How these Melbourne criminals got their nicknames

CHOPPER, Mad Dog, Fat Tony — the nicknames of some of Melbourne’s most notorious crooks are so famous you might not even know their real names. Andrew Rule reveals how they came about. NEW PODCAST — LISTEN NOW.

NICKNAMES are big in the nick.

Almost every crook of note has at least one and some have more — the moniker the public knows and another that only their mates use.

The media are blamed unfairly for a lot of things but, shamefully, it is true that reporters and sub-editors are responsible for too many well-known nicknames.

Some of these can now be revealed without fear or favour.

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Russell “Mad Dog” Cox.

The truth is, he was not mad so much as mildly irritated.

And his name is neither Russell nor Cox: it was just one of many aliases that stuck.

The man of many names and disguises was in fact born Melville Peter Schnitzerling in 1949. His family called him “Tim” and probably still do.

In the late 1970s, a sly Melbourne crime reporter with a florid imagination dubbed Tim the quiet crook “Mad Dog” in a bald attempt to grab readers’ attention. It worked.

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The culprit (the reporter, not his victim) readily admits the name that other crims gave the longtime fugitive — “Cox the Fox” — was far more suitable for the cunning armed robber and escape artist who became a legend while on the lam.

Cox, who went jogging before dawn to dodge possible police raids, loved dogs and the comic book superhero, The Phantom.

He fancied himself as the “ghost who walks” and sometimes called himself “Mr Walker” after The Phantom’s civilian alias, Kit Walker.

Naturally, Cox called his black Labrador “Devil” after The Phantom’s canine companion.

But, while they were on the run, “Devil” had to have an alias, too: in public, Cox called him “Butch”.

Some of "Mad Dog" Cox’s weapons stash.

Russell "Mad Dog" Cox in a mugshot in 1983.

Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox was once Australia's most wanted man, circa 1978.

With that sort of attention to detail, no wonder he dodged the law for 11 years after escaping from Long Bay’s Jail’s high-security division in 1977.

He also got away with at least two underworld executions, but that’s another story.

Originality is not a strong point of crime reporting — or among sub-editors, who never meet a cliche they don’t like.

So it’s no surprise the “Mad Dog” tag has bobbed up for two centuries.

The first of many down under was “Mad Dog Morgan”, the 1860s bushranger immortalised in a so-bad-it’s-good 1970s film starring Dennis Hopper in the title role.

The bushranger, real name John Fuller, was no doubt dubbed “Mad Dog” by the reporters of the day. They at least had an excuse: Morgan ranted and raved like an AFL coach and was so deranged he killed a string of people.

Mad Dog Cox being arrested.

Another ‘Mad Dog’: Antonio Loguancio.

There have been Mad Dogs all over the world since Morgan was shot down like a dog. The most recent in Victoria being “Mad Dog” Loguancio, a serial rapist who came to a sticky end after a two-day siege in 2013.

Loguancio’s given name was Antonio. He was called Tony until a certain journalist decided to juice it up a little.

At least in Loguancio’s case the name was accurate, if not original, given he threatened to shoot everyone who approached when he staged his siege at a Glenroy bungalow in March, 2013.

He then set fire to the bungalow before shooting himself in the head, an act almost as disturbing as the weird sex crimes he had committed earlier.

Cox the Fox is entitled to be outraged at being given the same name as such a low-rent pervert.

Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley

Another calculating crook with a liking for dogs was Bill “The Texan” Longley, whose only known weakness was for bull mastiffs and heavy-calibre handguns.

He called his favourite mastiff “Boof” for short, as his formal pedigree name was extremely long.

Apart from winning show ribbons, Boof saved The Texan’s bacon by spotting a rival gunman hiding on the roof of the Longley house in Port Melbourne.

Billy Longley outside Pentridge Prison.

Longley was convicted in 1975 of the murder of Pat Shannon.

It didn’t end well for the would-be hitman. He might have become one of many to go on the missing list during the deadly waterfront war.

The reason for Longley’s nickname was simple: the star of the early 1960s television western The Texan was named “Bill Longley”. The television cowboy and the real-life Melbourne painter and docker both carried Colt .45 pistols and were quick on the draw.

Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read

Another dog lover with maybe the most famous criminal nickname since “Squizzy” Taylor was Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read.

In court in 1979, Read was offended when a rival psychopath, Greg “Bluey” Brazel, suggested to the magistrate that he (Read) was called “Chopper” because he’d sliced his ears off.

Not true, claimed Read. He was in fact named in honour of a cartoon character — a big dog — in an obscure 1960s strip.

At least “Chopper” had a better ring to it than more famous cartoon dogs like “Goofy” and “Pluto”.

Mark "Chopper" Read claims his nickname is that of a dog from an obscure cartoon comic strip.

The nickname had nothing to do with his ears.

For no good reason “Chopper” got to die of natural causes while so many of his friends and enemies did not. He named his first son Charlie after “Mad Charlie” Hegyalji, a one-time Hungarian refugee whose adolescent dream was to be a gangster named “Machinegun Charlie”.

Charlie got half his wish. He became a gangster but the “Machinegun Charlie” name had already been taken by kickboxer Dragan Arnautovic, so named for his quick fire kicks in the ring.

Like “The Texan”, Machinegun Charlie Arnautovic fancied dangerous dogs.

His dog, Gus, would bark savagely while he was dealing heroin, an extra incentive not to cross him.

‘Mad’ Charlie Hegyalji who was shot outside his home in Caulfield North.

But Machinegun Charlie made the mistake of turning the dog on police trying to arrest him. They shot the dog. Machinegun got 12 years and served nine.

Which was still a better result than what happened to Mad Charlie, who was shot dead outside his house in Caulfield in 1998 by someone who knew his movements.

Des ‘Tuppence’ Moran

Desmond Moran is not a name that attracts attention because he was far better known as “Tuppence”.

Some say this was because his parents and his notorious brother Lewis Moran said he “wasn’t worth tuppence” as a crook.

The Morans — now all dead — were Melbourne criminal royalty.

Des Moran reportedly got his nickname Tuppence because his brother believed he “wasn’t worth tuppence”.

udy Moran leaves the Supreme Court after she is found guilty of murder.

It was, ironically, the despised Tuppence who outlived all of them except his sister-in-law, Judith, who set up his murder in an Ascot Vale coffee shop in 2009.

A little-known fact is that Tuppence, a confirmed bachelor, had lived happily with a former star apprentice jockey, Craig Dinn.

Dinn’s nickname was “Gunga”, proof that crooks and punters know their Rudyard Kipling poems.

Antonios ‘Fat Tony’ Mokbel

But more modern influences are in play. Like The Simpsons, for instance.

When the drug baron Tony Mokbel was arrested in 2005, photographs were taken of his red Ferrari being seized as a proceed of crime.

Shadowy figures who shall remain nameless on grounds of self-incrimination published a photograph of the Ferrari loaded on a truck. But first they induced a graphic artist to replace the letters on the Ferrari numberplate with a bogus vanity plate: FAT TONY.

Mokbel in his infamous wig.

The Simpsons: Fat Tony.

Of course, the name (lifted from The Simpsons cartoon mobster) caught on.

In fact, the Sydney television production house that franchised the Underbelly series recycled the name Fat Tony as the title for a lame sequel.

It wasn’t the first or last time a notorious name crossed international boundaries.

The notorious Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquin Guzman got his name “El Chapo” because it means “Shorty” in Spanish.

El Chapo the diminutive drug baron became so well-known worldwide that it inspired a nickname for a low-rent Melbourne suburban drug dealer known for his reluctance to share his ill-gotten gains.

They call him El Cheapo.

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Originally published as How these Melbourne criminals got their nicknames