The step-by-step of one of Victoria’s biggest, most brazen gold heists
It was a random Monday morning in the CBD when one of the biggest, wildest gold heists in Victorian history began.
Police & Courts
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It was out of the ordinary when the call came in that Melbourne Gold Company had been held up.
It was 9.30 in the morning on a Monday. The business, on busy Collins Street in the heart of the CBD, was on level seven of a high-rise and only accessible by lift. And only a few people would know of the huge quantities of gold, cash and jewellery inside the nondescript office building.
It was brazen and the 2020 heist would go down as Victoria’s third largest armed robbery ever.
The shaking worker, Daniel Ede, detailed to detectives how a man with a trolley, dressed in tradie gear and wearing a Covid mask pressed the intercom saying he had a delivery. Once let inside, he brandished a pistol and ordered Ede round the business, emptying three safes, before tying him up.
It was only when two customers came to the store minutes later that Ede was untied and could immediately raise the alarm.
Around $3m in gold and cash was initially estimated to have been taken.
When Armed Crime Squad detectives arrived on scene, uniform police were already there, but dealing with another incident at a bank four doors down.
“You can imagine as the offender has come out of this armed robbery, the police are standing there formalising this other job and he’s had to act really casual to get to the car, put the stuff in and drive away,” Detective Sergeant Mark Walsh told the Sunday Herald Sun
“I bet at some point it crossed his mind he was in trouble.”
But that other incident was a stroke of luck for police. Fearing it could escalate, hi-vis Safe City Cameras were moved to the location and that provided Armed Crime Squad detectives with a fortunate breakthrough.
“It just happened to be at the same time this offender was doing the armed robbery and it captures the offender going back to his car,” Sgt Walsh said.
“We wouldn’t have had identification on the car straight away if the other job hadn’t happened.”
He added: “So we look at the CCTV and it is of this man getting into a white four-door Holden Colorado and it’s completely stock standard.
“I thought it had to be a fleet car or a hire car and then we noticed two little stickers, in the windscreen and the side window. I took a guess they were likely to be barcodes and I knew Budget scan in and scan out their hire cars. So we contacted all the hire car companies because the car had stolen plates on it and all of them said they didn’t use Holden Colorados.”
Hitting a dead end, detectives headed out to where the number plates were stolen from. Another dead end, no fingerprints and no CCTV footage.
“I just thought, humour me, we’ll go to a few of the hire car companies around here just to double check,” Sgt Walsh said.
“So the first one we go to is Budget in Camberwell and I pull into the driveway and sure enough, there’s this Holden Colorado sitting there in the driveway being cleaned.”
He added: “The person we spoke to initially just made the call off their own knowledge, without properly looking into it. They only have four of them in the country and three of them are used in the mines.
“They said it was hired out in the afternoon before the job and returned two hours after the incident. So we were like it has to be this car.”
The vehicle was hired out in an Asian female name but inquiries hit another dead end.
“She’s got no involvement, no criminal history, she’s out in a really nice house in Hawthorn, Sgt Walsh said.
“Her partner, Karl Kachami, is a finance teacher at Deakin University, he owns a second house on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy – which is a mansion – owns an antiques shop. He just didn’t fit the profile of an armed robber at all.”
The police had nothing, but the pressure was on due to the amount stolen and the knowledge cash can be easily exchanged and gold is often quickly melted down.
They follow Kachami just to see what he does, if he talks to anyone, if anyone else is involved.
He goes to Bunnings and buys some long PVC pipes, which police think “is a bit strange, but nothing else”.
“Then he stops near his mansion in Fitzroy and he dumps some stuff in a rubbish bin,” Sgt Walsh said.
“The investigators went and looked and the only thing of value was a cut up number plate. There was the letter S on each of them. We just thought it was a bit dodgy. The letters matched where the letters on the stolen number plates would be. Then we watched as he took these PVC pipes into his mansion in Fitzroy.”
Sgt Walsh added: “We just thought we are going to have to grab him because we have nothing else. The trail is going to go cold unless we try and do something to try and get the cash and gold back.”
Kachami denies any involvement.
“He’s really well spoken. He’s smart and he’s sitting there saying ‘yep, I hired that car, but I just moved some antiques from my store. I’m not sure why you have arrested me. I want to be as helpful as possible’.
“So we’re sitting in this interview room and he was giving us a story that was plausible, but still a bit odd.”
During the interview, police execute a search warrant on his house in Hawthorn.
In a big antique desk, officers find a semiautomatic handgun, a couple of pieces of gold and more cut-up number plate.
Detectives have their tails up.
“He then tells us a story that ‘yes, I hired the car, I did it for money, and when they finished doing the armed robbery they gave me bits of gold and told me to hang on to the firearm and return the car.’
“We were like, no, this doesn’t make sense.
“We said ‘you’re probably going to go to jail for this and people are going to know you’ve got $3m or $4m and you might know where it is and if we don’t get it back there’s issues with safety and people in jail are going to know you’ve got access to this money.’
He sticks to his story, but then says he’s seen a photo of where the gold is buried and can lead police there.
“It was now 10pm and I’ve had to call investigators back in after a 12-hour shift and tell them we’re going for a drive,” Sgt Walsh said.
“We get in the car, I get maps on my iPhone up and he says it’s in a place called Dollar – I thought he was having a laugh.”
He added: “We get there, it’s 1am, it’s raining and all we’ve got is our phone torches, one shovel and a crowbar, because that’s all we could rustle up in time.”
They walk 500m across farmland and Kachami points to a rock.
“So we start digging. We’re on our hands and knees and just trying to pull away the dirt. We’re taking it in turns but we’re soaking wet and covered in mud.”
After two hours and about 120cm deep, they find a toolbox, the same one as the offender used in the CCTV.
“I stood back at one point and thought ‘what are we doing’ – it was a bit surreal.
“When we found the toolbox I was expecting it to be like the movies where all the gold is glowing and stuff.”
Residents report to police the next day that after they had left, a man turned up in a car, walked to where they were digging and then took off at speed, but not before doing a burnout.
As news spread about the police being in town, another local contacted detectives.
They gave a man looking puzzled and staring into a Melways directions to Dollar. When asked why he was going there, he replied: “To do some digging”.
Police checked CCTV and realised the mystery man was gold dealer manager, Daniel Ede.
“We knew Karl wouldn’t have done this alone, but it was only at this point we were able to link Daniel,” Sgt Walsh said.
“When you first look at CCTV footage, you’re looking at the offender and stuff. But when we looked at the footage back again we noticed what Daniel was doing.
“It’s only slight but as Karl comes through the door he motions for him to pull the firearm out – he just makes a slight tilt of his head.
“And there’s another point where he is emptying out the cash and Daniel motions his head, pointing to the other side of the room. And where he was pointing – and Karl doesn’t pick up on it – is a safe with another six million in cash and gold.”
A raid on Kachami’s Fitzroy property revealed the PVC pipes contained $300,000 in cash.
Another $333,000 in cash, believed to be Ede’s share, remains missing.
“When the game was up, we went back to Karl and asked him why he did it and it was all to do with Covid,” Sgt Walsh said.
“He had turned his Fitzroy mansion into a 12-bed accommodation that he was renting out to uni students and when Covid hit, all the international students went home so then his rental income was lost and the house needed a lot of renovations and stuff – so it was purely just to fund that.”
Inside man Daniel Ede was sentenced in 2021 to five years and nine months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and nine months.
Fake bandit Karl Kachami was sentenced in 2020 to four years in prison, with a non-parole period of two years.
jon.kaila@news.com.au
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