Tony Mokbel’s bizarre bid to end underworld war
A radical plan cooked up by gangland kingpin Tony Mokbel in 2004 saw the drug boss actually volunteer for jail time. Here’s how the arrogant proposal, secretly recorded by police, backfired.
Law & Order
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Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel offered to make a deal with police to “bring peace to the streets” at the height of Melbourne’s underworld war.
Mokbel’s radical proposal was that he, Carl Williams and others in Melbourne’s underworld would be willing to do a deal for shorter prison sentences.
He told the two detectives at a 2004 meeting at Yarra Bend Park, his logical plan would burden on the court system and take the pressure of Victoria Police’s “hierarchy”.
The drug lord wanted his multiple party plea deal brought to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Coghlan, for his approval.
But in the April 2004 meeting, a transcript of which was released by the Lawyer X Royal Commission, Mokbel warned if a deal wasn’t made “a lot of mud would get thrown at a lot of police.”
He also threatened to bog down his own drug trial with corruption allegations and courtroom applications if a deal was not struck.
At the April 13, 2004 meeting, with Purana Taskforce detective Martin Robertson and the Major Drug Investigation Division officer David Bartlett, Mokbel said a number of the “boys”, including Williams, were in on the plan.
But he said while they would benefit from reduced jail time, his main motivation for the deal was to put a stop to the underworld killings.
“The main reason I’m doing it is trying to get a bit of peace,” Mokbel told the investigators who were secretly recording the meeting.
“But .. .(inaudible)... just a bit of peace in the system, bit of peace in, in yourself. Bit of peace in the f****** streets.”
“Because you can, it’s going to get out of control.”
He said his proposal would get the underworld “strength off the street” putting an end to the murders.
At the time, Mokbel and Williams were at war with the ‘Carlton Crew’ over control of Melbourne’s drug trade, and the reprisal killings were becoming more frequent.
Mokbel told the officers the underworld war had spiralled so far out of control that innocent people could be killed.
Mokbel then issued a threat he would co-operate with the force’s anti-corruption investigators, the Ethical Standards Division, who were driving him “mad” trying to get him to make statements about police.
The reputation of the drug squad was at that stage in tatters with Wayne Strawhorn been charged with trafficking and a number of other officers facing corruption probes.
“I got information on which police worked with who and whoever and I’m just going to throw names left, right and centre in these bloody court cases and, and make it a nice messy case.”
“And my case won’t get on, you know yourself, if I want to drag this case for four to 10 years I can.”
But he said it was against his nature give evidence against others.
Mokbel did admit if the “behind closed doors deal” with Melbourne’s underworld got out to the media it could start a Royal Commission.
He suggested the DPP could find a way to make it palatable for the public.
Purana Taskforce head Jim O’Brien this week told the Lawyer X Royal Commission the arrogant proposal backfired on Mokbel and convinced police he was at the top of the drug dealing tree.
The lengthy April 13 meeting was just weeks after Mick Gatto had killed Williams-aligned hitman Andrew ‘Benji’ Veniamin in a Carlton restaurant.
Mokbel said while rival Mick Gatto was a c*** s***** everyone was relieved when he killed the “very dangerous” Veniamin after inviting him to the La Porcella restaurant.
“You wouldn’t know which, one day if he was on your side or not on your side.”
He said it was people like Veniamin and his mates who were the reason the underworld body counts kept stacking up.
“Have you met f**** Benji’s mates? They haven’t got a f****** brain. I went to the house there was 60, 70 of them, between them all, if you put them all together they haven’t got half a brain.
“They all got nothing to lose and everything to gain by making a name for themselves.”
In 2005, a jury acquitted Mr Gatto of the murder of Veniamin on the grounds of self-defence.
During the meeting the two detectives stayed largely silent as Mokbel made his proposal but then steered the conversation towards murders they suspected Mokbel and his allies were involved in.
First they started with the underworld rumour that Mokbel was bashed near to death by Bulgarian organised crime figure Nik Radev.
“I’d hang meself if Nik Radev gave me a belting,” Mokbel replied.
He said it was Perth bikies linked to Radev who bashed him after he had a meeting with Gatto. He said while Radev’s 2003 murder was unrelated to the war with the Carlton Crew it was a “blessing for Melbourne”.
“Nik was just going too hard. He had on his mind of getting all these f****** Russians coming here and taking over the joint.
“He was just mad on power.”
He justified the killing of Jason Moran, who was murdered in a van full of children at an Auskick clinic in 2003, as a kill or be killed scenario.
“If you’re f****** going around to everybody and putting hits on me left, right and centre, am I supposed to do? Sit there and wait for some bloke with half a brain to come and get me.”
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At the time, police were convinced Mokbel ally Williams was behind the hit on Moran and his bodyguard Pasquale Barbaro.
Williams later plead guilty to organising the execution.
Mokbel said he thought slain men Willie Thompson and Graham Kinniburgh were “harmless.”
But when detective constable Robertson asked if he felt sorry for murdered drug dealer Mick Marshall, Mokbel said he was killed because he was too cocky.
“See if he had kept his mouth shut making his money, didn’t worry about politics he would have been all right.
“He got Willy and he was too cocky, wanted to get a few others and whatever, that’s the way the story goes.”
Mokbel was charged with the murder of Mick Marshall, with police alleging he had Marshall killed in revenge for the slaying of his friend Willie Thompson. The Marshall charges against Mokbel were dropped in 2007.