How Mafia supergrass Pasquale Barbaro was warned of his execution

New evidence has revealed how Australian mafia boss Pasquale Barbaro got a chilling phone call from a Melbourne man before he was killed outside his Brisbane home.

The execution murder of mafia boss Pasquale Barbaro outside his Brisbane home 30 years ago may have stemmed from a mole from within the then National Crime Authority.

The 58-year-old former mafia godfather Barbaro was shot dead and then slashed with a knife in an dishonour marking in March 1990, just months after he turned informer and agreed to speak to the NCA about Italian criminal operations and unsolved murders in Australia.

But a Queensland former detective sergeant who has never spoken publicly before said his roll over was allegedly leaked by the NCA to Melbourne Mafia identities who then came gunning for him.

The former police officer, who for security reasons asked to not be identified, revealed Barbaro urgently rang him and told him a known Melbourne crime boss had telephoned and said he knew he was working for police and said both he and the police officer “were dead”.

The officer said he had had an ongoing relationship with Barbaro for 12 months, tasked with “cultivating” the criminal and getting him to talk which he did in recorded interviews the tapes of which were passed to the NCA before agents from the now defunct Commonwealth law enforcement group took over his handling.

Retired mafia godfather, Pasquale “Peter’’ Barbaro killed outside his home in March 1990. Picture: Courier Mail

The Identikit picture of the suspect of the murderer with witnesses confirming he spoke in Italian prior to killing Barbaro and later seen to be removing a fake beard and wig. Picture: Supplied

“It wasn’t long after that introduction and Peter (Barbaro) rang me and said ‘I need to talk to you quickly’ and that’s when we met,” the officer told News Corp Australia.

“He said ‘I got a phone call from the man in Melbourne last night and they said they know I’m talking to police and they said they know your name and I’m dead and you’re dead’. Now that was not long after the NCA became involved and I don’t believe in too many coincidences. There was a leak from the NCA or a direct link from the NCA to the Mafia … you can’t but help consider the high probability that information had transferred from someone in authority in this case the NCA to (Mafia). For six months after that I never went anywhere without my gun.”

Queensland police detectives Peter McIlwain and Les Melville (not Barbaro’s police handler) inspect a car involved in the execution murder of Barbaro. Picture: Courier Mail

Before he was shot dead outside his Runcorn home, Barbaro purportedly gave up the identities of the men behind four murders in Melbourne, two in NSW and another Griffith man murdered in Italy and an outline of the who’s who of Calabrian Mafia in Australia of which he claimed there were 3000 members and or associates. He also said he had valuable information related to the assassinated AFP assistant commissioner Colin Winchester.

Blood at the scene where retired mafia godfather, Pasquale “Peter’’ Barbaro was killed on Condamine Street, Runcorn. Picture: Courier Mail

Barbaro had been a person of interest since his days living in Canberra when he was a boss of a national drug syndicate, notably controlling marijuana plantations in NSW and Queensland. The supergrass was agreeing to give evidence against Mafia figures and reveal his knowledge about the unsolved Winchester murder and had been asking for $30,000 to start a new life elsewhere.

The 69-year-old officer said he always considered it strange that he, the officer, was never interviewed about Barbaro after his murder, not by the Queensland police, the NCA nor the coroners court which never held a formal inquest.

Barbaro’s grandson, also named Pasquale, was shot dead in a targeted gangland hit in Sydney’s inner west in 2016 and like his grandfather was involved in mass drug trafficking and also suspected of co-operating with police.

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Originally published as How Mafia supergrass Pasquale Barbaro was warned of his execution