G-Fam founder opens up on life inside, Tony Mokbel attack
A founder of notorious prison gang G-Fam has opened up on the stabbing attack on Tony Mokbel by two of its members and the origins of the group that has become a force in Victoria’s jails.
Police & Courts
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A founder of notorious prison gang G-Fam has opened up on a near-fatal attack on Tony Mokbel by two of its members.
David Obeda said he knew Mokbel from his time at Barwon Prison, where the drug boss was attacked early last year, and had nothing against him.
Two G-Fam members, Teira Bennett and Eldea Teuira, launched a brutal onslaught in which Mokbel was stabbed and suffered a fractured skull, brain haemorrhage and extensive blood loss.
Obeda, who said he knew both assailants well, described it as an “unfortunate incident” and said he had no beef with Mokbel.
“When I first went to Melaleuca (prison unit), I was a next-door neighbour of him,” he told The Warfare podcast.
“I considered him a mate.”
Mokbel was attacked after claims emerged he had been involved in stopping a standover racket operating inside the jail.
Obeda said there had in the past been allegations he was standing over other inmates at Barwon but he was not at the jail when Mokbel was ambushed and it came as a surprise.
“I wasn’t there, bro. That’s the truth of it,” he told the podcast.
Obeda said cultural factors played no part in the violence against Mokbel.
“It wasn’t a race thing. I’ve got heaps of Lebanese friends,” he said.
G-Fam has grown into a force in the state’s prison system in recent years.
Obeda, who grew up in Melbourne’s southeast, said it was mostly made up by Islanders and had its genesis in a group of “street kids” who went through the justice system together.
“We don’t answer to other races in jail; Asians or Lebanese or bikie gangs or anything like that,” Obeda said.
“We just started our own thing, not that we have any dramas with any of those guys.”
Part of the motivation was to find a way to get money, he conceded.
“A lot of the boys don’t have cash. We don’t have money on the outside. We’re not big drug dealers on the outside.”
Obeda, who is rated by corrections authorities as a serious violent offender, is now living in New Zealand after being deported by Federal authorities for his crimes.
He said he was now committed to God and did not want to go back to prison.
“If I had stayed back in Melbourne, I would have gone back to jail,” he said.
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