Police topped up Mokbel drug cook account to cover Lawyer X
Anti-gangland cops used taxpayer cash to top up the prison canteen fund of a drug cook for Tony Mokbel. But the $20,000 was made to seem like it came from secret police informer, Nicola Gobbo.
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Victoria Police paid one of Tony Mokbel’s drug cooks $20,000 in prison canteen money on behalf of its source, Lawyer X.
The anti-gangland Purana Taskforce paid $240 a month into the prison bank account of a key Mokbel drug manufacturer throughout his seven-year sentence, the Lawyer X royal commission has heard.
But it was made to seem like the taxpayer-funded cash was coming from the cook’s gangland barrister and secret police informer Nicola Gobbo.
The inquiry was told the drug cook planned to give Gobbo $100,000 before he went to prison so she could drip feed the cash into his bank account while he was inside. Gobbo, who told police the location of the cook’s drug labs, said the money was never paid.
She told handlers she was giving the cook prison canteen money as there was “no one else offering to help”.
The commission heard the Purana Taskforce soon took over making those payments.
The cook also made calls from prison claiming that the gangland barrister was holding on to $250,000 for him.
Counsel assisting the royal commission Chris Winneke QC said such large sums of cash from a large-scale drug manufacturer should have been suspected of being the proceeds of crime. He said police documents did not definitively prove the cook paid Gobbo cash, but it was clear that had been the plan before his April 2006 arrest.
Gobbo’s key handler — giving evidence as Sandy White — said the cook’s claim was never investigated.
Mr White said, given it could have been the proceeds of crime, it “definitely should have been examined”. But he said it could have been from the cook’s gambling activities, as he was a known high-roller.
The handler said he could not recall a discussion within the Source Development Unit team in 2008 about the possibility of a royal commission if Gobbo was ever publicly “compromised”.
Her handlers, dismayed at a plan by Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland to turn Gobbo into a public witness in a double murder case, discussed the risks of the barrister’s informer role being uncovered.
GOBBO HAD SPEEDING FINES ERASED
“Risk to organisation if long-term source role is exposed equals perception of source passing on privileged information and police using the same,” minutes of the meeting recorded.
“Risk of royal commission into source’s handling by SDU as a result of the above.”
The document also discussed the possibility of both past and future convictions being put at risk by using a lawyer as an informer on clients.