Australians who escaped abroad when faced with prison
They say change is as good as a holiday, and it definitely beats a prison sentence. These Aussies decided to flee overseas as the prospect of a long jail term loomed.
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The prospect of seeing the inside of a jail cell is enough to prompt some Aussies to leave their home for good.
Some are the subject of exhaustive extradition attempts by Australian authorities.
Others have disappeared into jurisdictions where arrest is unlikely and extradition extremely challenging.
CAMIL ZEINA
Melbourne businessman Camil Zeina is suspected of hotfooting it overseas while awaiting trial on major drug charges.
Zeina, who lived in a luxury mansion and ran a successful reception and convention centre, was granted bail over a $1.4 million methamphetamine bust.
It was all the opportunity he needed.
Zeina got out of Australia, abandoning his luxury mansion at Greenvale in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs.
A Mercedes-Benz car, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and guns were seized when organised crime detectives moved on the property in July, 2008.
Ice had allegedly been seized from two cars at Wodonga, in the state’s north, as part of the same two-state investigation.
The Herald Sun understands Zeina has kept in touch with some former acquaintances back in Melbourne.
He is believed to have based himself in the Middle-East.
MILORAD DAPCEVIC
Reports of Milorad Dapcevic’s death were, in the words of Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated.
In 2014, the homicide squad ran a press conference revealing that Dapcevic was feared dead.
It all seemed pretty plausible.
Dapcevic, a violent armed robber, was mixed up with some heavy Melbourne underworld figures and had been on bail for high-level drug offences at the time he vanished, in 1999.
That was in the period after his mate Jim Belias was shot execution-style in an underground car park off St Kilda Rd.
Happily for his loved ones, it turned out Dapcevic is alive and believed to be in Europe.
Unfortunately for authorities, he doesn’t look like coming home anytime soon to answer the drug charges.
JAMES DALAMANGAS
James Dalamangas – a suspect in two murders – has spent two decades hiding abroad.
And, as with many Australian felons who decide to head overseas, it appears he has made a new home in Greece.
Dalamangas bolted from Australia on a false passport days after father-of-two George Giannopoulos was stabbed to death in a Sydney nightclub.
Mr Giannopoulos had tried to intervene in a fight when he suffered the fatal wounds.
Dalamangas is also a suspect in the 1997 Sydney murder of Tim Voukelatos.
He was shot five times as he sat in his car in the suburb of Campsie.
An arrest warrant is in place for Dalamangas over the Giannopoulos killing.
It has been reported that he has been working as a bouncer in a red-light district north of Athens.
PUNEET PUNEET
If he’d stuck around to face the music, killer driver Puneet Puneet would have done his time long ago.
Puneet knew he had no aces after he fatally injured Dean Hofstee on City Rd in 2008.
The Indian student was travelling at 150km/h and had a blood-alcohol reading of 0.165 when he hit Mr Hofstee and severely injured his mate, meaning a hefty jail term was inevitable.
Puneet pleaded guilty but, as sentencing approached, he used a mate’s passport to sneak out of Australia and back to his home country.
It’s coming up to six years since Puneet was arrested on his wedding day back in India.
A marathon extradition process has followed but there is no firm date on when he will return to Australia to face justice.
Puneet has tried everything from claiming deteriorating health to asserting he will not be treated fairly in Australia to avoid accounting for his actions.
Australian authorities have vowed to pursue him until he jets back to Tullamarine.
ANTHONY PHILLIP SITAR
Anthony Phillip Sitar is suspected of serving up coke instead of beer in an ill-fated drug importation.
Sitar is on Interpol’s red notice list as an international fugitive after getting out ahead of the posse eight years ago.
Mr Sitar, of Altona Meadows, was facing high-level drug trafficking charges at the time.
The charges related to an importation of 14kg of liquified cocaine in beer bottles which had come in from Mexico.
Customs officers detected the ruse when the bottles reached our shores.
Sitar was listed as one of the consignees for the lucrative shipment which stood to make many millions of dollars for its organisers.
Mr Sitar was last seen in St Kilda in October, 2011.
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ROBERT POLLYBANK GEE
It is 13 years since Robert Pollybank Gee was arrested over a major drug racket operating in Adelaide.
Gee was arrested after police raided a North Plympton home, where they confiscated cocaine valued at $1.2 million, LSC, cannabis, 3kg of ice and $264,000 cash.
In the normal course of events the matter would have been dealt with a decade ago but Gee remains on the nation’s most wanted fugitives list.
The 60-year-old skipped bail in 2011 on a fake Canadian passport before he could face a jury over his involvement in the syndicate.
Gee, who is facing 11 charges, was arrested in the Thai holiday playground of Phuket three years ago.
He was in a bar on the Bangla Rd party strip when Thai police made their move.
But, as so often happens, that was the beginning of a convoluted process of extraction and Gee remains in custody in Thailand.