Deadline: Police warned Mick Gatto about threat posed by Gavin ‘Capable’ Preston

Mick Gatto seemed more worried about Collingwood’s September hopes than a police warning about the threat posed by gangland wild man Gavin “Capable” Preston.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Gatto incapable of fear

For a Collingwood fan, Mick Gatto seems a remarkably composed individual.

Word has reached Deadline that the big fella needed all his composure after police warned him about the threat Gavin Preston posed, weeks before the gangland wild man was murdered.

We’ve been told that Gatto was discreetly made aware he could be in danger from the erratic triggerman.

Preston had been upsetting the gangland equilibrium for months after finishing his prison sentence for killing a drug dealer.

Gatto, however, was reportedly relaxed about the risk despite the fact the man known as “Capable” had long harboured ill-will towards him for reasons unclear.

Of course, all that became a moot point on September 9 when Preston died in a hail of bullets as he relaxed at the Sweet Lulu cafe in Keilor.

A forensic officer before a bullet-riddled wall at Sweet Lulu cafe. Picture: Tony Gough

His friend, Abbas Junior Maghnie, was wounded in the lightning-fast attack in front of horrified diners at the venue on Old Calder Highway.

There is, of course, absolutely no suggestion Gatto had anything to do with what happened that day.

The ambush is suspected to stem from bad blood among organised crime figures brewing after Preston’s release from the maximum security Barwon Prison last February.

Mr Gatto did not want to comment when contacted about the issue last week.

“Go the Pies,” he said in his most composed manner.

Victoria Police also declined to comment.

The history between Preston and Gatto goes back a while.

In 2012, a police informer told Victoria Police organised crime investigators that Preston had a “hit list” of prominent names, Gatto’s being one of them.

It was during this period that Preston and his mate Nabil Maghnie were dramatically intercepted in a car outside Melbourne Town Hall.

They were armed and police believed they were on their way to shoot Gatto at a city restaurant.

Mick Gatto will be pulling for the Pies on Saturday. Picture: Getty

The informer said that (now former) Bandido bikie strongman Toby Mitchell, shot two months earlier in an ambush in Brunswick, was also on the Preston hit list.

Preston and Nabil Maghnie, father of Abbas Junior, were investigated but never charged over the Brunswick attack.

Another believed to have been on the list was drug dealer Adam Khoury, who was shot dead in January 2012 at his North Melbourne apartment.

Preston was charged with murder but successfully mounted a defensive homicide case and was jailed, finishing his sentence seven months ago.

Maghnie was shot dead in January 2020 while Preston was still in prison. He had arrived at a house in Epping, in Melbourne’s north, to confront someone about a road rage incident in which his daughter Sabrine had been injured.

Abbas Junior was also wounded in that incident, as was a third man with them. A case of the biters bitten.

Some premises get slugged, some don’t

The Law is supposed to be blind, of course. Even regulations that ensure safe handling of food are supposedly enforced without fear or favour.

Which is interesting, in light of the rather sluggish handling of a recent outbreak of food poisoning at a Melbourne venue that made around 70 violently ill after attending a health seminar there, of all things.

You can’t help bad luck, of course. But the odd thing is that the venue, The Park in Albert Park, was not immediately shut down by the Health Department pending investigation, a “deep clean” and re-inspection after the first outbreak of contagious gastroenteritis.

This relaxed attitude by bureaucrats paid to keep our food safe was jolly bad luck for the 30-plus wedding guests who fell ill three days later after happily hoeing into the rubber chicken (and potentially poisonous pork) at the same venue.

In the circumstances, it’s no wonder that the suddenly unhappy and unwell bride and groom are muttering about lawsuits. They got to start their honeymoon fighting for the bathroom and buckets.

The suddenly unhappy couple are said to be contemplating suing.

But they aren’t the only ones unhappy with the handling of the affair. Ian Cook, well-known victim of the notorious ICook Foods “Slug Gate” scandal, is wondering how it is that such wildly different rules apply from one commercial kitchen to another.

Whereas the Health Department forced tonnes of perfectly good food to be sent to the tip from ICook’s Dandenong premises on a trumped-up pretext — an apparently planted garden slug — the same department happily let The Park keep right on serving meals from the same kitchen for three days, wrecking the said wedding.

This stark difference of approach astonishes the Cook family, whose formerly thriving business was effectively sabotaged by bureaucratic decree for reasons that are at best opaque and, at worst, deeply disturbing.

From the Cooks’ point of view, it’s enough to give you the Edgar Britts. Which is rhyming slang for gastroenteritis.

Unlucky for some

Crooks, even alleged crooks, tend to be superstitious and to gamble.

The luck finally ran out for Steve Fabriczy last Wednesday. That was when the cops came for him 24 years after he and another chancer allegedly pulled a violent home invasion in Canberra that left 72-year-old grandmother Irma Palasics dead, drowned in her own blood with her hands tied, while her husband Gregor was trussed up nearby.

It was a sample found at one of the burglaries that finally provided a breakthrough when forensic examination linked it to Fabriczy, who was living in the Melbourne suburb of Rowville before the long arm of the law reached out for him last week.

As police led Fabriczy out of his house in Rowville, a “lucky” horseshoe could clearly be seen over his shoulder, resting on top of the fuse box.

The horseshoe looks a lot like a racing plate as once worn by a racehorse, turned up in the traditional way with the opening at the top “to keep the luck in.” What’s the betting that the accused aggravated burglar and killer doesn’t mind a bet?

A sure thing is that Fabriczy will get his day in court. Meanwhile, he is safely behind bars. Where he can think about his defence and what, if anything, he can offer police.

At 68, if he is found guilty, his odds of ever seeing a racetrack or casino again.

Then again, it could all be a case of mistaken identity. What are the odds of that?

And lucky for others

Speaking of police searches and luck, another punter hit a hurdle a few years ago when a federal agency turned over his house in Reservoir looking for evidence of illegal imports.

The householder was a member of a well-known family, in fact a brother of one of the men jailed with a herd of other crooks for the massive $122m “tomato tins” drug importation in 2007.

This was after Rob Karam unluckily (and unwisely) provided his “friend” and lawyer Nicola Gobbo with a shipping document linking his crew to the tomato tins.

While the searchers did not have much luck during the search of the brother’s house, they did notice a nice, new packet of ammunition of the type used in semi-automatic pistols. Missing from it was just one bullet.

The ammunition had nothing to do with the search but the officers called VicPol to suggest it was worth a look because the householder was unlikely to be a licensed pistol shooter.

The forensics boffins will allege the packet’s missing bullet … was one that had been removed from the leg of a shooting victim in the northern suburbs not long before.

Which shows that even if scientists are not superstitious, they can certainly get lucky.

Dan and the sneaky darts

Interesting to note that freshly-departed premier Dan Andrews being busted on camera sneaking out for a quiet cigarette recently.

Nothing wrong with that. Some of his admirers might even concede it was a rare humanising moment.

Perhaps he was out the back having a puff while talking over the future of the state’s tobacco industry.

There are those who believe figures in authority have been asleep at the wheel as organised crime has moved in on the sector.

The result, as revealed in the Herald Sun, has been a surge in outlaw tobacco shops across the state from 50 five years ago to around 1000.

Some big underworld players have been able to make a fortune, unimpeded by pesky things such as licensing which could, for example, have fit and proper person provisions.

Meanwhile, Melbourne is left with nasty gang turf wars which have led to the firebombings of many shops, a murder and a bunch of non-fatal shootings.

Some other jurisdictions have made those at the root of these problems most unwelcome.

One experienced investigator said the deficiencies in Victoria’s enforcement was shown in the middle of last decade when organised crime figures from the state’s top illicit tobacco group crossed Bass Strait on the Spirit of Tasmania.

They took with them a load of illicit tobacco products and set up shops in Launceston and Devonport.

“Almost immediately, Tasmania Health raided the stores and sent them back to Victoria with their tails between their legs. They haven’t tried to set up in Tasmania since,” the investigator said.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Victorian Health Department.