John Latorre’s link to mafia and bikie gangs smuggling drugs from PNG to Australia

Criminals are using secret safe houses to stockpile drugs and smuggle them into Australia. The new route has been linked to the professional hit on Melbourne man John Latorre.

The Italian mafia and bikie gangs’ stranglehold on drug warehouses in Papua New Guinea is under threat amid a new crackdown on the smuggling route.

The criminal gangs have been using secret safe houses on the island nation to stockpile cocaine and ice before bringing it into Australia on “black flights”.

The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary have prioritised shutting down the drugs trade on the island.

“When organised criminal groups attempt to use Papua New Guinea as a trans-shipment point, they inflict untold misery on our people,” PNG police commissioner David Manning said.

“The violence that accompanies this trade leaves its mark on our communities.”

Papua New Guinea has become a target for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, who have been using the country as a stopping point on their international drug shipments.

Vegetable wholesaler John Latorre, who was shot dead outside his house in March. Picture: Supplied

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) this week revealed that Taskforce Venator had seized 289kg of cocaine in Queensland that was flown in from PNG.

It was the latest in a string of major drug busts of shipments from the country, which are only about 150km north of Australia.

A black flight carrying 71.5kg of meth was intercepted in Monto, 500km north of Brisbane, in March last year.

And 125kg of ice was seized in Port Moresby in 2022, which was believed to be destined for Australia.

$94 million of cocaine from PNG was intercepted in Brisbane this week.

The PNG smuggling route has also been linked to the mafia murder of John Peter Latorre in Melbourne in March.

Latorre was gunned down in his driveway in Greenvale at 4.30am on March 12 – the day after the Labour Day holiday.

The shooting was believed to be the work of a professional hit man who fled on a motorbike.

It was claimed that the murder must have been signed off by senior mafia figures, while Italian mafia expert Anna Sergi said it was a move on from a younger generation.”

Latorre was reportedly targeted as a result of the failed bid to bring in 550kg of cocaine on a black flight from Papua New Guinea to Australia.

That shipment was stopped because the smugglers overloaded a Cessna light plane, causing it to crash “at a remote airstrip at Papa Lea Lea” near Port Moresby in 2020.

The AFP linked that shipment to “Italian organised crime”.

A PNG court sentenced the pilot of the crashed Cessna, David John Cutmore, to 18 years’ jail in October 2022 for charges relating to money laundering and receiving cocaine.

The heavily-laden aircraft did not make it past the trees at the end of a remote runway and Cutmore fled on foot.

Cutmore had reportedly been promised a $2m payday for a series of black flights between PNG and Queensland.

The aircraft used in a failed 2020 cocaine flight in PNG. Picture: Supplied

He has launched an appeal against the length of his sentence in PNG’s Supreme Court.

The AFP said the PNG police had returned two criminals to Australia in the past 12 months over “historic criminal offending”, highlighting their close working relationship.

“Law enforcement agencies actively monitor drug movements through the Pacific, as transnational organised crime syndicates attempt to use PNG as a trans-shipment point for drug importations destined for Australia,” the AFP said in a statement.

“The AFP recognises transnational crime is a concern across the Pacific and is working hard to support the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary to combat all forms of criminal activity.”

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