Royal Commission: How world-record ecstasy haul was busted over lunch
This massive stash of 15 million pills was bound for Melbourne, hidden in tonnes of tomato tins. But, as Lawyer X bragged, her quick thinking led to the bust — all while federal police thought she was in with the gang.
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Lawyer X bragged to police that she had copied a document that revealed the location of a then world record stash of 15 million ecstasy pills, all while her client was at lunch.
Gangland barrister Nicola Gobbo was given the Bill of Lading, which revealed where a container carrying a 4.4 tonne ecstasy haul hidden in tomato tins, by syndicate member Rob Karam.
Unknown to Karam, Gobbo was a secret police informer and she provided a photocopy of the document to her police handlers within hours of getting it.
The Lawyer X Royal Commission heard Gobbo became so close to Karam that the federal police - who were kept in the dark about her informer status - believed she may have been part of the international smuggling ring.
In June 2007 Gobbo was then representing Karam in relation to an earlier multimillion-dollar bust.
The royal commission was played dramatic audio of a meeting on June 5, 2007 where Gobbo told her handlers how Karam had given her the Bill of Lading before they were due in court.
“Rob said to me “can you hold on to this and leave it in the office.”
“I said to him ‘It’s not going to get me in trouble is it...”
“I said ‘Why don’t you take it to court.’
“But obviously you got incriminating documents you don’t want to ever run the risk of having them yourself,’’ Gobbo said.
“It’s the golden rule so he said “no”, he’s said they’re documents that (Joe) Mannella has given me to look after in case he gets locked up.”
“Then at lunchtime... we’re talking around the corner and he goes, ‘I need to come and get those documents’.
“So he came down with his brother and his brother took the documents away.”
Karam had told her the document revealed the location of the “biggest import we have done.”
The document was written in Italian, which Gobbo translated for the police handler, the inquiry heard. It showed the ship was due to arrive in weeks from Italy via Singapore to Melbourne.
The inquiry heard Victoria Police then told Australian Customs about the location of the container carrying the drug haul.
Gobbo’s handler - who is given evidence under the pseudonym Sandy White - said they hid that the intelligence was from an informer.
In a July 3 meeting after the container was found Gobbo’s handler tells the barrister that: “Customs thinks it is all them and they are not looking for a source, which is good for us.”
Arrests were not made until August 2008, a year after the drugs were found.
Counsel assisting the Royal Commission Chris Winneke said the Australian Federal Police told Karam Gobbo could not represent him, as she had a conflict.
Mr White said that was because the telephone intercept led the to believe she was in on the smuggling plot.
“Generally the conflict from the AFP point of view is that they suspect her as being a party to the crime.”
“AFP had a lot of strength to believe that she was actually a guilty party.”
In total more than 32 people were convicted to more than 300 years prison for the drugs bust.
Karam has already appealed his 37-year sentence using the grounds of the Lawyer X informing scandal.