Deadline: Does big-spending mafia punter Rocco Arico have legal ace up sleeve?

Jailed mafia boss Rocco Arico was a high-roller not afraid to plonk six-figure sums on a hand of cards at Crown Casino. Does he have one final legal ace up his sleeve?

Rocco Arico outside the County Court in Melbourne. Picture: David Crosling

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

Mafia man hoping for more luck

Jailed mafia boss Rocco Arico is a man who enjoys the punt, a passion he can’t indulge so freely nowadays.

There was a time not so long ago when he was investing a lot of time and money at that other Big House, the one by the Yarra River.

He wouldn’t get in now but Crown Casino staff remember a time when Arico could be seen gambling enthusiastically at the Southbank venue’s tables.

We’re assured the quietly spoken and immaculately dressed high roller was not afraid to plonk six-figure sums on a hand of cards.

A Deadline spy recalls seeing him once in an inner-city TAB dropping “small” $500 bets on the ponies one Saturday.

It was easy come, easy go for Arico who was wearing a beanie which our source guessed was “probably worth more than my car.”

In 2012, the Herald Sun found out police were taking an interest in how Arico had amassed an estimated $10 million fortune in the space of four years.

There was a time when Arico was a high-roller at Crown.

When approached, he put his wealth down to hard work and an enviable degree of luck with wagering.

“I’ve had some good fortune with gambling. What’s wrong with that? Can’t someone be successful in life?” Arico said.

That was a long way from the era, 25 years ago, when he was one of Carl Williams’ favoured soldiers.

Back then, Arico was a wild contemporary of the likes of Dino Dibra and Andrew Veniamin, young men involved in homicides, kidnappings, standover work and senseless shootings.

He was jailed over a dumb road-rage shooting but would later learn not to waste his energy on unnecessary aggression, unlike his counterparts who died long ago.

Nowadays, Arico is awaiting developments in his appeal against conviction over extortion and other matters, for which he is currently doing time.

Arico argues that his long-time lawyer, Joe Acquaro, was giving information to organised crime detectives and this subverted his right to a fair trial.

Having that verdict wiped would potentially be crucial in any decision on whether he be deported back to Italy, as had once seemed a fait accompli.

The word is that, if betting markets were open, he’d be in with a chance of staying.

Stay tuned!

Who is this man?

We hadn’t heard of the Trapstar Shooters hoodie line until last week when the Lunar taskforce appealed for help to solve a nasty extortion.

It just so happened that police revealed they are looking for a young bloke in the distinctive garment over extortion of a north suburban shopkeeper.

The work, caught on CCTV, was being carried out on behalf of someone identified only as “Kaz”.

We don’t think he’s talking about author Kaz Cooke so that only leaves tobacco wars instigator and all-round bad egg, Kaz Hamad.

The whole thing is a variation of a theme in which Hamad minions turn up at businesses to tell their operators to pay some kind of “Kaz Tax”.

Insp. Graham Banks, who favours a well-pressed suit when at work, said the incident had forced the victim to sell his shop and move out of his home address.

This all seems as good an excuse as any to again run an image of the man in the Trapstar Shooters hoodie.

After all, police believe he is in a position to assist with their inquiries.

If he’d care to get in touch — or if anyone else would — the way to do it is by calling Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visiting the website

www.crimestoppersvic.com.au

Saturday night’s alright for fighting

A night market in Dandenong sounds like a ripper place to spend a warm early autumn evening sampling the cuisines of other cultures.

Unfortunately, beef was served on Saturday night in the form of two rival groups who duked it out for some unknown reason.

Footage from the Outlaw Media site showed some very burly men going hammer and tongs in front of stalls of fresh produce.

Benalla beer heist revisited

A recent edition of Deadline aired the story of the “great Benalla beer heist.” It was true, apart from the suggestion that a young fella from the Moulday family was one of two scallywag schoolboys (and an apprentice panel beater) who liberated a large amount of Victoria Bitter bottled beer being held against its will on a railway carriage.

Former Benalla resident Des Moulday has contacted Deadline and pointed out that although the alleged misdemeanour was in the 1960s, and that he is now aged in his 70s, he would be dismayed if people thought it was true that he’d been a party to the beer “heist.”

Des says he can’t recall such a thing — and that even if he did recall it, he certainly didn’t do it.

He explained that he has been a trusted bank officer in posts all over Victoria (and once to Tasmania) and is a respected member of the community at St Arnaud, where he is a valued member of those upstanding citizens qualified to supervise school exams and to help the electoral process on election day.

Our Benalla source has accepted Des’s alternative facts but points out there were many teenage boys in the extended Moulday family and their mates, and perhaps he mixed up one with another.

The ‘great Benalla beer heist’ has thrown up a ripping urban myth.

“There were five Moulday boys,” he recalls. “They were pretty robust characters but good blokes. They could all ‘go a bit’ and the oldest boy, Brian, was a regular feature in the boxing tent at the Benalla Show. He fought a few at the old ‘House of Stoush’ if my memory serves me.

“One of the Mouldays was my age, and we spent primary school in the same grade. I remember an incident where (name deleted) was kicked out of the Benalla Olympic pool for unacceptable behaviour, and barred for a week. His mother came up to remonstrate with the pool manager for discriminating against her son, pointing out that half the kids in Benalla would have peed in the pool.

“The manager replied: ‘Yes madam, that is quite possibly true, but not off the diving board’.”

If that’s a true story and not an excellent urban myth, Deadline will be happy to dive off the Benalla pool high board in a gorilla suit, with twist and pike.

Learning to fly

Think “L-plater” and it’s usually of someone beetling along a busy road well under the speed limit or rounding a corner with mum or dad in the passenger seat pretending to be relaxed even if they are scared their car is about to roll.

No so for a teenager picked up at Cranbourne North in the early hours of Sunday.

That 18-year-old was doing 200km/h along Thompsons Rd in a blue Volkswagen Golf R when spotted by patrolling police.

As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, the driver turned the lights off and sped away.

Unfortunately for him, a “lead foot” isn’t much use when you stop driving and start trying to run. It weighs you down. He was caught easily.