Lawyer X probe reveals suspected motives behind gangland killings
Confidential police documents released by the Lawyer X Royal Commission have exposed what detectives believed were some of the reasons behind the wave of contract murders which gripped the city at the turn of the century.
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Police intelligence documents have revealed what investigators believed were the motives behind a series of gangland war killings.
The confidential material, released by the Lawyer X Royal Commission, shows what organised crime detectives thought were some of the reasons behind the wave of contract murders which gripped the city at the turn of the century.
The 2006 Purana taskforce PowerPoint presentation states prolific underworld hitman Andrew Veniamin likely shot dead Dino Dibra at West Sunshine in 2002.
It lists the motive as Veniamin ripping off his close mate Dibra’s hydroponic cannabis crops.
Dibra – a violent drug-dealing gunman – was at the time running multiple indoor crops with crime associates in the western suburbs.
The material also outlines a theory behind why Paul Kallipolitis was shot dead in the bedroom of his Sunshine home in 2002.
Veniamin — who was to become one of Carl Williams’ stable of triggermen in the era — is again nominated as the killer.
“Motive: standing over high-profile criminals eg Gatto connections,” the report says.
Kallipolitis, a convicted killer and drug dealer, is also listed as a suspect in the Dibra murder.
The report confirms a number of long-held suspicions behind other slayings of the era. On the April 2003 murder of feared drug dealer Nik Radev, it states as motive: “Threats to Mokbel and Williams demanding (redacted).”
The murders two months later of Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro at a kids’ footy clinic in Essendon are put down to Williams having earlier been shot after a dispute over a damaged pill press.
That shooting, at a Gladstone Park reserve in 1998, is widely recognised as the catalyst for much of the underworld carnage in the next years.
The death of Mark Mallia, whose body was found in a burnt rubbish bin at Sunshine in 2003, was attributed to: “Threat to Williams. Result of association with Radev.”
On Graham Kinniburgh, shot dead at Kew in December of that year, the report concludes: “Threat to Williams. Close friend and associate of Lewis Moran (father of Jason).”
The material also indicates a belief Williams was prepared to get his own hands dirty in dealing with enemies.
It states that he shot well-connected crime figure Mark Smith when he accepted a contract to kill Mark Moran but didn’t do so.
Smith survived the wounding but veteran underworld identity Victor Pierce, the other person given the Moran job, would later be murdered.
That killing is suspected of being Veniamin’s handiwork.
Veniamin was shot dead by Mick Gatto at a Carlton restaurant in 2004. The report states Veniamin was a “threat to Gatto – working for Williams”. A jury would acquit Gatto of the murder of Veniamin on the grounds of self-defence.
Drug dealer Michael Marshall, murdered at South Yarra in October 2003, was listed as a “threat to Williams”. But it would emerge that Williams took a contract to kill Marshall from Tony Mokbel, who had come to believe Marshall had killed a mate of his.
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LAWYER X by Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon, published by HarperCollins Australia, is out on Sept 7. Pre-order now at Booktopia