How Carlton Crew mobster Mario Condello came undone

The brother of slain gangland figure Mario Condello believes he knows who had him killed – but his brother ordered a few hits of his own.

Enzo Condello believes the hit on his brother Mario was ordered by Carl Williams. Picture: Alex Coppel

The brother of slain gangland “money man’’ Mario Condello says the mobster ordered up to three hits during Melbourne’s underworld war and suspects they included the execution of the “Black Prince’’ of Lygon St, Alphonse Gangitano.

In an exclusive interview with the Saturday Herald Sun, Enzo Condello says his brother – shot dead in his Brighton driveway in February 2006 – was neck-deep in criminality including money laundering, protection rackets, loan sharking, extortion and insurance scams.

Mario Condello was a part of the Carlton Crew and Enzo says he is confident the hit was ordered by Carl Williams and carried out by underworld triggerman, Rodney Collins.

Enzo has written a new e-book called Mario Condello: The Making of a Mafia Don, which gives an insiders perspective of Melbourne’s bloody gangland era and details the role his brother and his Carlton Crew played in the bloodshed.

“Mario was misguided from the time he became a solicitor and he took the wrong path.

“He was fascinated by the mafia. Our relations were in the Calabrian mafia.

“Mario was seduced by the money, glamour and power.’’

Mario would gain infamy as the second last to be murdered in the “war’’, joining associates Alphonse Gangitano, brothers Gerardo and Vince Mannella, Frank Benvenuto, Victor Peirce, Nik Radev, Graham Kinniburgh, Andrew “Benji’’ Veniamin and Lewis Moran on the gangland death toll.

Mario’s mob ties earned him an audience with show business legend Frank Sinatra and operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

But Enzo says Mario drew the line at entering the illicit drug and sex trade because it was immoral.

This is despite Mario being convicted of drug trafficking in the early 1980s.

“Mario could be good and he could be bad, but he wasn’t evil,’’ Enzo said.

“He had a fall from grace. His life was like a Shakespearean tragedy.”

Mario with his parents at his law school graduation. Picture: Alex Coppel

There are some startling claims in Enzo’s book including;

• MONEY man Mario Condello considered getting Carl Williams involved in the Calabrian drug trade to stop the gangland bloodshed

• MARIO “arranged’’ the murder of criminal Lewis Caine in 2004, and “one or two others’’ in self-defence, also inferring Mario was behind the 1998 hit on Gangitano

• MARIO had knowledge Veniamin had gunned down Victor Peirce in 2002 and who ordered it

• MARIO assured Tony Mokbel he would be safe in a meeting he convened with outlaw bikies, which ended in the drug lord being bashed and drew the Carlton Crew further into the gangland war

• GANGLAND drug dealer Mark Mallia offered to be a “collector’’ for Mario and wanted to smuggle drugs into Australia for the Italian mafia

• MARIO tried to lure Benji Veniamin back from the Williams camp by putting him on the payroll to do “collection’’ work instead of executions before planning to bring in an overseas assassin to “eliminate’’ Veniamin.

Mario Condello was shot dead in his garage at his Brighton East home.

Forensic investigators comb the area near Condello’s Brighton East home.

Enzo writes that he was aware Lewis Caine had taken a contract to kill his brother and condoned him striking first in “self-defence’’.

“When you’re hunted, killing the hunter is morally acceptable,’’ Enzo writes.

“ … I later learned that the two guys, loyal to Mario, had lured Caine into a car and shot him in the head.”

The playwright writes his brother stored weapons, including an Uzi submachine gun, in his mother’s home and was dudded by a police informer.

While Enzo confirms his brother had turned to religion before his death, he dismisses speculation he was killed because he had “flipped’’.

The question still remains, who killed Mario?

“It’s a question that has plagued and preoccupied me for the last 16 years,’’ Enzo writes.

“I figured there was only two possibilities.....it was either the Calabrian mafia or Carl Williams and his crew.’’

He then suggests that during a trip to Italy he got his answer.

Mario, he was told, was killed on the orders of Williams. Four years later, it was suggested, the mafia had “taken care of the problem’’ by having Williams bashed to death in jail.

Mario Condello: The making of a mafia don IS AN ­­­E-BOOK only, AVAILABLE VIA smashwords.com ($12.95)