Extent of George Marrogi’s sprawling wealth and power revealed

A brother-sister duo from Melbourne’s northern suburbs amassed a drug fortune so large police found $10m in cash stashed in one of their 60 properties.

$10 Million in cash seized at one of the NCF properties.

George Marrogi’s gangland network controlled 60 Melbourne properties as the drug kingpin built wealth and power from inside a prison cell.

Authorities have stripped $47m in assets from his Notorious Crime Family gang, an immense portfolio Marrogi and Co amassed in the space of a few years.

The Herald Sun can reveal the full extent of NCF’s bloated holdings, brought undone by a joint Victoria Police-Australian Federal Police crime proceeds pursuit.

One of the group’s own photos shows $10 million cash piled up.

NCF controlled 60 residential properties, among them 33 parcels of land in the Brookfield Estate development site in Melbourne’s west, which were acquired as the gang became increasingly sophisticated.

An $800,000 superyacht, paintings by great Australian artists, $2.2m in cash and bank accounts have also been snatched by police under criminal proceeds laws.

The $800,000, 28 metre yacht moored in Fishermans Bend. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

NCF wasn’t going to take a knife to a gun fight. Machine guns seized in the raids.

Luxury cars, motorcycles and designer jewellery, now gone, were among other purchases.

Rent money charged on their properties has also been taken by authorities.

Police searches showed that when their will needed to be enforced, NCF could call on a potent arsenal of firearms to make their point.

Images show machine guns, semi automatics and pistols seized by investigators.

All of this and more was accumulated as Marrogi built his fortune while serving a murder sentence in maximum security.

Police suspect NCF cunningly zeroed in on areas where they could siphon government-funding to maximise their profits.

Investigators have identified a detailed spreadsheet showing what money went where and who owned what.

Marrogi ran the drug importation side of the business, estimated at bringing narcotics worth more than $1 billion into Australia while he was locked up in Barwon Prison.

Police believe his late sister, Meshlin, was a key factor in investing and trying to legitimise the profits.

They say her personality, intelligence and business savvy meant NCF – started ostensibly as a fundraiser for children in the family’s Syrian village of origin – diversified into a range of enterprises.

A complex forensic examination of their affairs by a team led by detective Sgt Nathan Toey of the Echo taskforce, found interests in heavy transport, the waste sector and reblocking.

Sgt Toey worked on the asset-stripping Operation Steelers from 2020, a parallel inquiry to the Australian Federal Police’s huge Fuji probe into NCF’s activities in drug importation and violent crime.

Sgt Toey said the syndicate also ventured into realty, luxury car hire, a gin distillery, loan-broking, skin care, eyebrow work and the timber trade.

Another of its other companies was training security guards.

There were also car washes, traditionally a favoured money-laundering vehicle for organised crime groups, and a timber yard.

Meshlin Marrogi set up many of the NCF businesses.

George Marrogi (centre) with younger brother Jesse Marrogi.

Sgt Toey said that, at one stage, NCF brought in a load of timber from Malaysia and Marrogi later tried to have a rival timber yard torched.

“He tried to put money out for them to do it and threatened them to do it,” Sgt Toey said.

He said there was also a web of shelf companies and other businesses doing nothing but paying the wages of NCF figures.

Among those who came under scrutiny were lawyers, banking figures and real estate agents, Sgt Toey said.

Loan-brokers, one in Melbourne and another in Adelaide, were another crucial element of the organisation.

The companies were used to launder money made by the NCF drug trafficking activities.

The sprawling investigation examined George and Meshlin Marrogi, other family members, associates and enablers.

Meshlin, who died in 2021, set up many of the businesses.

“Meshlin had everything running extremely well,” Sgt Toey said.

“She was buying artwork, she was buying cars and jewellery and moving money through different accounts and businesses.

“They had a proper business set-up and, effectively, watching Queen of the South is what they had set up.”

An assortment of firearms seized in the raids on NCF properties.

Authorities have stripped $47m in assets from the NCF gang.

Luxury cars, motorcycles and designer jewellery were among the items seized.

Among others who have come under scrutiny were lawyers, banking figures, real estate agents.

Loan brokers were another crucial element of the organisation.

Sgt Toey said the scope of the investigation was such that both state and federal police were needed.

“We can’t do it without the joint collaboration and targeting along with the dedication of both teams” he said.

The assets confiscation work was carried out under the umbrella of the AFP’s Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce, which put its in-house litigation lawyers and forensic accountants to work.

The CATC, which has 150 staff worldwide, uses restraint powers which operate to a civil standard under which it can be “reasonably suspected” that goods were the proceeds of crime.

Commander Paula Hudson of the AFP said the rapid growth of NCF showed how law enforcement needed to be equally responsive.

“It demonstrates how agile and well-connected criminal syndicates are. They don’t operate with any red tape,” she said.

“It (asset confiscation) is critical to dismantling their business model. Organised crime can’t exist without money and wealth.”