Deadline: Why crooks are dressing up as cops

Cops expect to find meth, guns and cash in a drug raid, but they’re starting to find something else — police uniforms. Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Melbourne’s top crime writers Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

DRESSED TO KILL

There are big busts, like the massive raids that rolled up organised crime networks across the world at the start of the week. And there are small ones, such as when detectives swooped on an alleged drug dealer’s house in Little Buckingham St, Richmond a few days earlier.

In both cases, among the drugs, cash, and illegal weapons, investigators found something else … law enforcement uniforms.

When cops raided the Richmond house, they expected to find the meth, ketamine and GHB, not to mention the batons, machetes and samurai swords: normal stuff in drug dens, sometimes alongside pet snakes, tropical fish and exotic birds.

A police uniform was found among the millions in cash and drugs seized during the raids.

The surprise find was a prison officer’s uniform. Did the crooks want it for a particular criminal enterprise?

Or had it just fallen into their hands then kept for a rainy day?

The same could be asked about a police uniform found among the millions in cash and drugs seized during this week’s raids — part of a sensational attack on organised crime by the FBI, which fooled big crooks into trapping themselves with incriminating messages.

The bad guys can use almost any sort of service uniform to trick trusting citizens for the few moments needed to perpetrate a fraud, robbery — or worse.

A prison officer’s uniform could be just what an escapee needs to cross a prison car park or steal a car without raising suspicion. Or it could fool a motorist, shopkeeper or even law enforcement officers just long enough to give the bad actor an edge.

So could an airline pilot’s uniform, like the one that international conman Frank Abagnale used to scam people before switching sides and writing the bestseller Catch Me If You Can, his biggest con of all.

Police arresting a man in a Sydenham raid in connection with Operation Ironside.

Dressing up helps crooks pull off crimes. The notorious Richmond cash van heist of 1994 (see below), in which robbers posed as road workers, is a great example.

And Russell “Mad Dog” Cox routinely used a dust coat, horn-rimmed glasses and clipboard to “case” likely robbery targets.

Serial hit man Rodney “Duke” Collins and a dirtbag named Mark McConville used police uniforms to con their way into the house of minor drug dealer Ramon Abbey and his family in West Heidelberg in July 1987.

Once inside, Collins shot Abbey and killed his wife, Dorothy, with a knife.

This atrocity was similar to the butchering of Mike “Lucky” Schievella and his wife Heather McDonald at their St Andrews home in 1990, which suggests that Collins used the same trick to fool them into opening the door.

There’s a big chance that Collins used a similar disguise to persuade the wary informer Terry Hodson to let him inside his house in Kew, in 2004, just before Hodson and his wife Christine were murdered.

All of which means that police take it seriously when they do a raid such as one in Cranbourne a few weeks ago in which they found a police uniform, 35 ballistic vests, gelignite and enough guns for a small revolution.

They aren’t props for a school play.

NO MERCY FOR PERCY

A court finally pointed Percy at the penitentiary last week over his involvement in the $2.3m Richmond road gang heist of 1994.

Percy “No Mercy” Lanciana outside court in 2019. Picture: Sarah Matray

That would be Percy “No Mercy” Lanciana, one of the hardest nuts of the Australian underworld.

Lanciana was for decades a major player in Melbourne kickboxing, pastime of many a villain.

His old mate Paul “The General” Fyfield shared a story a while back about the night Lanciana stepped in to referee a bout at one of the fight nights they ran.

There were no doctors, registered trainers or officials.

“Willing” fighters would turn up and pay to fight rivals with the same idea.

Fyfield told the FightFit gym podcast that Lanciana was controlling a fight when one of the combatants started to take a beating.

The loser’s mates threw a towel into the ring to concede defeat. But Lanciana tossed it back into the crowd and let the fight roll on.

It was that sort of “sport”.

One of Lanciana’s fight game contemporaries still sets off airport metal detectors thanks to bullet fragments from various conflicts.

ANTICS OF A BLACK SHEEP

Even a leading professional family can have a black sheep.

This one first attracted attention when he had a string of disturbing rumours of violence in his relationships.

But to be suspected of serial domestic abuse isn’t the only mark against the black sheep. Turns out he’s an event organiser, a job description that can cover a lot of ground.

Acting as middleman in one proposed event, he leaned on a stage builder to add $15,000 to a quote and forward it to him to pass on to the unsuspecting client.

The idea, of course, was for the slippery one to skim the extra 15 grand from the unsuspecting client, sling the builder a “backhander” and pocket the rest.

Only problem was, the builder told him to jam it because it stank.

One day, sources say, we will see the black sheep in court.

And it seems trouble runs in the family, if his sister’s long-term self-employment is anything to go by.

How does she keep up the rent and the luxury car payments?

VALE IAN HARRIS

The death last week of Ian “Dizzy” Harris at an age when most people retire is a reminder of the damage done to police exposed to danger in their work.

Harris was the policeman bailed up by notorious gunman and escapee James “Jockey” Smith outside the Farmers Arms Hotel in Creswick in 1992.

Ian Harris suffered PTSD after shooting dead a notorious crim in Creswick. Picture: Ellen Smith

It was at least the third time that Smith had attempted to shoot a policeman in his long criminal career, which began in the 1950s alongside Ronald Ryan, last man to be hanged in Australia.

Other times, Smith’s guns had jammed. This time, he was distracted by a brave hotel patron, Darren Neil, who first poked Smith in the chest and told him to calm down, then drove his car at him to throw him off balance.

Harris was able to draw his own pistol and shoot in a showdown that damaged Neil’s car.

One veteran cop says Harris “was respected by everyone except the property branch who had to cough up for the civilian’s car.”

Ian Harris, dead at 59, went through the police academy with the current chief commissioner, Shane Patton. But he’d retired in 2009 at 47 because of post traumatic stress.

THE DIRT

Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent was doing an impromptu media conference about lockdown enforcement when onlookers started to smile and giggle.

They’d noticed he was standing in front of the “Ji Li Golden Hands” brothel.

The sort of rookie error that politicians learn to dodge early in their careers.

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