Deadline: AI the new big weapon in Melbourne’s gangland wars

Melbourne gangsters once kept life simple by just blasting their enemies with bullets but AI has now become a big factor in the battle for big money.

web Andrew Rule Deadline 1280

Our city’s gangsters once kept it simple by murdering each other or blasting the enemy’s kneecaps.

Then, at the start of last year, those in the underworld pivoted towards firebombing their foes’ businesses in open warfare over the illicit tobacco trade.

Now, artificial intelligence has become a factor in this big-money battleground.

Gangland figures are using cheap, easily accessible software to attack or spread lies about their criminal competition.

The latest exhibit — in the form of a disturbingly convincing fake news report — made its way to Deadline this week.

The casual listener would immediately assume that the voice in the “news item” is that of leading television crime reporter Cassie Zervos, of Seven News.

The style and delivery are spot-on as the fake Zervos voice outlines how two men linked to the tobacco conflict are accused of the kind of offending no good crook wants any part of and which will send “shockwaves through the community.”

Those in the underworld have pivoted towards firebombings over the illicit tobacco trade. Picture: TikTok

The report then throws to some earnest bloke who is meant to be a detective, urging the pair to turn themselves in and asking for public assistance.

“Any information provided will be treated with the utmost confidentiality and anonymity,” the fake cop says.

“We are dedicating all available resources to this investigation.”

Next up is a bogus witness who claims to have seen the pair as he made his way to his local RSL club for the raffle.

That fellow says, presumably for authenticity’s sake, that he likes to get there early because he can’t stand for long these days.

Of course, less sophisticated misinformation which muddies the waters has always been a part of the crime world.

After one high-profile homicide from a decade ago, the word was quickly spread that the victim may have been killed after straying across some random bad guys in a public house.

The spreading of that information was of great interest to police who were keen to know the original sources of the bulldust — and their motive for fabricating it.

It turned out the most likely scenario was that the murder was carried out as part of a cold-blooded conspiracy by some major crime figures. Nothing random about it whatsoever.

A walking, talking bullseye has copped his share of shrapnel.

Man of steel shrapnel

He’s been shot and shot at and has seen various other shootings over the past decade.

When emergency surgeons opened him up some time ago to remove bullets blasted into his body by a wannabe hit team they found more than they were looking for — apart from the known bullets there were unrelated metal fragments from a previous attempt on his life.

Somehow, the walking, talking bullseye lives on. But he probably isn’t buying his bananas green at the minute — and luckily never was one for reading long books.

If he survives, don’t get stuck behind him at one of those airport metal detectors. It could go off like a frog in a sock.

Pay up, learned friend

Such a shame to see such a high-profile barrister unable to view an item on a news website in court because he is not a subscriber.

Especially so when a close relative works for the publication concerned. And it’s not as if the guy can’t afford it, at ten gorillas a day.

Word is he was forced to go old-school and get a print edition of the most excellent newspaper from a local shop so he could do the necessary research to make his point.

Friendly skies and vanished guns

“Flying a microlight trike is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”

That was former Chief Commissioner Kel Glare, now 86, speaking on 3AW about, apparently, his second-favourite pastime.

Kel is not one to let the grass grow under his feet. He’s a man of firm opinions about right and wrong and quite happy to give his old force a spray if he thinks they deserve it.

In fact, the whisper is that he’s gearing up to give evidence on behalf of a righteously aggrieved Geelong gun dealer appearing in hearing before the Firearms Appeals Committee in coming weeks.

Former Victorian Police commissioner Kel Glare has revealed his secret passion.

The appellant is deeply unhappy because, he says, police have apparently “lost” 79 firearms and 300,000 rounds of ammunition they seized from his registered premises on a highly technical “breach” to do with record keeping.

The twist in the tale now, it seems, is that the police’s own record keeping is terrible.

Either that, or half a million dollars worth of guns and ammo has vanished from lawful custody, a little like the seized drugs that walked from the storage facility next to the Attwood kennels and stables. That was when a bent detective had the keys to the kingdom and decided to re-sell the seized “gear” back to drug dealers, substituting stuff like tile grout for court exhibits.

It could be an interesting hearing, especially when the former chief (and ultra-light pilot) gets in the box and glares across at the other side. Deadline’s sources will be there to see the action.

Sea Monster

Deadline was horrified to learn of a comms guru recently being found naked and bloodied on rocks at a posh bayside beach in the early hours.

Sources say he was seen slithering into the frigid water some time before dawn after a night of debauchery with fellow middle-aged reprobates.

We don’t recall any of this kind of behaviour back when he covered the crime beat for a major Melbourne newspaper. His standards have slipped.