Deadline: Swank Toorak cafe Via Torino visited by police in cocaine import investigation

Toorak types were stunned to learn a swanky local eatery had been visited by detectives looking into a 45kg importation of cocaine.

Toorak Villagers were recently stunned to learn that their very own swanky Via Torino cafe has been turned over by detectives during a major cocaine investigation.

The Italian restaurant in Grange Rd is highly rated in the village where the rich and famous go to dine. Hardly the place you’d expect to see police, who are much more likely to be chowing down on a Chiko Roll with Coke (of the canned Cola variety).

Deadline certainly wouldn’t suggest that anyone involved in the day-to-day running of Via Torino has anything to do with the joint organised crime task force operation.

The jukebox allegedly used to try and disguise the cocaine importation.

Three men have been charged over the attempt to import 45kg of cocaine.

It’s more likely there is some vague connection between the desirable Grange Rd property and Spotswood man Ertgrei Gjeka, 39, who was picked up a couple of weeks ago over an alleged failed plot to smuggle 45kg of cocaine into Australia inside a jukebox.

The jukebox and the $20 million in cocaine it was alleged to contain were intercepted at North Sunshine after being detected by Border Force officers.

Mr Gjeka and Reservoir man Vaios Gkoumis have been charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug and attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.

A 66-year-old Greek national believed to have travelled to Australia with the music machine was released without charge, pending the customary further inquiries.

Of course, none of this would stop us calling in at Via Torino for a special wining and dining occasion. The popular Urban List website earlier this year rated it as one of Melbourne’s best Italian restaurants.

Hot but not hoochie mamas

The folk at the Moonclub brothel in Dandenong South wanted two things made clear on Sunday.

Firstly, they had nothing to do with a big hydroponic cannabis crop that went up in flames nearby. Second, Moonclub staff weren’t going to be dropping tools merely because of the blaze.

Their busy Twitter account — yes, even brothels have such a thing — assured the punters that everyone would be back on the job on Sunday, just hours after the crophouse inferno had turned to wet ashes and someone’s shattered pipedream.

A Deadline spy noted that each worker’s name was accompanied by a national flag, which made the roster look something like a World Cup soccer draw. The oldest profession has always been truly international and inclusive.

Fire crews and police mop up after the factory blaze. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Exit Terry Wild, the ghost who didn’t talk

If Terry Wild had died young and violently a long time ago, you can bet police cameras would have been taking sneaky pictures through long lenses at his funeral.

But the old painter and docker with the perfect ring name lived long enough to see off most of his scallywag friends and probably all his enemies. So when they bury him at Wangaratta on Thursday, mourners won’t have to worry that surveillance police are lurking behind headstones and trees.

The one-time boxer from Collingwood was, among other things, once reputedly a bodyguard of docks union heavyweight Pat Shannon, who was shot dead at the then Druids Hotel in South Melbourne in late 1972 just after Billy “The Texan” Longley got out of Pentridge.

The story goes that the shooter waited for Wild to finish his bodyguard shift before doing the hit. Wild wasn’t big and didn’t say much but was regarded as very dangerous and very willing when it came to making people disappear.

Billy Longley was given a life sentence for the murder of Pat Shannon.

When he later moved to northeast Victoria to retire among horses and dogs, he drove to Melbourne every payday to collect his envelope from the docks, where his name was still on the books. Some might suggest he was one of the “ghosts” paid for phantom shifts on the docks in return for services rendered.

Back in Wangaratta, old police warned young ones that the little old bloke who lived in a rough little place outside town and divided his time between the pub and the TAB was an old time gunman from the waterfront war of the 1960s and 1970s, and not to be trifled with.

The family’s death notice this week shows him as a young fighter with his fists cocked and carries the caption: “A member of the Painter & Dockers Union, he lived by their credo ‘Touch one, Touch all’.”

Wild was fond of the horses, the Magpies and dogs of the four-legged sort. He was a punter to the end, but couldn’t spot winners as well as he could spot plainclothes police, a skill he never lost even when he’d lost pretty well everything else.

Not that he blamed horses for putting a hole in his pocket. Mourners have been asked not to bother with flowers but to consider donating instead to Living Legends, the home of Retired Champion Racehorses. The hard man had a soft heart.

Farewell to a newsman

Former top television news crime reporter Darren Lunny has died, aged 55.

Lunny worked at channels Nine and Ten for some years where he was known for his diligence, wide-ranging contact book and knowledge of the field.

He covered Melbourne’s gangland war era with vigour, frequently ruining other journalists’ days with a well-executed evening bulletin scoop.

9 News Melbourne remembers the life and work of former crime reporter Darren Lunny, who died yesterday aged 55. #9Newspic.twitter.com/4zBW1WWDeQ

— 9News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) June 30, 2022

Lunny was also an accomplished photographer and went on to work in other fields after quitting television. His images were exhibited successfully and used for book covers.

He was last week remembered by family for his tenacity in the face of pancreatic cancer.

“He can now rest peacefully, knowing full well how much he was loved,” his wife Mel said on social media.

Channel 9 newsreader Peter Hitchener said Lunny was a brilliant journalist and a dear friend to all of the news team he joined in 2002.

“This was at the height of the gangland wars and Darren broke numerous angles on this huge story,” Hitchener said.

“He then went on to serve as our chief of staff for two years. We are deeply saddened at his passing and send our condolences to his wife Mel and sons Kane and Jack.”

Former Channel 10 newsreader Mal Walden called Lunny a friend. He said his colleague had a professionalism and integrity which helped him rise above many of his contemporaries.

“Our words of tribute will hopefully help heal his shattered family,” Walden said.

Gangway!

Who am I? I am an underworld figure with some experience of being carted around in the back of an ambulance, so it’s reasonable to assume that the importance of unimpeded access for paramedics isn’t lost on me.

Not so, apparently.

Word reaches Deadline that I was parked in an ambulance bay during a recent hospital visit.

Tip: I do get shot at occasionally, but I am not Dave Hedgecock.