Victoria’s high-risk criminals facing firearm prohibition orders
If these thugs touch a gun they face 10 years in jail. They’ve been deemed the most high-risk criminals in Victoria Police’s war on firearms.
Victoria
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These men are among the 1490 criminals ordered not to touch a gun or face up to 10 years in jail.
Police have hit them with firearm prohibition orders (FPO), which prohibits a person over the age of 14 from acquiring, possessing or carrying a firearm.
The order lasts for 10 years for adults and five years for minors.
Police can search anyone subject to an FPO, their car or home at any time without a warrant.
JOSHUA GAHAN
The Swan Hill father was jailed in March for six years after contravening his FPO.
He was issued the FPO on September 27, 2020 due to his extensive rapsheet involving firearm offences in the five years prior.
But the following month he broke into a shed and raided four firearms from a gun safe at a Strathdale property, before fleeing on a stolen motorbike.
Police linked him to the crime through DNA on a cigarette butt he stupidly left at the scene.
A raid on the Kangaroo Flat property police found him staying at uncovered firearms buried in the garden.
Gahan, 31, pleaded guilty to offences including burglary, theft and firearm possession in contravention of an FPO.
He blamed his offending on associates who were “not a positive influence” on him and attempts to fund his drug habit.
Judge Claire Quin told him that firearms and drug use were a “dangerous combination”.
“A market for firearms only encourages criminal activity,” she said.
“Those who engage in such conduct need to be aware that they will be punished.”
He has to serve three years and eight months before being eligible for parole.
TOBY MITCHELL
The former Bandidos bikie who recently was ousted as Mongols boss has miraculously survived two attempts on his life.
But he claims he has never armed himself with a gun.
That’s why he was surprised when police slapped him with an FPO the moment they were introduced in May 2018.
“I’ve never carried a gun in my whole life,” the bikie enforcer told this paper at the time.
He labelled the move “police harassment”.
“They can now raid me and search me for no reason without a warrant, wherever I am, 24 hours a day,” he said.
Mitchell, now 47, fit the “high-risk” profile, in the police’s eyes, for an FPO due to his criminal history, including unlawful assaults, recklessly causing injury charge and affray — and associations with outlaw motorcycle gangs.
HAYDEN BONNICI
While being served with an FPO by the anti-bikie Echo task-force in the carpark of a Bendigo shopping centre in October 2020, Bonnici was asked if he had any weapons on him.
He said no. It was a lie.
Detectives then found a double-barrel shotgun — separated into two pieces — in his backpack. The serial number had been scratched off.
A search of his car found a kitchen knife in the door pocket, three spent ammunition cartridges in the glovebox and an unused round on the back seat.
Bonnici, 28, later pleaded guilty to weapons and drugs offences and he was jailed for 22 months, with a non-parole period of 15 months.
COLIN “THE SNAKE” WEBSDALE
The former Rebels president was among the first to be slapped with an FPO on May 29, 2018.
The Police Commissioner said it was in the public interest to do so because of his criminal history and the people he associates with, namely Rebels bikies.
He has 26 previous criminal convictions, including violence, drugs and firearms offences.
Websdale is a life member of the Rebels motorcycle gang, holding roles including president of the Geelong chapter, Victorian president, and state vice president from 2005 to 2016.
PETER “SKITZO” HEWAT
This Melbourne Hells Angels elder statesman is no stranger to police.
He has done jail stints with a rapsheet including assaults, drugs and weapons offences.
Hewat also once threatened to kill a grandmother over a dispute about his Shih tzu dog.
In his decades with the OMCG, he has been a respected leader known for keeping other members in check and maintaining order at the club.
Hewat was among those raided in a major 2013 police operation aimed at finding machine guns which had been used in attacks on properties linked to the Comanchero.
In October 2020, police served a firearm prohibition order on Hewat as part of a National Day of Action targeting the Hells Angels.
STEPHEN “STIFFY” ROGERS
Another influential Hells Angels who was slapped with an FPO alongside Peter “Skitzo” Hewat in dozens of raids in the 2020 National Day of Action.
Rogers was the founding boss of the Campbellfield-based East County chapter of the feared outfit.
He was sergeant-at-arms of the Nomads motorcycle gang before that.
In 2007, he was jailed for three years for drug trafficking.
He also came under scrutiny in the 2013 operation against Hells Angels members, and was a suspect over an attack in which a police station was peppered with bullets decades ago.
KOSH RADFORD
As the “world president” of the Finks, Radford is a target for Australian law enforcement agencies.
The moment police got FPO powers, he was one of the initial 85 “high-risk” subjects to be issued one.
The burly bikie, who is also known as Koshan Rashidi, moved to Melbourne from Sydney almost seven years ago.
He has made headlines on more than one occasion, from the ATO chasing him for a $600K tax debt and being barred from entering Bali with his family.
He was once accused of setting his dogs on police.
Just last year a magistrate lectured him about his approach to fatherhood, before fining him $6000 over a wild brawl at a Melbourne strip club.
Radford has been credited as having boosted Finks club membership since he took over national presidency in 2013.
DALE O’SULLIVAN
Former gun dealer Dale O’Sullivan was handed a firearm prohibition order on December 3, 2020.
Court documents stated the reasons were one or more of the following: “your criminal history; your behaviour; the people with whom you associate; you may pose a threat or risk to public safety based on the information known to the Chief Commissioner”.
Mr O’Sullivan is authorised to use a gun to shoot eastern grey kangaroos on his property.
In 2001, Mr O’Sullivan’s then-nine-year-old son accidentally shot his 10-year-old brother at their Woodend home.
The older boy died of his injuries.
Mr O’Sullivan has criminal convictions, including for assault and stalking.
LUKE DE BONO
Debono was once jailed for a year after he was found with a sub-machine gun in a pink gym bag and loaded handgun in a Louis Vuitton satchel.
He was part of a crime syndicate that traded in drugs and guns.
In October 2020, police tried several times to serve an FPO on his Cobblebank parole address.
They later found him at a Maribyrnong property, handed him the FPO and made a search.
Five days later, local detectives used a warrant to seize CCTV footage allegedly showing him buying a semiautomatic handgun.
He was arrested with the help of Victoria Police’s Special Operations Group. A search of his BMW found a purpose-built hiding place under the dash containing two 9mm rounds.
Debono was remanded for breaching his FPO and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
A CZ-85 weapon with no serial number was later surrendered to the illicit firearms unit.
LUKE MOLONEY
As the national president of the Hells Angels, police felt it was in the public interest to slap Luke Moloney with an FPO.
Detectives allegedly found a gun at his Reservoir home last year.
The accomplished boxer was caught up in early morning police raids on Thursday as part of an investigation into drug trafficking linked to the OMCG.
Police allege they found drugs, including human growth steroids and cocaine, and a quantity of cash and drug paraphernalia at his home.
In a separate raid on an associate’s home in Glenroy at the same time, police say they found an imitation AK47 rifle.
Moloney, 42, runs the CBD-based Angel City chapter and was elevated to national president in July last year.
JOSEPH LONGORDO
Up until last year, Longordo had no criminal history.
But his links to the Mongols saw him slapped with an FPO, meaning police could raid him at any time.
He was the Mongols Port Melbourne chapter president, but a court heard last year he had quit the gang.
He was in court after a .22 calibre handgun and ammunition were found in his South Morang home during a police raid in July 2020.
In August last year, the 47-year-old pleaded guilty to firearms offences and was placed on a 12-month community correction order.
During the FPO raid, his youngest son, James Longordo, 22, was found with a Taser.
The 22-year-old later pleaded guilty to a string of traffic, property damage and weapons offences racked up in 2019 and 2020 and was convicted and fined $2000.
CAMERON STANKOVSKI
The former president and sergeant-at-arms of the Geelong Bandido chapter has a rap sheet stretching back to 2016 when he was jailed for six months on drug trafficking, firearms and weapons charges.
He was served with an FPO at his Armstrong Creek home on April 15, 2019.
On that day, police searched the property and found more than $19,000 cash and drugs.
He claimed the money was payment for his work driving a forklift at the Epping market.
Stankovski later pleaded guilty to dealing with proceeds of crime, possessing steroids, possessing controlled weapons and possessing a prohibited weapon.
NATHAN GARTSIDE
The 31-year-old Ballarat father of four has a criminal history dating back to 2009 including crimes of violence, and weapons and firearms offences.
He was served with an FPO on July 22, 2020.
On May 28 last year, police used their powers under the FPO to search his home, uncovering a stash of firearms and drugs.
In the wardrobe of his bedroom, five firearms, including an Enfield .303 calibre bolt action repeating rifle stolen in a burglary and a black air rifle with defaced serial number and a fitted scope, were found.
The others seized were a single shot flare gun which had been modified by sleeving the existing barrel to accommodate a 12-gauge shotgun cartridge, an improvised revolver-style handgun secreted in a cavity underneath the bottom drawer, and a colt gel blaster found between the mattress and the headboard.
Gartsideme pleaded guilty to offences including possession of a trafficable quantity of firearms and contravening his FPO, and was jailed for three years and eight months, with a non-parole period of two years and seven months.
ILIJA STOJANOVIC
By the time Ilija Stojanovic was seven years old, he knew how to handle a gun.
He had been born in Novi Grad, a small farming village in Bosnia, and experienced significant hardship, poverty and trauma because of the Bosnian War.
He was exposed to constant bombing, gunfire and danger.
Aged 10, he migrated to Australia, living in Hampton Park in Melbourne’s southeast.
It would be 13 years later in 2012, aged 23, that he would front court for the first time,
for possession of cocaine, an unregistered handgun and a controlled weapon.
He avoided a conviction and was fined.
A firearm prohibition order was served on him on May 30, 2018.
On Christmas Eve 2019, he was arrested with two associates sitting around a table smoking ice in the carport of a Dandenong home.
On the table was a gold imitation handgun.
Stojanovic also had a loaded five-shot revolver tucked into his pants.
In April last year he pleaded guilty to drugs and firearms offences, including possession of a firearm in contravention of a firearm prohibition order.
He is serving a maximum four-year jail term, but would be eligible for parole later this year.
JAKE SPITERI
Former Rebels bikie Jake Spiteri, 30, has been the subject of an FPO since September 4, 2018.
But it did not stop him from continuing to arm himself with a gun.
He claimed he needed one to protect himself after leaving the OMCG.
When police raided his Tarneit home on February 20, 2020, they seized a loaded .38 revolver, an ankle holster, a gun ammunition belt, two boxes of ammo, a firearm holster and a camouflage baton.
Analysis of Spiteri’s phone revealed he had ordered a blowback pistol from eBay in September 2019 using a false name.
He was sentenced to a minimum of 22 months’ jail after pleading guilty to charges including possessing a firearm, attempting to acquire firearms and drug offences.
JASON NELSON
Links to an OMCG and a shocking criminal history including an armed holdup of a milk bar where he pointed a gun at the attendant’s face were reasons for police to serve an FPO on Jason Nelson on July 31, 2020.
The 46-year-old Mongol is currently serving a minimum five-year jail term for waving a gun at a man during a terrifying bungled drug rip-off at Bundoora in April last year.
He was arrested at the club’s Port Melbourne clubhouse where he was living.
DYLAN CRAGG
Dylan Cragg’s rapsheet dating back to 2012 includes many weapons offences, in particular armed robberies.
It was his offending that saw him slapped with an FPO on November 29, 2020.
Four months later he was arrested following a crime spree and police chase.
When police raided his South Melbourne property in May last year, they found a double-barrel side-by-side longarm, a loaded sawn-off rifle, as well as passports, Medicare cards, licences and bank cards in the names of others.
He later pleaded guilty to possessing a trafficable quantity of firearms and carrying a firearm contrary to FPO.
The father, 41, is currently serving a two-year and eight-month sentence.
A court heard he was the son of a police officer.
ELVIN BAFTO
Bafto is a bikie-connected 31-year-old allegedly caught on video firing a fully automatic sub-machine gun up to 15 times into a derelict motor vehicle at Nar Nar Goon.
It is unclear when he was served with an FPO.
But when facing court on charges of possession and use of a firearm, it was revealed he was the subject of such an order.
Police charged him after allegedly finding the footage on another man’s phone during an unrelated investigation.
Bafto, using his WhatsApp handle “Elvy Boy 2”, had allegedly sent the video to that man.
His case returns to Dandenong Magistrates Court in June.
RICHARD PORTELLI
Criminal history is one of the main reasons police use to issue an FPO.
Portelli’s rapsheet was once described by a judge as “lengthy” and “unenviable”.
An FPO was issued against him in May 2019.
On February 20, 2020, police arrested him at his home over a series of car thefts.
A search of his property uncovered a black snub-nosed .22 calibre revolver stashed in a heating vent alcove in the hall.
It was loaded with six live rounds.
Portelli, now 34, later pleaded guilty to car theft and firearms offences and was jailed for two years and eight months.
AHMED EL-REFEI
Police served a firearm prohibition order on El-Refei on April 4, 2019, citing it was in the public interest due to his criminal history in the previous five years, including drug and weapons-related offences.
In 2017, he was convicted of being a prohibited person possessing a firearm.
On October 6, 2019, he was allegedly involved in an aggravated home invasion in Hallam where a man was non-fatally shot in the lower abdomen.
MEHMET KUMAS
Within weeks of being served a FPO, Mehmet Kumas embarked on a series of dealings with lethal firearms.
But police were watching him.
And a covert sting would see him go on to sell deadly guns and drugs from the boot of his car to an undercover officer on 12 occasions from November 2018 to February 2019.
As he handed over a handgun, he told the covert operative: “Cuz give it a wipe down. I don’t want my fingerprints on it. They served me with a firearm prohibition order cuz. You know what that is? Anything with firearm related now, I’ll automatically do 5 years’ jail.”
The Roxburgh Park man is currently serving a maximum 14-year jail term after pleading guilty to drug trafficking (ice and cocaine) and to firearms offences, including disposing of a trafficable quantity of unregistered firearms.
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