Melbourne’s gangland war: The murder of underworld lawyer Mario Condello

THE last time an underworld lawyer was assassinated in Melbourne it was declared the end of the city’s underworld war, but authorities are still seeking answers.

Last lawyer hit ‘ended’ gangland war

IT’S been more than 10 years since “the end” of the bloody Melbourne gangland war that claimed at least 28 lives.

Calabrian mafia money man Mario Condello became the last victim of that particular underworld feud on February 6, 2006.

And he was in the thick of the war for years.

A gun nut, whose name has been suppressed, was caught red-handed with an arsenal of weapons he bought for Condello in October 2003 — but an earlier batch of guns was delivered to Condello in Melbourne.

“He told me he wanted me to get as many revolvers that he could get,” the gun nut said in his statement to the Australian Crime Commission.

“He was desperate and agitated and he made me promise that I would get these guns for him.”

Condello’s purchases included an Uzi 9mm sub-machinegun, a Colt .357 Magnum, a Bentley

12-gauge pump-action shotgun, several semiautomatic pistols and ammunition for them.

He didn’t have any trouble paying for the weapons. Condello was one of Crown’s top 200 ranked gamblers, punting more than $7.5 million a year, at the time.

Melbourne’s underworld war was at its bloodiest when Condello began arming himself, with several recent shootings receiving widespread publicity.

There were several gangland murders in the nine months after Condello took delivery of the first batch of firearms in March 2003.

Condello was secretly taped saying about underworld rival Carl Williams that “until this f---ing c--- is put in a hole there will be no peace”.

Apart from being a significant player in the war himself, it was also an earlier attempt on Condello’s life that became a vital turning point in ending the tit-for-tat killings that stunned and shocked Victorians.

A police mugshot of Mario Condello.

Sean Sonnet was involved in a failed earlier bid to murder Condello.

The arrests of two paid hitmen near Condello’s Brighton East home on the day of the failed 2004 attempt to execute him added to other evidence implicating Williams in several gangland murders.

The then head of the Victoria Police Purana taskforce, Det-Insp Gavan Ryan, decided the Condello hitmen arrests were sufficient to order that Williams also be picked up.

He rang Purana detective Shane O’Connell and simply said “go and get Fat Boy”.

That was the beginning of the dominoes falling.

“We always knew if we could Pop Williams in the bin we would have a good chance of getting information,” Det-Insp Ryan said.

“Locking Williams up also gave us an opportunity to talk to people who would not talk to us while he was out in the community.”

Several underworld figures became police informers soon after the arrest of Williams and they provided vital information relating to gangland killings.

Williams never again got out of jail — and was beaten to death behind bars in April 2010.

He had been jailed for a minimum 35 years after admitting to murdering drug gang patriarch Lewis Moran in March 2004, his son Jason Moran in June 2000, and drug dealer Mark Mallia in August 2003.

He was earlier found by a jury to have ordered the death of drug dealer Michael Marshall in October 2003 and also admitted to being involved in the failed 2004 conspiracy to murder Condello.

Condello’s February 2006 murder is unsolved.

The prominent Carlton crew member was gunned down in the garage of his luxury home on the eve of his Supreme Court trial.

Condello was due to go before the judge and jury over his plot to kill Carl Williams.

Even though he was in jail at the time, Williams became an immediate and logical suspect for ordering the Condello hit 10 years ago — and remains one.

The theory investigated by Purana taskforce detectives is that Williams paid for Condello to be killed in retaliation for Condello having attempted to organise for Williams and his father George to be executed.

BUT other Condello murder suspects investigated by Purana include:

A FEARED hitman who already has multiple notches on his gunbelt and whose name has been suppressed by the courts.

ONE of Australia’s most notorious underworld figures, whose name has also been suppressed for legal reasons.

A PROMINENT drug dealer who police claim was caught telling an associate to give himself an alibi because Condello was about to be murdered. Condello was shot dead less than an hour after the warning was given.

Another possible motive examined by Purana detectives is that Condello was taken out by members of his own side because they feared he might become an informer.

And as if Purana detectives didn’t have enough suspects to examine, allegations were made to police soon after Condello’s death that he had angered senior members of a powerful Calabrian organised crime group.

This Italian secret society is known in Calabrian dialect as N’Dranghita (sometimes spelt ‘Ndrangheta). Other Italians know it as L’Onorata Societa (The Honoured Society) or La Famiglia (The Family). But it is simply known as the mafia by most in Australia.

Condello had been turning the Calabrian Mafia’s dirty cash into clean cash for decades.

He was highly valued for his money laundering skills and rose up the ranks to be a senior Calabrian Mafia figure.

Many Italian businesses pay protection money to the Calabrian Mafia.

While they are reluctantly prepared to accept that as a necessary burden, it has been alleged to police that some were not prepared to cop it when Condello started asking for additional payments to pay his legal bills relating to the charge against him of conspiring to kill the father-son crime team of Carl and George Williams.

Complaints were made to Calabrian Mafia bosses and police were told they decided to silence Condello, both for this double-dipping rule breach and also because they allegedly feared Condello might try to do a deal by informing on them in return for less jail time.

Purana detectives have spent years probing every aspect of every theory involving the death of Condello.

While they haven’t yet made an arrest over it, they haven’t given up hope and have a fair idea who was involved and why.

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This report is based on an article first published in 2011