Deadline: How Nik ‘The Russian’ Radev almost got himself killed during bungled Adelaide mission
Big organised crime names frequently convey the image of being criminal masterminds, but Nik “The Russian” Radev wasn’t so slick during a horrendously bungled mission to Adelaide.
Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.
Radev’s blunderworld days
Big organised crime names frequently convey the image of being criminal masterminds who are in control of everything all the time.
The reality is that plenty of them make mistakes, like Nik “The Russian” Radev, the Versace-loving thug who was buried in a gold coffin during Melbourne’s gangland war.
Deadline was recently given the untold lowdown of how Radev nearly got himself and a mate killed on a horrendously bungled Adelaide mission from the early 1990s.
Radev travelled to the City of Churches for the kind of standover/rip-off work that was his bread and butter in the days before he pivoted into large-scale drug dealing.
Back then, he could be seen around town in the type of woolly jacket favoured by Paul Michael Glaser’s character David Starsky in the hit US television series Starsky and Hutch.
It would have been nice and warm but, when push came to shove and he needed to whip a Webley handgun out of the jacket, its hammer had become caught in the wool.
Then it somehow released and the resultant shot took off part of Radev’s finger.
In a great deal of pain, he bolted to where an accomplice was waiting with a shotgun beside him in an old army-style ute borrowed for the job from a South Australian car-dealer.
Radev hurriedly moved the weapon out of the way and it also went off.
The accomplice got a nick to the head from a piece of SG shot but it could have been much worse.
The rest of the discharge blew a huge hole in the roof of the ute.
Of course, this was not Bulgarian-born Radev’s biggest blunder.
That came in April, 2003, when he trusted Carl Williams and his wily old man George, with fatal consequences.
They’d caught up for lunch at the Brighton Baths to discuss mutual drug production interests, before agreeing to head to Coburg and reconvene.
But as Radev pulled up in Queen St, a gunman who was probably Andrew Veniamin just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
The shooter made full use of some inside information, smoking Radev as he reached into his Mercedes-Benz to grab a cigar.
Unlike the Adelaide incident, no doctor was going to be able to put Humpty back together again.
“He looked like Swiss cheese,” one hard-bitten detective remarked at the time.
Disorder in the court
Courtrooms have heard and seen some of the most shocking and outrageous things over the years.
There have been daring escapes, explosive brawls, and even defendants who have taken a dump in their pants and then hurled it at the jury.
Others have gone on expletive rants at judges and jumped the dock to commit assaults.
Just last month, a packed courtroom at Melbourne Magistrates Court and our seasoned colleague Rebekah Cavanagh copped an eyeful when an accused man pulled his pants down to give everyone a full-frontal show.
He was appearing via video link from Melbourne Assessment Prison after having been arrested for unknown offending.
The man was erratic, pacing around the room and rambling, but quickly took to his seat and apologised when the magistrate asked him to be quiet.
But soon after, he jumped to his feet, gave the double bird with his fingers, before running towards the camera and thrusting his crown jewels against it.
He explained his behaviour by saying he was coming down off “the drugs”.
The court quickly disconnected him from the link.
The magistrate later apologised to everyone in the courtroom who witnessed the “display”.
“I hope that didn’t cause any distress to anyone,” he said.
“I apologise if you lost your (remote access) link and was wondering what was happening.
“It was just for the benefit of everyone.”
He again later said: “We’ve had a bit of everything this morning – I apologise.”
This came after another man’s voice projected over the court’s live stream, saying: “Your honour, Your honour?”
When the magistrate looked towards the screen to see who was trying to get his attention, the prankster said “my cock is so sore” before laughing and quickly disconnecting from the hearing.
Just another day in court. Sine Die.
I’m out of here
Could a Melbourne organised crime figure have made himself scarce because he’d just got some unsettling news?
Word on the street has it that the bloke was given a sentencing indication from a judge regarding his guilty plea over some high-level drug trafficking matters.
The idea of more than a decade in prison is said to have proved a bit unpalatable.
Danger flag
It sounds like just-retired AFL player Zaine Cordy was fortunate police didn’t pull over the mate who drove him to the biggest game of his life
Former Western Bulldog Cordy was on SEN last week telling the story of his unorthodox preparation for the 2016 Grand Final against Sydney.
Then-teenager Cordy said he was getting a good sleep when his housemate arrived home at 4am making a lot of noise after a massive night.
On any other day this might have been OK but not 10 hours before a Grand Final.
To his credit, the unnamed mate was kind enough to roll out of bed later in the morning and drive Cordy to the MCG.
The housemate’s night out had clearly taken its toll and it sounds as though, had the police intervened, the player might have been making other travel arrangements.
“Pissed,” was Cordy’s blood-alcohol reading on his ride.
The pair made it to the ground and there was a happy ending when Cordy became a premiership player.
