Andrew Rule: Tony Mokbel bail is proof of how things go wrong when cops start acting like crooks

Tony Mokbel is much more than the punchline to a bad wig joke. He’s been a cold-blooded crime boss and a corrupter of everything from jockeys to the judiciary.

The first thing that has to be said is that Antonios Sajih Mokbel is not a celebrity nor a cartoon figure nor a good player out of luck. He is much more than the punchline to a bad wig joke.

Tony Mokbel is a criminal and a big one — an international and national drug trafficker, a gang leader, a crime boss and an enthusiastic corrupter of everything from jockeys to the judiciary.

A crook whose first conviction, typically, was for an attempt to bribe a county court judge. A crook who paid more jockeys and trainers to rig more races than that other money-laundering drug baron “Aussie Bob” Trimbole.

Mokbel’s dodgy wig in the police mugshot in Athens in 2007. Picture: AFP

The second thing about Tony Mokbel, apart from the inescapable conclusion he made untold millions from massive criminal activity, is that he actually pleaded guilty to the serious crimes that have kept him in prison for the last 18 years.

He pleaded guilty because his expert defence counsel, a respected Queens Counsel, advised him the evidence against him was overwhelming and watertight.

But as Lawyer X scandal would later reveal, when he pleaded guilty, he didn’t have the full story. That was, his lawyer was a snitch.

And here’s the thing: some of the most damning evidence against Mokbel came from inside his own camp, from the heart of the criminal enterprise he called “The Company.”

It came from an insider codenamed “the musician”, who was, in fact, a musician — but also a trusted gang member.

He volunteered his help because of the drug addiction of one of his own family members, a personal grievance that turned him against the Mokbel criminal empire.

Mark Knight’s take on Mokbel’s arrest in Athens.

Mokbel’s wig became a punchline after the infamous mugshot.

After secretly meeting investigators, the musician took a risk his police handlers thought were too great: he used a minute alone with a key “company” laptop to download vital information about bank accounts and telephone numbers that led police to Mokbel’s hideaway in Greece in 2007.

That is the sort of evidence that got Tony Mokbel locked up, not the devious and dishonest machinations of his sometime lawyer Nicola Gobbo, in cahoots with cynical police “cowboys” who should have known better than to get into bed with a probably treacherous and unstable person.

But when Tony Mokbel “walked” shortly after 10am Friday, it was proof of how things go wrong when cops start acting like crooks, cutting corners by corrupting the conventions and procedures of a legal system that relies heavily on the honourable conduct of police and officers of the court.

Forget Mokbel the walking wig joke. Bald man walking is the biggest joke of all. But it’s not funny.