Murdered men shared more than the name Pasquale Barbaro
GANGSTER Pasquale Barbaro’s murder this week highlights the fact it isn’t the first time a mafioso with that name was murdered or connected with big-time crime, writes Keith Moor.
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- DYNASTY: Blood-soaked family’s Mafia links
- EXECUTION STYLE: Barbaro was shot dead in his car
- INVESTIGATION: Barbaro shot outside construction figure’s home
- TRUE CRIME SCENE: More crime tales
THE Pasquale Barbaro executed in Sydney on Monday night was literally born into the Calabrian Mafia.
And he may have been murdered for the same reason as his grandfather, also named Pasquale Barbaro.
That Pasquale Barbaro was gunned down in 1990, several months after becoming an informer for the then National Crime Authority.
He had broken the Calabrian mafia code of silence, known as omerta, and was spilling the beans to the NCA on crimes committed by Calabrian mafia members.
It is believed the Pasquale Barbaro shot dead on Monday night was helping the New South Wales Crime Commission with its inquiries.
The Barbaro family tree has historically been a difficult one for police — and journalists — to follow as there are so many of them and intermarrying is common.
It is a Calabrian mafia trait for cousins to marry cousins as a means of keeping criminal dealings within the family.
The Pasquale Barbaro murdered this week certainly had strong links to prominent Calabrian mafia members around Australia and police intelligence suggests he was related to three other Pasquale Barbaros who were also Calabrian mafia members.
Those three are his:
GRANDFATHER, the Pasquale Barbaro killed in Queensland in 1990.
COUSIN, the Pasquale Barbaro shot dead alongside Melbourne gangster Jason Moran in 2003.
UNCLE, the Pasquale Barbaro charged in Melbourne following the world’s biggest ecstasy bust in 2007.
Like the Pasquale Barbaro murdered in Sydney this week, the Pasquale Barbaro charged by Australian Federal Police over the 4.4 tonne ecstasy bust was also born into the Calabrian mafia.
He is the son of Frank “Little Trees” Barbaro.
Little Trees Barbaro was one of the men named in the Woodward Royal Commission report as being an influential member of the Griffith Calabrian mafia cell that murdered anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay in 1977.
His son married his cousin, the daughter of his mother’s sister.
He also liked to involve his cousins in his drug dealing.
Charged alongside him following the world’s biggest ecstasy bust were three of his Griffith-based cousins, Saverio Zirilli, Pasquale Sergi and Domenico Barbaro.
The secret society all four Pasquale Barbaros were members of is known by some Italians as ‘Ndrangheta, by others as L’Onorata Societa (the Honoured Society) or La Famiglia (The Family).
It is simply called the mafia by most in Australia, or the Calabrian mafia to differentiate it from the traditional Sicilian mafia.
Calabria is in the toe of southern Italy and is the world headquarters of the Italian organised crime gang ‘Ndrangheta.
The Calabrian mafia eclipsed the Sicilian mafia in the late 1990s to become the most powerful crime syndicate in Italy.
It has a tight clan structure, often involving members marrying relations and sons taking over from ageing fathers to “keep it in the family”.
The grandfather of the Pasquale Barbaro murdered on Monday was known as Pasquale “Il Principale” Barbaro.
He was the long term head of the Canberra Calabrian mafia cell.
Il Principale became an informer after fellow Calabrian mafia members tried to kill him in 1989.
He was hit twice with shotgun blasts as he lay in bed with his young Filipino wife and fled to Queensland as he expected another attempt on his life.
Seeking protection, Il Principale initially approached Queensland police, who passed him to the NCA.
NCA detectives spent months interviewing Il Principale, secretly recording him as they did so.
The Herald Sun has seen transcripts of Il Principale’s conversations with the NCA, in which he named Calabrian mafia Godfathers in Melbourne, Sydney, Griffith, Adelaide and elsewhere.
He also provided the NCA with details of several Calabrian mafia murders, including the 1984 executions of Melbourne Calabrian mafia figures Rocco Medici and Giuseppe Furina near Griffith.
The NCA’s last taped interview with Il Principale was on January 23, 1990. He was shot dead outside his Brisbane home seven weeks later.
Police have two motives for the assassination of Il Principale Barbaro.
The first is that he left his Italian wife for a much younger Filipino woman, bringing dishonour on her family. The second is that the Calabrian mafia discovered Il Principale had broken its strictly enforced code of silence by becoming a police informer.
Sadly for the NCA, its prized supergrass was murdered before he could be persuaded to testify against the 28 Australia-based Calabrian mafia bosses he identified.
The Pasquale Barbaro murdered in Melbourne at the height of Victoria’s gangland war in 2003 was simply in the wrong place at the right time.
Melbourne gangster Jason Moran, knowing drug boss Carl Williams wanted him dead, was using that Pasquale Barbaro as a bodyguard.
Moran had driven from his Moonee Ponds home to Cross Keys Reserve in North Essendon to watch his children at an Auskick footy clinic.
Moran and his children, along with Barbaro were sitting in the parked Mitsubishi van when the hitman hired by Williams struck.
The hooded assassin used a shotgun to shatter the van’s window and followed up with shots from a revolver.
Moran and Barbaro both died in front of the shocked youngsters.
Barbaro wasn’t the target, dying just because he was there alongside Moran.
It remains to be seen what the motive was for the murder of the latest Pasquale Barbaro, the grandson, nephew and cousin of the three other Pasquale Barbaros.
NSW detectives will keep an open mind and investigate all angles, including his bikie gang connections — but one among several they will be examining is if he was murdered by the Calabrian mafia because it feared he was telling tales out of school.
Keith Moor is the author of Busted, a recently released history of the Calabrian mafia in Australia.
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