Police missed golden opportunity to nab Tony Mokbel before he fled to Greece
Lawyer X warned police that drug lord Tony Mokbel was “up to something” just days before he went on the run, but they failed to understand the significance and place Mokbel under surveillance.
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Police had a golden opportunity to stop Tony Mokbel from becoming an international fugitive when its controversial source, Lawyer X, warned them the drug lord was “up to something” days before he went on the run.
On Friday March 17, 2006 just three days before Mokbel failed to appear at court on cocaine importation charges, his barrister Nicola Gobbo said the drug lord had told her not to call him over the weekend.
The jury in his cocaine importation case was due to go out on the Tuesday and usually Gobbo — who was his junior barrister in the case — would be in frequent contact.
The judge had also told Gobbo that Mokbel would have to be in custody once the jury went out to deliberate.
Unbeknown to Mokbel, Gobbo was a registered police informer and she raised her concerns with her handlers after she left the court on the Friday afternoon.
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“Mokbel has told the human source at least twice not to ring him this weekend, which is very strange. Because of this the human source is sure he’s up to some unknown criminal activity this weekend.”
But while the anti-gangland Purana Taskforce were briefed about her suspicions, they failed to understand the significance and place Mokbel under surveillance.
Purana Taskforce head Detective Inspector Jim O’Brien was briefed about Gobbo’s suspicions but he told the Lawyer X Royal Commission he failed to recognise the importance of the intelligence.
He said his diary recorded that Gobbo had said: “Tony Mokbel up to something. Advised registered human source ‘don’t ring me on the weekend, I’ll ring you if need be’.”
“If the significance of that had dawned on me he’d have been under surveillance I can tell you that,” Mr O’Brien told the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants.
“In fact I only realised the importance of that entry when I was reviewing it for this process, and I thought, “Hello”.
Mokbel’s failure to appear in court sparked an expensive international manhunt.
After reporting to police on March 19 Mokbel fled to Bonnie Doon before driving across the continent to Fremantle, where he climbed on board the boat Edwena and set sail for Greece.
He was arrested a year later in an Athens cafe, where he was living in luxury with his daughter and girlfriend.
Gobbo’s handlers also recorded a surveillance unit was cancelled over the March 2006 weekend.
Mr O’Brien said he could not recall if surveillance was cancelled over that weekend but he did not believe Mokbel was being watched in the days before he fled.