Peter Forni worked at Melbourne’s top state schools before arrest
A Melbourne man who taught at Toorak’s prestigious St Kevin’s College, as well as a string of Melbourne’s top state schools, was seen as a “good teacher” before he was arrested for his alleged role in one of Australia’s biggest cocaine smuggling rings.
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Accused drug smuggler Peter Forni spent decades working at a string of Melbourne’s top state schools while leading a life as a mortgage broker, pilot and anti-drug advocate.
A former bankrupt with a young daughter, Mr Forni allegedly became involved with an international drug ring with links to the mafia and faces a life sentence for his role smuggling 500kg of cocaine worth $80 million this year.
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal that while making regular trips to Europe, he was hired as a relief teacher from 2006 at Roxburgh College, Hume Central Secondary College, Diamond Valley College, the former Brimbank College, Lalor North Secondary College and Reservoir High School.
Mr Forni, who is also facing money laundering charges, was declared bankrupt in March 2009, just before he started working at Hume Central Secondary College.
In recent years he told students he had nowhere to live and was sleeping in his car.
Former students say he was a popular staff member, while others insist he left schools abruptly and one said he “should have had his registration removed years ago”.
Mr Forni also taught at St Joseph’s College in Geelong in 2017 and St Kevin’s College this year during the time he is accused of conspiring to import the cocaine haul.
He resigned after St Kevin’s acting principal John Crowley received complaints from a parent for talking to students about guns, bullets and his military links.
Despite holding many teaching roles in the past two decades, Pierino “Peter” Forni, 61, was only suspended by the Victorian Institute of Teachers on August 17 this year when he was arrested on drug charges. He did not have a criminal record.
Daniel Starcevic, 18, an aviation student from Geelong, had Mr Forni as a motor mechanic teacher at St Joseph’s College in year 10 in 2017.
“He was a really good teacher who had a good relationship with all the students,” he said.
“He wanted us to call him Peter and told us if we called him Sir we’d have to do 20 push-ups.”
Anglican reverend David Peake, OAM, has known him for 30 years and said Mr Forni was going to set up an office in the back of the bargain shop Mr Peake runs to support homeless people and drug-addiction issues in Thornbury.
“Peter always expressed a level of dismay for people who’d use and abuse drugs. He doesn’t drink, only soda water,” Reverend Peake said.
Mr Forni was also an active committee member at Point Cook Flying Club and owned a Piper aeroplane which was registered to a modest rental property in Nunawading which is now on the market.
From November 2016 to May 2020, Mr Forni was licensed as an Australian Financial Services Authorised Representative and from 2002 ran a mortgage business out of Pascoe Vale.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department confirmed “a former government school employee has been charged with criminal offences”.