Danielle McGuire: The glamorous muse of drug barons and bikies
Danielle McGuire danced with danger as a central figure in Melbourne’s seedy underbelly, thanks to lovers that have included runaway drug boss Tony Mokbel and ex-Bandidos bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell. NEW PODCAST
Andrew Rule
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It’s easy to like Danielle McGuire: she’s charming, friendly and glamorous.
She is polite, eloquent and easy to talk to.
But behind the designer sunglasses, smiles and flashy exterior lies a dark past.
For two decades the mother of two danced with danger as a central figure in Melbourne’s seedy underbelly, thanks to lovers that have included some of the city’s most notorious criminals.
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Today one of them, drug lord Tony Mokbel, is behind bars while another, former bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell, has survived several attempts on his life.
Another rumoured lover, Mark Moran, of the notorious Moran crime family, is dead.
Underworld survivor
She once tearfully said she couldn’t help who she fell in love with.
To say McGuire emerged from the underworld war that gripped the city unscathed would be an exaggeration. Yet she has remained a rare survivor of a world full of drugs and money that collapsed around her.
Through it she has maintained a dignified silence — no appearances on current affair shows, no tell-all magazine deals and no bikini shoots for lads’ mags.
She was portrayed by Madeleine West in the television series Fat Tony & Co, which screened in 2014.
There has been the odd interview and talk of a million-dollar TV deal.
Having lived among the upper echelons of Melbourne’s criminal elite she would have much to say.
Instead, she remains silent and goes about her affairs often unnoticed.
And that’s hard to do when you turn heads everywhere you go.
Harder still when you are a regular fixture in court, drawing media packs and curious onlookers.
There have been dozens of court appearances over the years. In 2014 she emerged smiling after police withdrew a charge of handling stolen goods, having been weeks earlier poised to plead guilty to the charge.
But a sentencing indication she would have been placed on a community corrections order didn’t cut it for her. Instead, she rolled the dice, and won.
Then there was a messy Supreme Court battle to save a failed multimillion-dollar property development venture.
The development led to a fight with her former business partner, Jennifer Shaw, over who controlled the company.
At the centre of the battle are claims almost $1 million in purchasers’ deposits had not been properly handled.
McGuire and former Mokbel associate Jacobus Smit were accused of muscling in on the multimillion-dollar complex.
The Supreme Court ultimately ruled liquidators should be allowed to sell the property.
Before that, there were appearances supporting then lover Mokbel.
Drug bust and jail
Her earliest known court appearance was in 1998 when she was charged with trafficking $800,000 in ecstasy.
The then unknown 26-year-old was holed up for 23 hours a day in her prison cell under conditions a magistrate described as intolerable.
Police had raided her Collingwood home and found pill-making ingredients and other equipment.
McGuire told police on the day of the raid she was off her head on drugs most of the time.
Her two-year-old daughter was in the apartment when it was raided.
Among other items found during the search were contact details for notorious drug dealer Mark Moran. She had an affair with Moran, who was shot dead at 36 in 2000.
She was jailed for three years in 2002 with an 18-month minimum, for trafficking drugs and possessing illegal drugs.
It wasn’t long after her release she started dating Mokbel and she started to come to prominence. He was at the height of his drug game, with a bulging empire and a seemingly endless supply of money rolling in.
They were the glamour couple of Melbourne’s crime circles, and were living together after Mokbel left his wife, Carmel, and their two children.
A new life in Greece with Mokbel
Giving Australian authorities the slip they fled to Greece on the eve of a major court trial. Two weeks after he left the country in a bad wig, McGuire joined him.
“I’m not an angel but I just want to keep my private life private and my business life business,” McGuire said before leaving.
“I’m an adult. I’ve made my own choices in life and I have to live with that.
“But I also have a daughter and she’s my priority. I have to protect her from all of this.
“I’d rather Tony out there somewhere than sitting in a cell.’’
In Greece she gave birth to her daughter, Renate, named after Tony’s sister-in-law and Danielle’s beauty salon business partner.
As they kicked back in Greece, Renate Mokbel was sitting in a jail cell after failing to pay a $1 million surety she put up for her relative.
Meanwhile, Tony Mokbel and McGuire lived a lavish lifestyle.
Mokbel was caught out telling colleagues his famed Company could make up to $500,000 a week.
In a bugged phone call to McGuire’s mum he described how the pair were sitting by a pool and enjoying Greece.
Moving on
But the idyllic paradise existence came crashing down in 2007 when Victoria Police detectives finally nabbed their man.
The charade was over.
Mokbel was taken into custody, where he has remained since.
For a while McGuire stood by her man but it wasn’t long before the pair split.
McGuire was for some time in a relationship with former Bandido sergeant-at-arms Toby Mitchell.
She was one of the first people to visit Mitchell in hospital after he survived one of two shooting attempts on his life.
Underworld sources say Mokbel had a heated conversation from jail with an outlaw motorcycle gang member about McGuire, as rumours about the relationship swept Barwon Prison.
In 2012 McGuire was brutally attacked outside a cafe in Essendon by a balaclava-wearing man.
The man struck at 10.45am, hitting her with a bar or similar object before fleeing. She co-operated with police and suffered minor injuries.
In 2014 she was back in court but supporting her daughter Brittany, who had been caught doing 157kmh.
The court was told Brittany, a hairdresser like her mum, had a troubled childhood. She was teased about her mother’s fame and notorious family ties.
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