Lawyer X wanted $1 million prize for Tony Mokbel’s capture in Greece

Nicola Gobbo wanted a piece of the $1 million reward for her part in helping Tony Mokbel’s capture in Greece after his infamous escape from ­Australia.

Nicola Gobbo wanted a piece of the $1 million reward for her part in Tony Mokbel’s capture in Greece after his infamous escape from ­Australia.

Gobbo, a criminal barrister who represented Mokbel while also a registered police informer — and now known as Lawyer X — told her handlers she had delivered crucial information that ended her client’s 15 months on the run.

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She claimed she had told police to follow Mokbel associate Jeffrey Jamou as they searched the world for the drug baron.

“Follow Jamou and he will lead you to Tony ­Mokbel,’’ she insists she said.

A week after Mokbel’s arrest in June 2007, Gobbo asked if she would get a cut of the reward. A police ­report states: “… 3838 (Gobbo’s ­informer number) wants to know if any consideration has been given to 3838 being given a percentage of the ­reward offered.’’

Mokbel has claimed that Gobbo warned him he was facing imminent murder charges and that he should “f--- off’’ during his 2006 trial in Melbourne for ­importing cocaine.

Before his bail was revoked, ­Mokbel fled to Bonnie Doon before boarding a yacht in Fremantle and heading for Greece.

Tony Mokbel court with his lawyer Nicola Gobbo.

It is believed Gobbo did not get a cut of the reward — but documents released by the courts reveal her handlers made inquiries with then ­assistant commissioner Simon Overland about her cash claim.

The thousands of files relating to Gobbo’s informing showed her ­duplicitous dealings with her underworld clients.

She even questioned herself as to whether she was being “two-faced” for accepting money to defend criminals that she had helped put behind bars.

In 2014, following the Herald Sun’s expose of the scandal, Overland — police chief commissioner from 2009 to 2011 — told anti-corruption body IBAC that the ethical dilemmas were for Gobbo to resolve.

‘’The general view was that any ethical issues with respect to clients were for the Source,’’ Mr Overland said.

Gobbo’s lifestyle and ­behaviour led her handlers and senior police, including Mr Overland, to believe that she was “unstable” and had a “psychological disorder”.

But despite concerns about her mental state, police kept using her as a “human source’’.

The IBAC report lashed force command, saying it knew Gobbo was informing on her clients from 2005 to 2009 and was “highly negligent” in its supervision of her handling.

Former Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland told anti-corruption body IBAC that the ethical dilemmas were for Gobbo to resolve.

Current Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told former judge Murray Kellam, QC, who headed the IBAC Lawyer X inquiry, that police management was ‘’under considerable pressure’’ to end the gangland war and failed to ­assess the legal risks.

“This human source came on board and this glittering prize sometimes diverts you from the necessary sense of steps,’’ Mr Ashton said.

The documents also reveal that Gobbo:

- Told her handlers to send in a police undercover operative to stitch-up Mokbel to get him charged;

- Called Mokbel “basically stupid” because he “doesn’t ­listen to advice’’;

- Confided in her handlers: “I’m f----- up but you know that”;

- Turned two gangland ­hitmen into key snitches against Carl Williams.

Former police chief commissioner Neil Comrie’s 2011 police review found it was “ethically repugnant” for a lawyer to inform on their ­clients and for police to accept that information.

A Victoria Police 2006 risk assessment noted that if Gobbo was compromised, then her role as a police informer role would come under ­“extreme scrutiny”.

The documents also reveal her ethical and moral dilemmas while informing on Mokbel’s main drug cook, with whom she had a close personal relationship.

She organised the bugging of the cook’s 40th birthday party, which she paid for. It was attended by a who’s who of Melbourne’s underworld.

Lawyer Nicola Gobbo.

LAWYER X A ‘GLITTERING PRIZE’ TOP COPS COULDN’T RESIST

Victoria Police command knew and sanctioned barrister Nicola Gobbo’s use as an informer against her criminal clients.

Now chief commissioner, Graham Ashton told investigators that Gobbo was seen at the time as a “glittering prize” that could help solve murders and prevent others.

The culpability of senior police management is laid bare in an independent probe into Gobbo’s informing from 2005 to 2009 on her underworld clients.

The Independent Broad Based Anti-Corruption Commission’s 2015 Kellam Report found VicPol management were fully briefed on the risks of using Gobbo as an informer.

Justice Murray Kellam said at all times when she was an informant police management, which was then led by Simon Overland, sanctioned the use and approved source taskings.

“Were informed of the arrest and prosecutions of the sources clients resulting from information provided by the source,” Justice Kellam said in his report.

Giving evidence to Kellam’s investigation, Mr Ashton said police were under considerable pressure at the time to crack underworld murders. He said the information she could have provided meant that police involved did not take necessary steps - like seeking legal advice - before using her information.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Picture: AAP Image/Ellen Smith

“’This human source comes on board that could potentially solve a bunch of ... murders or prevent others’ ... ‘and this glittering prize ... sometimes diverts you from the necessary sense of steps,” the then Deputy Commissioner Ashton said.

‘You might say now, yeah absolutely you would do this or do that but if I’m trying to think why sensible steps like that weren’t taken, that’s what I’m sort of left with when I try and reconcile that’

LAWYER X’S ‘HIGH RISK’ LIFE REVEALED

Nicola Gobbo’s life as an informer has been laid bare in documents released today.

Gobbo, known as Lawyer X, revealed to the Supreme Court in 2017 her life as a “high risk’’ registered police informer who helped the force sting the gangland war’s most notorious figures.

The former barrister’s testimony was released after a suppression order was lifted this morning exposing more detail about Gobbo’s dealings with police and how they used a criminal barrister to provide information against her clients.

Contained in the tranche of court files released this morning on Gobbo it includes:

- Police handlers telling her she could stop informing at any time in 2006

- Gobbo asking police officers after one sting, “Who’s next?”

- Conspiring with police to make Tony Mokbel’s incarceration harsh to encourage him to plead guilty to offences

- The barrister becomes paranoid and suffered a stroke due to the stress of turning a gangland figure into a key police witness who “turned on half the underworld”

In numerous recordings Gobbo spoke to handlers about her fear of what would happen if she was outed as an informer. In one meeting she told two drug squad detectives in 2005:

“I didn’t want people to find out that I was the one who umm … through me he’d gone down that path. I went through the most significant period of paranoia in my life, which resulted in a stroke in the end … that had a lot to do with the stress that I was under at the time.

“I still live in fear of that coming out that … because all it’s gonna take is for u, l Supreme Court Judge to release police diary notes where its me that they’re meeting, its me that they’re speaking to, it’s me editing this bloke’s statements before they get sworn and served. That sort of stuff.”

Nicola Gobbo with Gangland boss Carl Williams and underworld hit man Andrew `Benji’ Veniamin. She is hosting the Crown Casino christening of Williams’ daughter, Dhakota.

The Herald Sun sparked the Lawyer X scandal in 2014 with a series of articles detailing the informer corruption scandal, but was suppressed by the police force’s legal arm, the Victorian Government Solicitors Office in an urgent Supreme Court action.

But anti-corruption body IBAC launched an investigation into the force’s interaction with Gobbo within days.

The body examined 14 witnesses and reviewed a previous inquiry into the use of Gobbo by the police force’s secretive source development unit, describing the police’s actions as “negligence of a high order’’. It also found the administration of justice may have been affected.

Since then, convicted drug lords Rob Karam and Tony Mokbel launched appeals along with one of the latter’s associates, Zlate “Steve’’ Cvetanovski.

Another, Faruk Orman, whose conviction as a gangland killer relied heavily on the evidence of another of Gobbo’s clients she turned into an informer, has petitioned the state’s attorney general for mercy.

Gobbo was initially registered as a police informer in 1995 before being deregistered within months.

Gobbo then informed off the record to the then drug squad - which was beset with corrupt police officers including Wayne Strawhorn.

In 1999, then junior detective Jeff Pope registered her as an informer after being introduced to Gobbo at the Emerald Hotel in South Melbourne.

At the same time she was providing information to the drug squad and also the asset recovery squad, Gobbo was talking to the Australian Crime Commission.

The barrister formed intimate relationships with police officers and criminals during her years as a high-profile lawyer who mixed her personal and professional life.

As examined by the Royal Commission into the management of police informants, Gobbo formed intimate relationships on both sides of the fence during her years as a criminal solicitor and barrister.