Deadline: Sam Fisher charged as rumours swirl on other player
Just hours before former St Kilda gun Sam Fisher was charged with drug trafficking, false rumours were circulating online about another AFL name.
Police & Courts
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Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.
Slammer Sam and the rumour mill
Many were shocked but not all were surprised when former St Kilda backline ace Sam Fisher was arrested and charged for interstate drug trafficking last week.
No one, of course, would be as stunned as the former man about town himself, who has swapped his tasty bachelor digs in Bay Rd, Sandringham, for a prison cell.
Police have alleged Fisher was involved in moving 1kg of ice and 84 grams of other drugs to Western Australia.
The alleged sending of $129,000 in cash to a Victorian address is part of the investigation. Fisher, who attracted a conga line of female companions including one of Wayne Carey’s many exes, kept up an expensive and hectic lifestyle long after AFL football dropped him.
Ironically, just hours before the Fisher swoop, there were false rumours circulating on the internet about another AFL name being in similar strife.
That fellow was said to have been dealing ecstasy to all and sundry in his spare time before being scooped up by the cops this week.
Turned out the whole thing was a load of bulldust and that both player and club are clear.
“There’s no E in team,” as one thoughtful observer remarked.
Always check the boot
The truck was stopped on the border, heading north. On the truck was a shipping container. In the container was a Mercedes Benz. In the boot of the Benz was the wanted man.
That’s the short version of how police arrested millionaire bail jumper Mostafa Baluch late last year, 16 days after his court-ordered ankle bracelet was cut off and he went on the lam.
The attempted escape and subsequent capture put an end to the adventures of the alleged drug lord (and trendy restaurant owner) who is allegedly involved in a plan to import 900kg of cocaine worth $270 million.
Now, a court recently heard that Baluch is discussing a plea deal with the authorities.
Meanwhile, his alleged escape plan reminds Deadline of some other daring deeds.
Such as, for instance, John Killick’s escape from Silverwater Jail in NSW on a helicopter hijacked by his Russian-born librarian girlfriend Lucy Dudko, who menaced the pilot with a gun and forced him to make the touch and go landing inside the prison yard on March 25, 1999.
The star-crossed lovers were on the run for 45 days. Killick ended up doing more than 30 years in jail, and Dudko did six.
At least they got over the wall, which was more than the abortive attempt by David “McVillain” McMillan, the gentleman drug trafficker, who planned to have a helicopter whisk him and co-offender Michael Sullivan out of Pentridge Prison in 1983.
The plan involved disguises applied by make-up artists, an interstate truck ride hidden in cargo, a seagoing boat and a light plane. All very James Bond, not to mention Tony Mokbel.
Unfortunately for McVillain, he couldn’t get good help: a tip-off led police to arrest his proposed chopper pilot getting drunk and propositioning bell boys in a luxury city hotel. McVillain did make amends later by being the first European prisoner to escape from the notorious “Bangkok Hilton”.
An escape that did work was that of Greg “Doc” Smith, alias Gregory David Roberts, alias “the building society bandit”, the prolific armed robber who went over the wall at Pentridge with a helpful murderer one day in 1980.
The murderer was soon caught but Doc Smith vanished until he was arrested 10 years later in Germany, ending a sojourn that formed the basis of his international mega-seller Shantaram, which is about an Australian escapee based in India and roaming the world using false passports.
Perhaps Mostafa Baluch read the novel but skipped the real story of how Doc Smith ended up back doing push-ups in a small cell for many years.
Now Baluch will be doing the same if he is found guilty.
Swank sex club goes under the covers
It looks as if the curtains have been drawn at the Monkey Club, the “exclusive” swingers’ venue in the heart of Kew.
Exhaustive Deadline research (a Google check) comes up with nothing, whereas the club used to advertise a smorgasbord of erotic adventures.
It’s unclear how orgy enthusiasts can get in touch with the new low-key Monkey Club, once described by its operators as being a cross between the Savoy London and the Palazzo Versace.
It seems unlikely those behind the business would have turned their back on entry fees of $150 per couple and $80 for single females.
Previously, those looking at the site were regaled with pictures of scantily clad folk and more rules than a Dan Andrews Covid press conference.
For a start, women were unwelcome if they were outside the six to 10 size range and had to submit hostage-style “proof-of-life” photos showing the pics were not taken in the distant past.
Many men were doubtless concerned to learn the importance of underwear at the Monkey Club.
Subsequent polling by Deadline found many men had little in their drawers beside old-school undies which had been in active service since the last underworld war.
Those without spare tyres were to submit pics of themselves in “fashionable briefs” before entry is allowed.
Deadline understands that the more discreet marketing of the monkey business has nothing to do with the discovery of “monkey pox” in Australia.
Grand reward for missing copper
A mystery benefactor has put up a substantial reward “no-questions-asked” to find the historic copper weathervane some lunatic recently stole from the Mission to Seafarers building in Flinders St’s waterfront end.
If nothing else, the reward will get the attention of the other sort of coppers, not to mention some ex-coppers, who might be able to trace the thief, who is no master criminal.
A master criminal might have known that the weathervane was worth no more than $250 as scrap. Its value is purely historical and sentimental, given it was fitted to the heritage-listed building in 1917.
The weathervane is in the shape of an old-world, triple-masted sailing ship and regarded so highly among marine history buffs that one of them has pledged the reward money.
It is possible, of course, that the thief is a crazy collector who just wants to keep the weathervane in the privacy of his own back shed.
But the thief or thieves should be warned: apart from posting the reward, the benefactor has also engaged a private eye. If the police or the private eye grab the thief before the weathervane is surrendered, all bets are off and the crook goes in the clink.
All closed circuit cameras and scrap merchants are being checked, as is a list of likely suspects known to thieve around docklands.
Meanwhile, anyone who’s keen to snaffle the reward on the quiet has a chance to cut a deal.
One way to do that is to let Deadline know and we can pass it on to the man with the plan. Or to his private eye, who also is authorised to pay for tip-offs.
Luzza work for Chahine
Sydney isn’t big enough for lawyer Mohamed Chahine, who has a number of underworld clients, and is making a foray into Melbourne’s courts.
Chahine came south last week to represent former Comanchero Domenic Luzza at his sentencing for running a big drug trafficking operation.
It appears the legal eagle wants to expand his client base beyond Sin City and sees Melbourne as fertile gangland ground.
Given the amount of activity lately, he might be on the right tram.
Chahine has represented some very big names in middle-eastern and bikie gang organised crime up north.
Among his clients is Tarek Zahed, who lived in Melbourne until recently when he was critically injured in a Sydney ambush which claimed the life of his brother.
Bilal Haouchar, Mohamed Alameddine and Ahmad Doudar have also called on Chahine’s services.
Abominable low man
Reviled killer Arthur Freeman has had a maximum security makeover.
Freeman, whose sickening history needs no repetition, is said to have grown enough hair from every part of his body to look even more like an animal.
“He looks like a yeti,” one fellow in the know said last week.
Kickboxer linked to Melbourne’s underworld emerges in Dubai
High-flying fighter and trainer Salim Aschna has become the latest figure with ties to Melbourne’s underworld to relocate to the Middle East, opening an up-market restaurant in the region.
Warrnambool dad killed over rental dispute, court hears
A Warrnambool man whose body has never been found was killed with a baseball bat and buried in a bush grave over a rental dispute with his landlord, a court has heard.