Jailed heroin dealer ‘Machine Gun Charlie’ aims to land legal blow

“Machine Gun Charlie” moved from a bloodsport to the bloody underworld. Now he’s fighting to be the next Lawyer X “victim” to quash a conviction.

Kickboxer Dragan ‘Machine Gun Charlie’ Arnoutovic.

“Machine Gun Charlie” earned his nickname because of his quick hands in the boxing ring, not his penchant for firearms.

The champion kickboxer is aiming to be the next Lawyer X “victim” to knock over an old conviction, but the Supreme Court forum is a long way from the arena where he made his name.

The one-time macho man wanted to be a champion.

Instead, he ended up a jailed heroin dealer.

His given name, Dragan Arnautovic, was no match for his moniker, which followed him from his beloved bloodsport and into the bloody underworld.

And he doesn’t like it.

From his jail cell he sent the Lawyer X royal commission an excerpt from a book he was working on titled: “The true story of Charlie Machine Gun Arnautovic, a man who triumphed over seemingly insurmountable odds of the police (sic) corruption.”

In it the unrepentant Arnautovic takes aim at police, journalists, lawyers and politicians, who he argues conspired to take him down.

Boxer ‘Machine Gun Charlie’ Arnautovic.

“For some inexplicable reason my name has constantly been published in the (sic) crime novels … due to my nickname “Machine Gun Charlie”, he writes.

“The moniker that was bestowed upon me by a kickboxing promoter due to my lightning speed during my kickboxing/boxing career.

“My nickname has worked against me ever since for all the wrong reasons and has portrayed me in a ‘bad light’.

“I have been labelled in the crime novels as a gangster, which could not be further from the truth.”

The Croatian-born boxer is still fighting.

Arnautovic, who has been in and out of prison since the 1980s, is serving his latest sentence for heroin and methamphetamine trafficking.

But this is not the conviction he is trying to overturn.

Now aged in his 60s, the veteran criminal wants a heroin trafficking rap, committed in 1997, quashed because lawyer-turned-snitch Nicola Gobbo — known as Lawyer X — defended him.

The prolific letter writer casts himself as the patsy of a widespread conspiracy, even though it was one of three jail sentences he copped between 1999 and 2012.

In his submission to the Lawyer X royal commission in 2020, he named names, which for some reason Victoria Police chose not to black out.

The veteran criminal wants a heroin trafficking rap from 1997 quashed.

The “travesty of justice” that nailed him during his 1999 County Court trial included not only Gobbo, but other lawyers who represented him, his co-accused, corrupt police, the prosecutor and more, he claimed.

The outcome, he stated, was that he was found guilty on “fabricated evidence”.

Gobbo, who remains at large, remains out of sight.

But her antics with police were a belated gift to veteran criminals such as Arnautovic, who has already served his time over the drug trafficking he was charged with in 1997.

He has since returned to jail.

So why appeal an old conviction?

The answer, most likely, is to sue the state.

But maybe he is fighting to make a point.

Arnautovic’s submission asserts his 1997 drug charges were “grossly magnified” and that he was a “scapegoat”.

Charlie Arnautovic has never shown remorse. Picture: Facebook

He repeated this theme in a December 2021 jailhouse letter to this Herald Sun reporter, in which he wrote the evidence against him was “concocted”.

“You can (be) rest assured that my forthcoming appeal will expose the complicity of the Office of Public Prosecutions in the Lawyer X scandal, unless the DPP concedes to the miscarriage of justice in my case,” he wrote.

“Now that the tables have turned, I will be relentless in my pursuit to expose all those who waged a personal vendetta against me over many years for their own ends.”

The issue with Machine Gun Charlie has been that he has never shown remorse.

His rantings include: “At no time have I ever posed a danger to the community”.

That’s a big claim from a man whose criminal career began in 1980 when he was dealt with over a series of crimes including burglary and assault with a weapon.

The former top contender has since spent most of his life in prison.

Arnautovic’s first jail stint came in 1981 for behaving in an “offensive manner” in a public place, a magistrate sending him inside for seven days.

Things got worse.

By 1990, he returned to jail for a minimum seven years for trafficking heroin in spurts throughout the previous year.

When he was released, he ponied up again.

In 1999, the case he is appealing on the Lawyer X principle, a court found he was pushing almost a $1m of heroin on to the streets when he was busted.

The judge described trafficking heroin as a “vile trade” resulting in “misery and death”.

This detail has been overlooked in Arnautovic’s letters.

But the police shooting of his guard dog during his arrest by members of the highly trained Special Operations Group still makes him angry.

Arnautovic’s fights left him with a brain injury.

And he despised a reference in a crime book which described his beloved pooch “Gus” as a “slobbering monster”.

“My dog was not a slobbering monster, he was a well-trained and obedient guard dog,” Arnautovic writes.

“At no time during my arrest did my dog attack the members of the Victorian Police Special Operations Group, nor did I give my dog a command to attack the police.”

“My dog was shot when he sat on my back as I was laying on the ground to protect me from being harmed.”

Arnautovic, a high school dropout, has fallen a long way.

As a contender his life has some similarities to iconic silver-screen character Rocky Balboa.

Aged 18, he left home and worked at an abattoir for five years.

Then came a job on the docks in Port Melbourne and some work at Kraft foods.

Eventually, after a jail stint, he returned to the abattoir.

His toughness later led him into unlicensed security jobs, bodyguard work and professional boxing.

And just like the film character, Arnautovic’s fights in the ring and on the streets left him with brain injury.

But he kept getting up off the canvas.

In a period outside of prison, he turned to business.

It varied from selling fresh fruit to the business of the flesh.

The early hours of running a supermarket must have disagreed with him, so he opened a brothel.

In 2014, after yet another prison stint, he again tried to go straight.

Arnautovic completed a personal training course and opened a boxing gym in Melton.

It didn’t last.

Sadly, aged in his 50s, he returned to drug trafficking and this time he supplied to undercover cops.

And again he was charged, convicted and sentenced to a decade in prison.

He appealed and lost and remains an institutionalised inmate.

“Let he who has never sinned be first to judge me,” the former boxer wrote.

Arnautovic won’t go down for the count.