Australia’s mafia struggling to deal with decade of turbulence
Once a formidable force, the earth beneath the mafia’s feet has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years and the Ndrangheta now finds itself in the crosshairs.
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
News travels fast in Melbourne’s underworld.
In recent months word has spread rapidly in mafia circles that something of an evidence torpedo is heading the organisation’s way.
What might best be described as crisis talks are said to have taken place on the other side of the continent.
A man described as Melbourne’s godfather flew to Perth to meet with associates to discuss if what they were hearing was true and what the future might hold.
They probably looked like another bunch of interstate managers enjoying five-star dinners and accommodation, but this was no pleasure trip.
Among the group was a successful figure from the legitimate business world whose interest in such matters is unclear.
These are cool characters but the godfather is said to have been giving serious thought to handing over the reins.
It is the latest development in a decade of great turbulence for Australia’s arm of the mafia, otherwise known as the Ndrangheta.
Its central figures have had plenty of drama over more than half a century, from the infamous Market Murders of the 1960s to their implication in the 1977 murder of Donald McKay, a crime that put them under the blowtorch like never before.
But the earth beneath their feet, in Victoria at least, has shifted dramatically in the past 10 years.
The fractures began with an audacious plan to import 15 million ecstasy pills in tomato tins for a payday of $440m.
Powerful European suppliers behind the drugs were to be paid after delivery by the Australian mob-led syndicate.
Anticipating their delivery, the syndicate arrived in Melbourne as cargo ship MV Monica sailed from Naples, reaching Port Melbourne in June 2007.
All the syndicate needed was for their container – full of 3000 tomato tins – to pass through the docks and it would be theirs.
But the call to collect their cargo never came.
Weeks earlier, lawyer turned police informer Nicola Gobbo had been given the shipping document for safekeeping – and she took a copy and handed it to police.
She even translated it from Italian for them.
Although the Australian Federal Police didn’t know the exact circumstances of how they were coming to seize a world record ecstasy haul, they promptly set up a sting.
For more than a year they would identify, tap phones and surveil the head honchos not only behind the importation, but further importations required to pay off the debt owed to their European masters for drugs they never got.
Their suppliers were suspicious of the Aussie syndicate, even if they were led by mafia identities whose family names could be traced back to the old country.
There had been no AFP press conference, or even a snippet in a newspaper, about the seizure.
But it left syndicate ringleader Pasquale “Pat” Barbaro, his cousin Saverio Zirilli and their crew exposed.
Barbaro flew to Italy to explain, only to have a gun pointed at his head and be dumped in a car and taken across international borders.
To pay off their debt, estimated at $10m, the syndicate needed to sell more drugs.
The Tomato Tins syndicate, which included “docks man” Rob Karam and drug baron John Higgs, took risks.
Others got involved in the trafficking, such as Melbourne mafia boss Francesco Madafferi.
The Europeans sent a couple of wise guys to Melbourne to watch over them.
All the while the AFP was watching and listening.
It heard the blame-game heat up as more of the syndicate’s drugs were seized.
The “Feds” even had to thwart murder plots ordered on underworld figures in the belief they had ripped off the mafia.
Police would allege senior Tomato Tins members ordered a hit man, who was part of the syndicate, to attempt to whack their rivals.
On August 8, 2008, more than a year after the tomato tins went “missing”, raids were conducted across the nation.
It would take six more years to land convictions against the entire 30-strong syndicate, but this was a major blow to the Ndrangheta and their drug trafficking associates.
Eight of the gang remain in prison.
Another significant episode for the mafia came in March, 2016 when ambitious gangland lawyer Joe Acquaro was murdered. He was a trusted figure whose clientele extended to the highest levels of Victoria’s Italian organised crime world.
His role in overturning a decision by the federal government to cancel Madafferi’s visa in 2005, allowing him to stay in Australia, secured his status, for a while.
But Madafferi later alleged Acquaro was a two-timer who represented him while also providing information to police.
Whatever he knew or said, the murder of Acquaro, who was executed as he left his Brunswick East gelati bar, placed some of those he knew under intense law enforcement heat.
One of Acquaro’s clients and a key new-generation mafia figure was also to come unstuck during this era.
In the space of a decade – much of it spent in prison – Rocco Arico had grown from being a foot soldier for notorious drug dealer Carl Williams to a man of wealth and serious influence in the Italian organised crime scene.
But in 2017, Arico was jailed for drug crimes and extortion.
Like Madafferi, he is now relying on his dealings with Acquaro and the lawyer’s alleged assistance of police in a last-ditch quest for freedom ahead of being deported to Italy.
Last year there was a hammer blow for some senior players when the AFP’s Operation Ironside came to light.
Widespread arrests of Comanchero bikies were the public face of the sweep after their use of the supposedly surveillance-proof AN0M app meant their messages could be monitored by law enforcement officers.
But there would have been night sweats for some of the Mafia figures closely connected to the bikies through their drug-dealing activities.
At the very least, lucrative supply lines were dismantled and key figures jailed.
At worst there are hundreds of thousands of messages harvested from AN0M still to be examined.
Earlier this year there was more cause for reflection when another man, Graeme Potter, was arrested in a decrepit home in North Queensland over conspiracy to murder and cocaine importation allegations.
Lib’s plan for dealing with inmates who attack prison staff
There have been more than 440 attacks on prison staff over the past year. Victoria’s Opposition says this now needs to happen.
Named and shamed: Aussie stars jailed over failed cocaine deals
Former sport stars and exotic dancers have been jailed in some of the wilder cocaine deals that failed in the country. Here’s a look at what happened.