Deadline: Grubby money in Melbourne’s private school belt

This Melbourne dad might be more of a Breaking Bad-style cook than a celebrity chef, but it hasn’t stopped him funding his family’s affluent lifestyle.

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Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

Walter White of private school set

Behind every fortune is a crime, someone once wrote. Like running water, dirty cash seems to get cleaned up over time. But there’s always some new money with the whiff of the street about it, meaning there’s a few parents with grubby secrets in Melbourne’s private school belt.

Among those who hide their light behind a bushel at Head of the River time are top-notch money launderers, frauds and an assortment of corporate criminals. But that’s not all.

There has always been some puzzlement about how one particular father manages to afford his family’s affluent lifestyle.

Deadline has been told his secret talent is cooking, but he’s no celebrity chef.

Our man is more in Breaking Bad territory. He’s known to have spent many years taking a range of chemicals and turning them into quality crystal methamphetamine for Melbourne’s insatiable drug market.

The dark arts served him well, leaving him with an opulent house and enough over to keep him in good cars and heavy school fees.

Alphonse Gangitano went to a renowned college before embarking on a life of crime that ended with a bullet. Picture: Ben Swinnerton

Perhaps he and his wife hope the drug money buys the sort of education that steers youngsters away from following in daddy’s footsteps.

In which case, maybe they should ponder the fact it didn’t work for the late Alphonse Gangitano, who went to a renowned college before embarking on a life of crime that ended with a bullet.

It didn’t work for the deceased Moran brothers, Mark and Jason, who went to a grammar school in the Essendon district where both died of gunshot wounds a few years apart.

And it didn’t work for a Camberwell retail king’s rogue son, who fell in with bad guys then fell into jail with worse guys who almost killed him and left him permanently injured.

Then there were the doctors and surgeons who made fortunes from the illegal abortion racket and (apart from bribes to police) invested in education, ski chalets, yachts, air travel, French wine, German cars and the like.

Jason Moran (pictured) and his brother Mark went to a grammar school in the Essendon district where both died of gunshot wounds a few years apart. Picture: Graham Crouch

Those society abortionists of old are more the role model for our backyard chemist, who’s now retiring in quite some comfort.

He’s not the only one to have got away with the risky business of straddling two worlds. Another is a chap renowned for being very good with numbers.

He has quite the reputation for laundering the ill-gotten gains of senior bikie gang figures and other organised crime types who like to look legit.

On paper, the creative bookkeeper is now bankrupt but, somehow, the kids are still in the right schools, where he drops them off in prestige wheels. He also controls an enviable property portfolio by means which are opaque and highly questionable.

Unhappy anniversary

It happened exactly 30 years ago. On 21 February 1993, drug-crazed farm hand William Patrick “Bill” Mitchell massacred Karen MacKenzie and her three children with an axe at a remote rural property at Greenough in Western Australia.

The Greenough massacre was so terrible that a judge later withheld the gruesome and horrific details from the public.

Unsurprisingly, the crime was drug-related. Mitchell had spent the day getting high on a toxic mixture of cannabis, alcohol and amphetamines then drove to the MacKenzies’ house.

William Patrick Mitchell massacred Karen MacKenzie and her three children with an axe.

Daniel McKenzie, 16, went outside to confront Mitchell and was killed. Inside, Mitchell found Karen MacKenzie asleep. After killing her with the axe, he sexually interfered with her body. He then killed her young daughters Amara, 7, and Katrina, 5, in their bedrooms.

Police and forensic investigators scoured a murder scene that left several of them permanently affected by what they saw. The funerals were held two weeks later. Mitchell attended the service, as he was known to the family he’d butchered. It was another three weeks before he was arrested.

Mitchell, then 24, pleaded guilty to four counts of wilful murder and four counts of sexual assault. He was sentenced to four concurrent life terms but with a non-parole period of 20 years that was later revoked after a public outcry.

Despite a successful appeal to reinstate his parole period, Mitchell was refused parole. His next review by the parole board was due in late 2019 but Western Australia passed a law to delay parole by an extra six years for mass murderers and serial killers. No wonder.

Nothing to say

He’s one of the biggest halfwits in Melbourne but we’re pretty sure this particular big mouth won’t be updating the erratic timeline suggested in this story.

The word is the fellow concerned got home a while ago to find his partner had exhausted his drug supply.

What allegedly followed was the kind of nasty assault which, if reported, would have added to a long list of woes for our hero, who’s making something of a habit out of attacking women.

Ex-Geelong player David Clarke made an impression as the informant in the trial of alleged money-launderers accused of being part of the drug empire of George Marrogi (pictured).

Street dealers

We recently revealed how former Geelong player David Clarke had made an impression as the informant in the trial of a bunch of alleged money-launderers accused of being part of the drug empire of George Marrogi.

Another Cat from the same era as Clarke — beanpole ruckman Peter Street — has of late been involved in some high-level work with a crew busting organised crime drug ring types trading large amounts of 1,4-Butanediol.

Street and Clarke are far from the only top-line footballers making their mark in the force.

Deadline is told former Bomber Aaron Henneman is stationed with the water police.

Former AFLW player Bianca Jakobsson has been putting in some marathon days in recent years, juggling policing in Dandenong with a career at St Kilda.

Retired players Courtney Clarkson and Laura Bailey are also wearing the white hats, so to speak.

Former Bomber Aaron Henneman is stationed with the Water Police. Picture: Mark Dadswell

Of course, football is a game of heroes and villains and so some footballers play for the other side. Jack Ginnivan’s misadventure powdering his nose in a Torquay toilet would hardly get him a vote in the skullduggery stakes even among members of his own club.

There’s the tattooed magpies supplied by one of Melbourne’s long-established dealers, who specialises in a clientele of footballers, actors and jockeys.

There’s the reptile who got sprung rigging his club raffle so one of his mates could win it. Which isn’t as bad as the dominating finals player who had finals tickets forged so he could “scalp” them to unsuspecting fans who’d be turfed out of the seats by those with legit tickets.

Then there’s a tricky customer, a player who switched clubs, who robbed an SP bookie’s operators at gunpoint. And, for comic relief, there’s the story of legendary VFA full forward Fred Cook accepting a contract on the life of a straying wife, pocketing the cash and warning the woman of her husband’s intention to do her harm.

Gangitano’s attitude problem

Deadline continues to follow the fortunes of promising young racehorse Gangitano.

After a good start to his career, the gangland-themed runner ran seventh at Sandown recently.

“His attitude still isn’t great,” one radio expert said in a mounting yard report before that start.

In that sense, he sounds a bit like his late namesake, Alphonse.

Let’s hope it doesn’t lead to the ultimate gear change (gelding) for the ill-mannered colt. Of course, that would be better what happened to Alphonse a quarter century ago when he was euthanised at his Templestowe home, undoubtedly by connections. They didn’t even call for the green screen.

Ferret on missing list

Posters for missing dogs, cats, birds and all manner of other creatures are routinely displayed in public places.

In what may be a first, someone in Elwood has lost their ferret and has advertised the fact they desperately want it back.

Ferrets are experts at becoming lost once released down rabbit burrows, but this one has escaped from domestic circumstances.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For ferret lovers, the lost creature is no doubt a lovely looking critter. But our man who spotted the poster says his knowledge of ferrets means he won’t be trying to catch it even if he spots it. They do have very sharp teeth.