Carl Williams profile: How pure greed drove Melbourne gangland druglord to kill

IN the wake of gangland figure George Williams’ death — it’s his son that everyone will remember, the chubby killer behind a brutal crime spree fuelled by guns and greed.

Paul Anderson

7 min read

May 12, 2016 - 5:14PM

True Crime Scene

Don't miss out on the headlines from True Crime Scene. Followed categories will be added to My News.

UNLIKE most crooks, who become a product of their environment, Carl Anthony Williams shaped Melbourne’s criminal landscape.

Not only shaped it, but laid it waste.

One of his biggest supporters to the bitter end was his father George, who succumbed to a heart attack aged 69, but several years after his own son died in a brutal prison death.

In an unprecedented crime spree — fuelled by vengeance, paranoia, avarice and fear — the fledgling drug trafficker transformed himself into a kingpin by making fast money and recruiting willing hitmen to do his bidding.

From humble beginnings as a “gofer” for more established names connected to the once powerful “Carlton Crew”, Carl enjoyed a meteoric rise on the crime pop charts as a rogue trader.

To coin a rock 'n' roll phrase, he went to the top “with a bullet”.

With a foolhardy nonchalance he gunned down enemies and drug competitors, both genuine and perceived.

Carl with his older brother Shane. Picture: Supplied.

A flashy Carl Williams liked to call himself “The Premier”.

Williams was a podgy youth from Broadmeadows who bombed out of school at Year 11 and tried some part-time labouring jobs before testing his hand as a semi-professional gambler. Once banned from the casino, he turned to the drug trade.

Comfortable in a Mambo T-shirt, cargo pants and flip flops, Williams went on to wipe out an entire enemy dynasty — and other individuals.

Convicted of four murders and suspected of involvement in up to six others, Williams was known to refer to himself as “The Premier”.

“Carl said he was the president, or something like that, and that he wanted to run for parliament,” a relative once told police.

Crown prosecutor Geoff Horgan said: “The thing about Williams is, he was such an odd character — he has the maturity of a child but the power of a dangerous adult, and people are willing to do his bidding for no reason at all.”

Carl Williams revelling in the attention during a court appearance.

Notorious crime figures Carl Williams, Andrew Veniamin and Tony Mokbel.

Jason Moran.

Mark Moran

Those people included Andrew “Benji” Veniamin and a host of others.

Williams was the undisputed instigator and aggressor during the gangland war, after Mark and Jason Moran’s gambit of shooting him in the stomach over a drug dispute backfired.

Jason pulled the trigger in a Gladstone Park recreation reserve on the eve of Williams’ 29th birthday, in 1999.

Mark had urged his little brother to shoot the upstart in the head.

If Jason had listened, a dozen or more men would not have died in Melbourne’s gangland war.

“One of the consequences of this (shooting) occurring was a high degree of animosity between the Morans and yourself,” Justice Betty King said when sentencing Williams to life in jail, with a minimum of 35 years.

“It is also clear that you and Jason and Mark Moran were competitors in the selling of illegal drugs, which would have done nothing to decrease the animosity that you bore towards each other.”

The judge also remarked on Williams’ failure to report the shooting to police.

“You maintain that was because the Morans had told you that they had a police officer in their pocket and you did not believe it would be investigated properly,” Justice King states.

“I do not accept that was your reason for refusing to co-operate with police investigators, but rather your reasons related to the supposed code of silence of the criminal milieu in which you lived.”

Williams turned on the Moran clan with a vengeance.

A witness told police Williams was driven to Mark Moran’s Aberfeldie home on the night of June 15, 2000.

“Since being shot in the stomach, Carl became quite obsessive about the Moran family,” the witness said in a police statement.

“Whenever he was drunk and the conversation came up, he would start saying things like, ‘I want every one of them dead and every one of their crew dead.”

Police are certain Williams shot Mark Moran.

By the time he became a killer, Williams had a list of minor criminal convictions, including handling stolen goods, failing to answer bail and attempting to traffic drugs.

He would soon score a prison term for a serious trafficking charge.

“It is clear ... that from the 1990s you were working as a drug trafficker up to and including the time of the murders,” Justice King said.

Williams took his vendetta to a shocking new level when he sent a gunman to deal with Jason Moran at a kids’ football clinic in Pascoe Vale on the morning of June 21, 2003.

The gunman cut Jason in half with a couple of shotgun blasts as Moran’s children sat in the back of the van. Front-seat passenger Pasquale Barbaro was also killed.

A forensic officer examines a bullet at the scene of the shooting. The discarded shotgun can be seen under the van. Picture: HWT library.

Judy Moran at the scene of the execution. Picture: Peter Smith.

The sawn-off shotgun used in the double murder.

Justice King: “The Crown says that you recommended the reserve as a good place to kill Jason Moran, as he was known to attend there with his children for Auskick, a junior football clinic, on Saturday mornings.

“You did not dispute that your preferred plan was for Jason Moran to be killed as close to the anniversary of Mark Moran’s murder as possible.”

The hits kept on coming.

Williams confidante Andrew Veniamin was the druglord’s go-to hitman.

Mark Mallia, a wannabe drug baron from the western suburbs, was affiliated with major drug trafficker Nik “The Russian” Radev.

Mallia was left out in the cold when Veniamin gunned Radev down in Coburg in April 2003. Radev was seen as a ruthless drug competitor who had to be liquidated.

Justice King again: “There was, by this time, a climate of fear amongst those involved in illegal drug trafficking as there had been at least 15 murders that would be described as ‘gangland war’ murders.

“Not surprisingly, Mallia had become increasingly concerned that he too might be murdered because of his associations — particularly his association with Radev.”

Mallia was tortured, murdered and his body burned.

In court, Williams would say he “advised” Veniamin to do the job.

On October 23, 2003, the same team that carried out the Jason Moran hit gunned down Michael Marshall in front of his young son in a South Yarra street.

According to a member of the hit team, Williams ordered the South Yarra shooting to placate a major crime figure who wrongly believed Marshall had killed underworld identity Willy Thompson.

That crime figure offered $300,000 for Marshall’s head.

Ironically, according to his then allies, Williams orchestrated the Thompson killing.

“Carl was keen to do the job quickly so (the crime figure) did not become suspicious about Carl’s involvement in Willy Thompson’s murder,” the witness told police.

Willy Thompson was shot in his car.

Radev was also murdered.

According to Justice King: “It was a callous, brutal execution of another human being. I find your involvement was motivated by ... a substantial amount of money and a desire to deflect any suspicion away from yourself of having had any involvement in the murder of Willy Thompson.

“Both of these motives are cold and calculating reasons to bring about the death of another person.”

Purana Taskforce detectives told crime patriarch Lewis Moran he was an endangered species, but the drug trafficking dabbler kept to his routines.

Two gunmen, new at spreading Carl Williams’ cheer, caught up with Lewis inside the Brunswick Club on March 31, 2004.

Lewis Moran's body at the Brunswick Club Hotel. Picture: Ellen Smith

Crime scene photos from the Brunswick Club where Lewis Moran was murdered.

Lewis Moran at the funeral of Graham Kinniburgh — also a victim of the gangland war.

Only one week earlier, Mick Gatto had been forced to shoot Williams’ No. 1 shooter, Veniamin, during a struggle in a Carlton pasta house.

“Benji” started the fight by pulling a .38 revolver.

Mr Gatto ended it.

Lewis saw his killers coming and died at the bar where he regularly drank.

Justice King told Williams: “The Crown say that one week after the murder, you telephoned the driver and said to him, ‘Good one, mate, you have 150,000 reasons to smile’.”

After the Brunswick Club killing, then assistant police commissioner Simon Overland was forced to publicly admit the situation was dire.

“It’s April 1st today, but unfortunately it’s not April Fool’s Day,” was his opening line at a press conference. “What we’re dealing with here is a desperately serious situation. There is a degree of the surreal about this.”

Purana detectives eventually arrested Williams for the final time in June 2004.

“We had sufficient evidence to arrest Carl Williams and get him off the street,” Purana’s Det-Insp Gavan Ryan later said outside the Supreme Court. “That was pivotal, and the rest is history.”

Williams would go on to plead guilty to the murders of Jason and Lewis Moran and Mark Mallia and a failed plot to kill Carlton Crew money man Mario Condello.

He said the pleas were to “clean the slate”.

What he failed to mention was that he had escaped prosecution over the murders of Mark Moran, Pasquale Barbaro and many others.

Justice Betty King saw a lot of Carl Williams during his time before her in court.

The magnitude of his crime wave was not lost on her.

“These offences occurred during an extraordinary time in the history of this city, in that there was an almost unprecedented level of very public murders of known or suspected criminals,” she told him.

“You do not get to be judge, jury and executioner. These were not vigilante killings. They were matters of expediency to you.

“These people were either in your way as competitors, or persons that you believed may be vengeful towards you ... or because of some animosity that you bore towards them.

“I find that you were, indeed, despite being the youngest member (of the gang), the leader. As the counsellor and procurer you were indeed the puppetmaster deciding and controlling whether people lived or died.”