Gavin Preston hit had all hallmarks of ‘Apple Cucumber’ underworld ruse

The hit of Gavin “Capable” Preston had all the hallmarks of an old-school underworld tactic — known well to the late “Chopper” Read — to con a wary target into a false sense of security.

The hitmen who killed Gavin Preston weren’t capable of torching getaway cars but they set him up by the book.

The hit on Preston had all the hallmarks of an old-school underworld execution ruse known as the “Apple Cucumber”, a treacherous tactic outlined by the late Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read and cited in the international edition of Green’s Dictionary of Slang.

As Read wrote in his 1991 bestseller From The Inside, the “Apple Cucumber” cons a wary target into a false sense of security.

It dates back to the Squizzy Taylor era of the 1920s, and was used during the 1970s “dock wars” by the likes of the notorious Billy “the Texan” Longley, who reputedly killed a dozen men.

“The Apple Cucumber is to kill or capture your target by using a close friend or family member,” Read wrote.

“I wish to kill Mr X but Mr X is on guard (so) I steer an agent of mine into Mr X’s friend in a pub, club or racetrack. My agent never mentions my name. Mr X’s friend and my man become great mates, drinking and going to parties.”

Eventually, the target’s friend innocently invites the target to the same venue as the agent. The agent tips off the hit team, who set up the ambush.

There’s no suggestion that Abbas Maghnie Jnr, son of Preston’s late mate Nabil Maghnie, betrayed his father’s friend by meeting him for coffee — after all, young Maghnie was shot in the stomach as he tried to escape the gunman.

‘AJ’ Maghnie after fleeing from gun shots that killed Gavin Preston.

‘AJ’ sporting the bullet wound he sustained as during the fatal attack on his father Nabil. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Still, the odds are that not everyone “AJ” Maghnie knows in the incestuous crime world is beyond treachery.

Someone knew that Preston would be at Sweet Lulus cafe in Keilor last Saturday. If not that morning then the one before or the one after.

The riskiest thing a crook can do is to be a creature of habit, using the same telephones and same cars to go to the same places to meet the same people.

But risk rarely stops dangerous men from living dangerously. It’s the nature of the beast.

Gavin Preston didn’t get the nickname Capable for nothing. From the time he left school he showed he was capable of extreme violence.

Standover men have a short shelf life because as soon as they show any sign of weakness the hunter becomes the hunted.

There’s little sympathy for those who show no mercy. A week after Preston’s bloody exit, black jokes are already circulating. “One coffee — with eight shots” is the leading contender for the bad taste award.

For the tough kid from Sunshine who grew into a frightening man, it’s a case of live by the gun, die by the gun.

He did so many things to so many people in the last 30 years that the homicide squad now faces the unenviable task of making a list of all those with a grievance or potential murder motive.

Apart from his recent activities, allegedly stealing stolen trucks, his life is littered with people with reason to want him dead.

But not everyone wants to kick Preston’s corpse. Some say there were signs that the railway clerk’s son wasn’t all bad, and that they glimpsed flashes of decency.

Some recall that young Preston and his schoolyard sweetheart Lauran Howe were the “it couple” of their Sunshine secondary school.

Preston and Maghnie’s unfinished meal at the Keilor. Picture: David Crosling

Preston is unaware his life is about to end as Maghnie flees the shooter. Picture: Supplied

Lauran, believed to be the distraught woman seen wrestling with police to reach her man’s body last Saturday morning, was famous as the most beautiful girl in the school in the late 1980s.

At 16, Preston had the “bad boy swagger” that alarmed parents. But his on-again, off-again relationship with Lauran Howe survived lengthy jail terms and the outrageous behaviour that put him there.

Early outbursts of the same behaviour meant he had to quit his school in Sunshine and go to Tottenham Tech.

Former Tottenham principal, Clive Reynolds, still clearly recalls how Preston settled a potentially ugly incident in 1989, saving one of his female teachers from harm.

Preston wasn’t the only tough kid at “Totty Tech”. One of the other regular troublemakers provoked three outsiders who threatened to come through the South Rd gate into the schoolyard to get revenge.

A brave female teacher stood at the gate and told the would-be bashers they weren’t allowed on the school grounds.

They took it badly, threatening to attack if she got in their way. She was in a terrible position — caught between total humiliation on one hand and the risk of being seriously harmed if she stood her ground.

That was until Preston saw what was happening and confronted them.

As Principal Reynolds recalls it, Preston said: “You lay a finger on her and I’ll deal with all of you.”

They got the message and stayed out. The teacher regained her dignity and her principal never forgot a scene that showed the bad boy from Sunshine could tell right from wrong.

He said Preston was by no means irredeemable — but not academically inclined. It was no surprise that schoolmates saw him a few years later working for the railways, where his respected father Keith worked as a clerk at the Jolimont depot.

A woman, believed to be Preston’s on-again, off-again relationship high-school sweetheart Lauran Howe, at the scene of his murder. Picture: Luis Ascui

A 16-year-old Preston in his 1988 Sunshine High School picture. Picture: Supplied

But clipping train tickets wasn’t enough for Gavin. He wanted to clip tickets for big money, big time. The reckless school truant had turned dangerous.

By the time he was 20, he was “known to police.” And whereas he’d occasionally copped a hiding from older toughs at school in Sunshine, there was now a hardness about him that people found unsettling. He was careless of his own safety and of consequences, and it unnerved people.

Plenty of reckless young men straighten out and settle down as their brains catch up with their brawn, but Preston’s crooked path was set.

He went to a Northcote supermarket to see a girl and when the manager asked him to stay away because he’d caused trouble before, Preston knocked him down and “kicked his head like a soccer ball,” according to a horrified witness.

Inevitably, he was arrested, convicted and jailed. A policeman who interviewed him wrote a terse intelligence report that stated Preston had no fear of people or consequences, that he would come out of prison a hardened criminal and that he would kill. Correct on all counts.

Preston became the sort of freelance predator who preys on other criminals, a headhunter who extorted “protection” money from drug dealers or simply robbed them at gunpoint.

A standover man doesn’t win popularity contests. Preston gathered a menagerie of enemies, tough people with good reasons to want him gone.

Inevitably, that list must include bikie boss Toby Mitchell, whose tattoos only marginally outnumber the bullet wounds he has survived.

Mitchell, once a champion kickboxer, was at the peak of his powers as sergeant-at-arms for the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle when two gunmen jumped from a Ford Territory outside Doherty’s Gym in Brunswick and sprayed him with shots.

Multiple bullets tore into Mitchell’s body; many more flew around cars and people in the street. The super-fit enforcer managed to take evasive action and run 100m to a nearby shopping centre car park.

Preston immediately came under suspicion for the shooting of Toby Mitchell.

The would-be assassins who tried to off Toby Mitchell were mocked by police. Picture: Ian Currie

As a hit, it was a bloody mess. Preston immediately came under suspicion, as did gangster Rocco Arico, whose associates had been tricked out of a fortune by Mitchell in a hoax drug deal. Preston’s mate, Nabil “Mad Lebo” Maghnie, was also nominated.

Preston always denied shooting Mitchell, possibly to save embarrassment.

Although the shooting happened near the Bandidos clubhouse, next door to Dohertys, police believed it was Mitchell’s organised crime links that sparked the crime, not inter-club hostility.

Detectives poured scorn on the failed hit.

“If the mission was to murder Toby Mitchell, it was spectacularly unsuccessful,” said the spectacularly-opinionated Det. Super. Brett Guerin.

“It ended up being a chase through a public car park with shots being fired indiscriminately.

“Compared to some of the murders that we’ve seen in Victoria over the past five to 10 years where offenders have laid in wait, obviously having done reconnaissance and shot someone in the back of the head to make sure, I wouldn’t call it professional.”

If Preston took notice of the critics, he wasn’t saying. He dodged around the Mitchell debacle but he couldn’t avoid being arrested for another two linked shootings that put him in prison for a decade.

Boiled down, the Crown case was that just two months after the Mitchell shooting, Preston shot a Sunshine drug dealer, To-Lam Duong, twice in the leg. That was January 30, 2012.

Twelve days later, on February 11, Preston went to a North Melbourne address and shot drug dealer Adam Khoury dead in what he later claimed was self-defence.

The entirely sensible prosecution case was that Duong had supplied “dud” drugs to Preston’s dealer friend and that Duong, fearing for his life, blamed Khoury for the rip-off. Then Preston had shot Khoury in cold blood, most likely after taking cash or drugs or both.

But Preston and his lawyers managed to hose down that logical motive and obtain a much reduced sentence for the Khoury killing.

In the end, Preston was convicted of “defensive homicide” of Khoury (and of recklessly causing injury to Duong) after telling a ripping yarn about wrestling a revolver from a murderous Khoury to save himself.

Preston was sentenced to 11 years (of which he’d already spent three in custody) instead of a life sentence. This “win” prompted him to taunt police in court.

In extraordinary scenes, Preston swaggered into the Supreme Court for sentencing and stared down the detectives who’d put him there.

“What did you tell everyone? You’ve never lost a case?” Preston crowed.

“I reckon you lost … What did you tell everyone? I won’t be out before you retire? Ha!”

As it turns out, the cocky criminal was dead before most of them retired.