsh, Kumuthini Kannan

A man who skipped bail, tanned his pale skin and pretended to be Indian is just one of the depraved criminals to have been banged up.

Melbourne has had more than its fair share of depraved crimes. This lot had added to the list.

A Mt Waverley couple who were banged up behind bars for a crime rarely heard about in civilised society — slavery — are just one of the strange cases that have rocked Melbourne.

From a depraved rapist who imprisoned a backpacker, to a man who kidnapped his girlfriend and later made it through Aussie immigration pretending to be Indian, here are some of the crimes you might not remember.

Heinous couple enslave grandmother

Kandasamy and Kumuthini Kannan at the Supreme Court. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

An elderly Indian grandmother was finally rescued by authorities after eight years being kept as a slave in Mt Waverley.

The “pitiless and heartless” couple, Kumuthini Kannan, 53, and her husband Kandasamy, 57, were found guilty earlier this year of possessing and using the elderly woman as a domestic slave in their eastern suburbs home between 2007 and 2015.

During the trial, the slave told the court she was forced to work 23 hours a day, beaten with a frozen chicken, had boiling water poured over her legs and was only allowed to shower once a week.

The couple were also accused of locking the victim in their home for up to a month at a time while holidaying overseas.

They also reportedly told the woman’s family to “get f---ed” when they asked for their mother to be allowed to return to India.

The elderly grandmother had visited Australia twice before to work for the family and returned home, but on the third occasion her passport was taken from her and she was not allowed to leave.

But eight years after arriving in the country on a 30-day tourist visa, authorities discovered the illiterate woman lying in a pool of urine, with no teeth, a dangerous sepsis infection and weighing 40kg.

Supreme Court judge John Champion said he could not sentence the couple on the grounds of any alleged mistreatment, rather only for the two counts of the “repugnant” offence of slavery.

Ms Kannan was sentenced to a maximum eight years behind bars after Justice Champion found her more culpable than her husband who will serve a maximum of six years.

The pair will both be eligible for parole in four and three years respectively.

Sadistic rapist keeps Dutch sex slave

Alfio Granata. Picture: Supplied

A Dutch backpacker was forced to endure six weeks of hell after she was forced to live as a sex slave in a Preston hotel room.

In 2015, Alfio Anthony Granata, 48, was initially ordered to serve at least 13 years behind bars for depraved acts on a 21-year-old woman he kept prisoner at Rydges Bell City in 2012.

But the Victorian Court of Appeal later increased the sicko’s jail time to at least 17 years.

Granata met the victim at a St Kilda birthday party, but held his victim hostage and tortured her in the apartment between November and December under the threat of death if she tried to escape.

The court heard he forced her to have sex with him, beat her with a meat tenderiser, stomped on her head, and forced her to live and sleep undressed in a shower for days on end.

The woman was ordered not to speak, move or complain, and if she did she was beaten more.

He also threatened to have her parents killed at their home in Holland, telling his victim he had killed 248 people and had global mafia connections.

Granata called the woman his “little slut” and a “maggot” and at times blindfolded her, attached her to a leash and forced her to act like a dog.

The woman’s phone calls and internet activity were monitored, and she was forced to hand over her bank cards and computer to Granata.

Using a kitchen knife Granata scratched a cross into the victim’s forehead saying it meant she belonged to him and was “marked for death’’ for betraying him.

The heard on the day the woman was discovered, she had stabbed Granata while he was sleeping and tried to kill herself.

She was rescued by paramedics lying in a pool of blood.

Unemployed loser’s international ransom plot

Darren Saltmarsh at a dress up party.

The grave that Darren Saltmarsh dug in backyard.

A bumbling, jobless gambler was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison after a bizarre kidnap and ransom plot.

Darren Saltmarsh, who was sentenced in 2013, shoved a terrified woman, who he had bound and blindfolded, into a backyard grave.

The jobless gambler, who was already married to a woman in the Philippines, met the international student online in 2011.

When the pair met up the creep asked if she’d be interested in paying for an arranged marriage in exchange for permanent residency, but she refused.

He drove the poor woman to a Melbourne property, where he held a knife to her throat and told her she’d been abducted for a $20,000 ransom.

Phone calls were made to her family and friends for the money, and money was stolen from her bank accounts.

At one point throughout the three-day saga, Saltmarsh stuffed the woman in the boot of his car and drove to a bank to check whether ransom money had been deposited.

Saltmarsh was under police surveillance by the time he dug a grave in a backyard after receiving no ransom money.

Detectives watched on in secret as he dug the hole and lay beside it and in it to test its dimensions.

On the third day of the kidnapping, Saltmarsh pulled a beanie over the woman’s eyes, tied her hands and shoved the frightened woman into the hole.

But watching police swooped in and rescued the woman, arresting Saltmarsh who still had a shovel in his hand.

Supreme Court Justice Betty King jailed Saltmarsh for nine and a half years, telling the fool he was no “criminal mastermind”.

Creepy kidnapper’s black face fraud

A man who kidnapped his girlfriend before fooling Aussie immigration and flying to India ended up behind bars.

A 22-year-old churchgoing Gippsland man, planned a picnic for his girlfriend before staging the abduction in March 2008.

Although the young woman, then 17, had agreed to marry the man, she wanted to wait until she finished her studies before tying the knot.

But the impatient groom concocted an elaborate plan and on the day of the picnic pretended to be an unknown attacker wearing a balaclava.

He bound and blindfolded his victim and then drove for hours into the Alpine National Park.

The man then cut off all the young woman’s clothes before removing his own and pretending he had also been kidnapped.

The pair wandered through the bush for six days and nights, sleeping under the same sleeping bag every night because of the cold.

The court of appeal heard the man proposed marriage to victim and said it would be better if they had sex because it would keep them warmer, and also they would be married before God.

During one proposal the man became angry and yelled at the victim, who refused to have sex.

A farmer in a ute rescued the pair and took them to a nearby police station.

A jury found the man guilty of kidnapping and making a false report to police.

But while on bail awaiting sentence the creep dyed his hair black, fake tanned his pale skin and substituted his photograph on a genuine Indian passport.

The man managed to fool Sydney immigration authorities flying to India on a planned journey to Germany where he had relatives.

But Indian authorities weren’t convinced and detained the man.

In his absence the man was sentenced to seven years and nine months’ jail with a five year and three month minimum, and had six months slapped on for failing to appear in court.

He failed in appeals to the Court of Appeal and the High Court.