Deadline: Seismic changes destabilise Melbourne’s underworld

A jailing, a murder charge, a hostile takeover — seismic changes are destabilising Melbourne’s underworld and pushing it closer to another war.

Melbourne’s underworld hasn’t faced this much uncertainty in 20 years.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest crime buzz.

Trigger warning: Bikies sleeping with lights on

Call it the law of unintended consequences. The fact that alleged crime boss George Marrogi has just had his wings clipped in jail could tip the underworld closer to another gangland war.

As revealed in the Herald Sun last week, Marrogi has been charged with running a criminal organisation from inside, using coded phone calls to his ever-loving partner, a member of the well-known but largely extinct Mannella family.

Marrogi being taken out of the game is the latest in a series of events that’s pushing the underworld towards the chaos of a full-on firefight not seen in close to 20 years.

Melbourne underworld circles probably haven’t seen this much instability since the bodies piled up in the gangland war that took out more than 30 gangsters.

George Marrogi is off the streets and a lot of people are nervous.

There have been seismic changes on three separate fronts.

Earlier in the month, Toby Mitchell was punted from the Mongols.

Key men Mark Balsillie, Sam Abdulrahim and Jason Addison are gone with him, apparent victims of a purge by uncompromising Queenslanders Nick “The Knife” Forbes and Phil Main.

A lot of money and power is on the line.

There is huge potential for the scene to turn very ugly. The dismantling of the Notorious Crime Family gang will leave a business and power vacuum that others are desperate to fill.

Some of those previously afforded protection by Notorious Crime Family might be excused for sleeping with the lights on at the moment.

Comancheros boss Mick Murray is facing a murder charge. Picture: David Crosling

Predators are said to have been circling recently, among them a feared criminal with an itchy trigger finger and a younger thug with a grudge over a past murder.

Another big development came late last week.

If the Comancheros were laughing at the Mongol imbroglio, their smiles would have vanished after the arrest last Thursday of el supremo Mick Murray.

Murray is charged with the 2019 murder of Mitat Rasimi in Dandenong.

Despite talk that he was on the way out, Murray appeared to have retained his iron rule. But now he is facing charges, it will be interesting to see who takes control of the gang, not to mention how they execute their takeover plan.

Superannuation safety nets and redundancy schemes are not big in their business, whatever their business is.

Watch this space. From a safe spot.

Taking the P155

It’s a big beer heist that reeks of an inside job.

As Warrnambool gears up for its annual May race carnival, thieves have struck during preparations for the west coast city’s thirstiest time of the year.

It’s a fair bet not too many people knew that 1400 cans of beer were being stored in a shipping container at the track. But someone did …

In any case, the theft hasn’t really got those in charge frothing at the mouth, as it could have been much worse.

Warrnambool Racing Club chief Tom O’Connor made his nomination for understatement of the year when asked about the missing haul.

“It’s only a small portion (of beers) to what we put on during the carnival.”

Anyone who has headed to The ’Bool at this time of year can attest to that.

The 1400 cans nicked is but a drop in the ocean for the Warrnambool May races.

Laws, guns and money

Growing fears of festering hatreds turning from suburban skirmishes into full-blown underworld war (see above) highlight the reasons for the police’s targeted approach of disarming crooks by using the Firearms Prohibition Orders.

Dozens of crooks hit with the ­bans since 2018 have challenged them but failed, which is good for everyone — including tens of thousands of law-abiding shooters.

The laws don’t just prohibit the mad and the bad from legally obtaining guns. More importantly, they enable police to search the bad guys or their premises just as easily, say, as they can ask drivers to undergo breathalyser tests. That has to be a good thing.

The idea is to disrupt the black market in firearms, nailing illegal gun dealers as well as the criminals they sell to.

It seems a more effective measure than for authorities to make lazy blanket bans and restrictions that affect the law-abiding but don’t bother crooks one bit.

Australia’s tighter gun laws (since the Port Arthur mass shooting) have reduced the number of legally licensed shooters — but not the total number of firearms, which has in fact grown as licence holders have expanded their legitimate interests, which can range from target shooting to hunting, security and pest control.

Tighter gun laws reduced the number of legal shooters, but not the number of firearms.

Gunshot deaths in Australia have dropped from more than 600 in 1991 to a low of 196 in 2019 and hover about the 200 a year mark (compared with some 20,000 in the US). Of these, only one in six is a homicide and the rest are nearly all suicides, as there are relatively few accidental deaths these days.

The homicidal and suicidal have not vanished, of course. But many of those desperates now use other means because guns do not come so easily to hand.

Still, Australia’s rate of homicide-by-gun is one 14th of the United States’s rate, a success story that rates alongside the huge fall in Australian road deaths since the road safety campaigns led by our forebear, The Sun News Pictorial, in the 1970s.

As for accidental shooting deaths, in Australia they have dropped from lots in 1920 to very few now, proving that safety instruction, strict rules and licensing make an even bigger difference with guns than with cars.

Australians are far more at risk of being put in hospital by dog bites (running above 4000 a year) and by drowning and drug use than harmed by firearms. Then there are the rising numbers of bike deaths and injuries, with more than 10,000 cyclists a year being admitted to hospital.

Throw in the hardy perennial — falling from ladders — and you have an interesting fact: ladders, bikes, beaches and dogs harm far more Australians than guns do. Which has to be a hallmark of a successful, law-abiding society.

It just won’t seem that way when the bullets fly in the next gang war.

See you next Thursday

Seasoned media performers know to treat the microphone as though it’s always on.

It’s something a senior Queensland cop forgot recently, in the middle of a press conference with cameras rolling.

As the man in uniform plodded woodenly through his script with details of the latest anti-social activity by undesirable elements, a cheeky passing driver honked his horn and distracted him into committing a total cock-up.

The already irritable policeman instantly lost his cool, forgot where he was and gritted the memorable words “Thanks, c---”

He hastily asked TV reporters to cut that bit but he then got lesson number two: that such wonderfully embarrassing material will always find its way to the internet.

Indiscriminate use of the C-bomb seems to be a recurring problem up north.

A recent police press release about a bomb hoax was going along nicely until mention of someone being charged with “one c--- of bomb hoax.”

Just one little vowel changes everything.

That’s not the ticket

Word has it that a high-profile Melbourne gangland figure dropped some big money on a major sporting event some time ago.

The fellow, a lover of major sports fixtures of many kinds, found himself unable to attend because of a style-cramping court order.

Some believe the loss of his top-notch seats cost him in the order of $40,000.