Lawyer X royal commission hears Mokbel offered to turn snitch on crooked cops

Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel offered to turn snitch against crooked cops but police declined, an anti-corruption investigator has told the Lawyer X Royal Commission.

Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel offered to turn snitch against crooked cops but police declined, an anti-corruption investigator has told the Lawyer X Royal Commission.

The feared criminal wanted to spill the beans to a major anti-corruption investigation into the Victoria Police drug squad in 2002 to get a better deal for himself and his girlfriend Danielle McGuire, former Victoria Police detective Peter De Santo said.

Mr De Santo was one of the lead investigators of the Ceja Taskforce — which investigated members of the now-defunct drug squad for major corruption matters.

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Mr De Santo’s team had already charged two detectives on Taskforce Kayak — a drug squad investigation that targeted Mokbel and other high level drug manufacturers — with commercial trafficking and other officers were being investigated for serious corruption matters, he said.

Mr De Santo said Mokbel and his defence team, which included gangland barrister turned snitch Nicola Gobbo, was using the Ceja Taskforce investigation to erode the credibility of drug squad officers who had laid charges against him.

He said he met Gobbo and Mokbel in 2002 so he and Ms McGuire could get a “benefit for information”.

Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel offered to turn snitch against crooked cops but police declined, an anti-corruption investigator has told the Lawyer X Royal Commission.

But Mr De Santo said he had told Mokbel his offer “would not work” and his information was only of a “general nature.”

“Mokbel wanted to know information he provided would benefit Ms McGuire in relation to her charges,” he said in his statement.

In 2006, Mokbel triggered one of the biggest manhunt’s in Australia’s history when he fled the country on a yacht.

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Mr De Santo said throughout the period Gobbo was actively putting him in touch with clients who wanted to make allegations against drug squad officers.

“She was quite prominent in reporting what she perceived to be allegations of corruption in relation to the drug squad.”

A year later, Mr De Santo told the inquiry, he was involved in the investigation into a burglary at a drug house by crooked cop David Miechel and his informer Terry Hodson.

The commission heard that controversial former detective Paul Dale — Miechel’s partner and Hodson’s controller — had called Gobbo the morning after the Dublin St, Oakleigh, burglary on Grand Final night 2003.

Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo.

Mr De Santo said he used Gobbo to facilitate a meeting with Terry Hodson — whose son Andrew she had represented.

Mr De Santo said he contacted Gobbo in order “to get to Andrew, to get to Terry”.

Gobbo told Mr De Santo that Terry Hodson — who within eight months would be murdered with his wife, Christine, at their home in Kew East — was scared to co-operate with the investigation into corrupt police.

But after a flurry of phone calls between Gobbo and Mr De Santo in the days after the burglary he was convinced to make a statement implicating his police handlers Dale and Miechel.

A week after the burglary, which took place on the night of the 2003 Grand Final, ­Hodson called Mr De Santo from a phone box.

In a diary note about the call that he read to the inquiry, Mr De Santo said: “He stated that contact has been made by the three striper (Dale) ‘stick together no need to get in bed with anyone’ also advises that the blonde lady (Gobbo) is sleeping with the three striper (Dale).”

Dale has denied any involvement in the burglary and the Hodson murders. Burglary charges against Dale over the burglary were dropped after Hodson’s murder.

Paul Dale was charged with the Hodson killings, but that case collapsed with the murder of Carl Williams in April, 2010.

In 2009, Dale and hitman Rod Collins were charged with the Hodson killings, but the case also collapsed with the murder of Carl Williams in April 2010.

Mr De Santo also read to the inquiry a diary note from the morning of May 16, 2004, when Andrew Hodson called him and said his parents had been killed.

“Mum and dad murdered, at the flat, they have been shot in the back of their heads. I need you to come, I don’t want to talk to anyone else, will you come?” I dash yes,” Mr De Santo said.

But Mr De Santo said “police politics” almost stopped him from attending, as Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland did not want anti-corruption investigators to be seen by the media, for fear it would tip them off that corrupt cops could be involved in double killing.

“I was eventually told to go … It was cleared by Overland that I could go but I was told not to be seen.”