Lawyer X: How a phone call led to Tony Mokbel’s arrest
Tony Mokbel sparked a massive global manhunt after fleeing his Melbourne trial over cocaine smuggling, hiding out in a Bonnie Doon cottage, driving across the Nullarbor and boarding a yacht to Greece. He might still be on the run if he hadn’t made this phone call.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Lawyer X Live Q&A: Go inside Australia’s most explosive gangland scandal with the journalists who exposed the story. Lawyer X writers Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon talk to Sky News’ Peter Stefanovic LIVE at 6.30pm Wednesday (September 9) on the True Crime Australia Facebook page. Send your questions now: ask.lawyerx@news.com.au
A phone call in which then-fugitive drug boss Tony Mokbel gave his condolences over the death of a friend was a vital clue to his hiding place on the other side of the world, a gangland insider claims.
Mokbel sparked a massive global manhunt after fleeing his March 2006 trial over cocaine smuggling, hiding out in a Bonnie Doon cottage, driving across the Nullarbor, and boarding the Edwena yacht to Greece.
The Sunday Herald Sun has been told that about a year after Mokbel vanished, the fugitive drug lord called one of his closest associates Joe Mansour.
The insider says Mokbel was keen to give his condolences to the family of a man named Max, who had died of a heart attack.
After calling Mansour, it is understood Mokbel spoke to the deceased man’s son David.
Police, by then, were believed to be tracking phones.
They had been given a batch of numbers — possibly including Mansour’s and certainly many of Mokbel’s — by a secret snitch in ‘The Company’ known as Informer 3030.
An underworld source says they believe the conversation between Mansour and Mokbel was being bugged and provided critical clues as to where the gangland kingpin was hiding.
Informer 3030, a trusted Mokbel drug trafficker, picked up a $1m-plus reward for helping track down ‘Fat Tony’.
A bewigged Mokbel was finally caught in Glyfada, a beachside suburb of Athens, on June 5, 2007.
But lawyer-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo is understood to have also played a key role in bringing him back, especially during his extradition process.
Former chief commissioner Simon Overland, in his statement to the Lawyer X royal commission earlier this year, claimed Gobbo was crucial in bringing Mokbel to justice.
“She had for example, played a pivotal role in the dismantling of the Mokbel drug syndicate and the ultimate recapture of Mokbel in Greece,’’ Mr Overland stated.
Soon after Mokbel was caught, he phoned Gobbo for legal advice, particularly regarding his extradition, and she passed the details on to police.
He also asked her to travel to Greece, and while she did not go she kept in contact with him.
Her involvement in helping police while taking $1800 in fees from Mokbel is a clear plank of his appeal bid to escape jail.
Mokbel is also keen to investigate whether Informer 3030 and Gobbo, who had the informer number 3838, knew each other.
What is known is that she had told them to track another Mokbel man – Jeffrey Jamou.
But Mansour, say Mokbel insiders, also knew Gobbo.
In the days after Mokbel disappeared, Gobbo also caught up with his girlfriend Danielle McGuire, who mouthed the words to the lawyer “he is okay”.
Mokbel’s clan sought to keep police off the scent by using codenames.
Mokbel’s sister-in-law, Renate, was “Blondie’’, his brother Horty was “The Greek’’ and Horty’s wife, Zaharoula, was “The Greek’s wife’’.
MORE NEWS
HOW NICOLA GOBBO BECAME LAWYER X
COMMENT: LAWYER X EVIDENCE POINTING TOWARDS TERRIBLE TRUTHS
GOBBO AND FEV? LAWYER X SENSATIONALLY BRAGGED OF AFFAIR
Lawyer X live Q&A
Go inside Australia’s most explosive gangland scandal with the journalists who exposed the story. Lawyer X writers Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon talk to Sky News’ Peter Stefanovic LIVE at 6.30pm on Wednesday on the True Crime Australia Facebook page. Send your questions now: ask.lawyerx@news.com.au
Lawyer X, the story of how one woman played off police and criminals, is published by HarperCollins Australia on September 7.
Watch Peter Stefanovic’s compelling two-part documentary Lawyer X: The Untold Story on Sky News at 8pm AEST, September 12 and 19.