Deadline: Punter-turned-scammer Bill Vlahos spotted after being released from prison
We revealed last week jailed fraudster Bill Vlahos had been released, now we have proof that “Dollar Bill” is back in circulation, where we trust he’s not looking for more “investors” to fatten his wallet.
Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.
Scammer snapped outside slammer
We revealed last week that punter-turned-scammer Bill Vlahos had been released after doing the minimum four years of a theoretical nine-year prison stretch.
This week we have proof that “Dollar Bill” is back in circulation, with a photo of him out and about on the streets, where we trust he’s not looking for more “investors” to fatten his wallet.
It is certainly to be hoped that Vlahos learnt something from his time in the slammer, for his sake and those of any potential victims.
We did note that at the time of his sentencing Vlahos was doing all sorts of good works to help his fellow detainees, as a peer listener and assisting with their legal paperwork.
County Court Judge Douglas Trapnell also noted he intended to do a PhD course at Deakin University.
Let’s hope he finished it. The subject was recidivism.
If Vlahos, a keen student of human nature and the laws of probability, does manage to complete his doctoral studies, he will be known formally as “Dr Vlahos”. Or Doctor Bill to his friends, surely.
Postscript: According to our South Gippsland spies, Dr Dollar Bill was spotted at Korumburra recently — where, we are told, he was seeking out former victims to “apologise” for misplacing their life savings.
Missing … whodunnit?
When serial South Gippsland mayor and one time State Opposition leader Alan Brown was Victoria’s Agent General in London in 1996, he was approached by an upset woman who had a strange and sadly believable story.
She told Brown she was related to a Victorian resident, an older single woman, who had died not long before. She knew that the dead woman had written a will bequeathing her valuable family heirloom jewellery, but it had not turned up.
Victoria’s state trustees had told her they had sent two representatives to the dead woman’s house but the pair had not reported finding anything of value, let alone quality jewellery.
The aggrieved woman suggested that the trustees’ representatives had pocketed the jewellery in the belief that there were no living relatives to claim it and so it would go unnoticed.
Inquiries were made through the proper channels but the jewellery never turned up. This reminds Deadline of the days when rogue inner-suburban police — perhaps at stations resembling St Kilda and Prahran, among others — had code words for a body being found in tempting circumstances where there were no family or friends to prevent a swift and sneaky scavenger hunt by first responders.
“They called it ‘The Sock’” recalls one veteran of the era. Rogue cops would rush to beat each other to a dead body found at home and look for “the sock” full of cash or drugs or both. First on the scene would hastily empty the sock drawer and toss the mattresses, rifling the inside pockets of clothing and checking that old standby, the freezer.
But police (and ex-police) were not the only opportunists around, it seems. It’s an open secret in South Gippsland that the mayoral ermine robes and solid gold chain of office from the old Borough of Wonthaggi council (later Bass Coast) has been missing for many years.
Just how many years, no one is precisely certain, including local police, who were apparently not told about the embarrassing disappearance until long after persons unknown spirited the historical and valuable items from the council strong room.
Unhappy locals claim the council has covered up the “loss” — which might be north of $100,000, given the way gold prices have more than trebled since 2015.
Council staff did not notify the police or the insurers, which seems a little odd. No one is publicly pointing the finger, but irate ratepayers say that the handful of staff members who have had access to council strongroom keys in the past couple of decades should be given the chance to clear themselves of any suspicion.
Bikie’s change of address
The so-called “CBD killer”, Fink-turned-Hells Angel Christopher Wayne Hudson, has been on the move.
Deadline is reliably informed Hudson was transferred from the Marngoneet Correctional Centre to nearby Barwon Prison a while back.
We’re told the transfer is unrelated to an assault on a young inmate in October, but have been unable to find out why it happened.
Hudson had been in Marngoneet for quite some time and was last year joined there by his stepson.
Despite the bikie’s absence, we doubt the stepson will have too many problems with other inmates.
Hudson has been locked up for the past 18 years for shooting one brave man dead, wounding another and bashing two women in a rampage after a drug bender which ended at a King St strip club.
None so blind
There are those who’d say alarm about crime is a figment of the public’s imagination, then there’s everyone else living in the real world.
Yet another example of the kind of high-level gang activity which bedevils Melbourne unfolded just outside the Broadmeadows police station last week.
What started as a road rage incident with two cars full of angry males rocketing about the area ended with a frightening confrontation in Dimboola St.
Members at the station rushed downstairs as the vehicles involved, a Kia and a Volkswagen, mounted the footpath.
A man — one of a dozen involved in combat — was seen wielding a machete or knife and another suffered a deep cut to the arm as he got out of one of the cars to join the fracas.
Detective Sgt Jess Graham said staff saw the drama unfold through the station’s front windows.
“It’s disgusting, it’s brazen. They didn’t care that they were on the wrong side of the road, they didn’t care that there were people everywhere,” Sgt Graham said.
“It was hectic. The blood loss (for the stabbing victim) was significant so clothing was removed from other people in the area and tied around his arm to stop the bleeding.”
Sgt Graham said that man, though clearly frightened, did not want to provide any information about what had gone on.
“There is something else that caused this, and we’re still investigating that,” she said.
“No one’s really co-operating … the community has been fantastic; the people involved, not so much.”
A 15-year-old, a 17-year-old, a 23-year-old Romsey man and a 24-year-old Sunbury man were arrested at the scene but released.
Just another day on the mean streets of Melbourne.
Vale Lorraine Casey
There were warm tributes last week for former major crime squad member Lorraine Casey.
Ms Casey was fondly recalled as an important component of the squad, which was disbanded in the 1990s.
Those who knew her said she was a popular and sociable member of the squad, described by one ex-colleague as the “glue” that kept it together.
Her funeral was held at St Michael’s parish church in Ashburton last Friday.
