Tony Mokbel first words from jail as he bets his appeal is ‘next big chapter of Lawyer X scandal’

Tony Mokbel, the underworld’s biggest gambler, bet on the wrong lawyer, Nicola Gobbo, who turned against him. Now he hopes the Lawyer X scandal will unlock his cell door.

Exclusive: Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel says an interstate judge could hold the key to his trafficking convictions being overturned on appeal in “the next big chapter of the Lawyer X scandal”.

In his first words from Melbourne’s Barwon Prison, where he is serving a 26-year term, the infamous gangland figure said he also hoped to be on bail at home with his daughters when his matter is heard in 2025.

And if his convictions are quashed, he wants to visit his mother’s grave, as she has passed during his time behind bars.

“This is going to be the next big chapter of the Lawyer X scandal … that’s what I believe,’’ Mokbel said through a source at Barwon Prison, his home since 2008.

“I’m in extremely good spirits. I’m very happy with a judgement that’s not corrupted.

“I’ve got no idea (when I’ll get out). I’ll be glad to see the kids and family.

“The first thing I’m going to do is go to the cemetery and see my mum. She’s passed away since I’ve been in jail.’’

Gangland boss Tony Mokbel with Nicola Gobbo outside court in 2004.

Mokbel’s bid for freedom, which began in earnest in 2017, was buoyed last month by a ruling by a judge that a “joint criminal enterprise” took him down.

New South Wales Justice Elizabeth Fullerton was scathing of Victoria Police’s recruitment of Nicola Gobbo, his then barrister, who was recruited to inform on Mokbel in 2005 with the sole aim to jail her client.

Mokbel fled from a 2006 court case, allegedly at the advice of Gobbo, who went on to become known as Lawyer X, before she helped police extradite him from Greece two years later to face charges, including murder.

He was acquitted of the murder of underworld veteran Lewis Moran, who was gunned down by masked men at The Brunswick Club Hotel in 2004, while prosecutors withdrew charges against Mokbel over the killing of Michael Marshall.

The 59-year-old also believes his convictions for drug trafficking – dubbed operations Quills, Orbital and Magnum – are a clear “miscarriage of justice’’ which are written in ``black and white’’.

Tony Mokbel arrives at a court in Athens in 2008 after being arrested in Greece the previous year. Picture: AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis

It is not known if Victorian or interstate judges will hear Mokbel’s appeal in 2025.

Mokbel, however, is not making any predictions about his potential release.

“I really don’t know … it’s up to the Appeal Court,’’ he said of his chances.

Mokbel’s tone is upbeat despite the “shocking environment’’ he is held captive.

The drug tsar, who has already had one conviction for cocaine trafficking quashed, has been detained in the Acacia Unit, an isolation unit within Barwon Prison, near Geelong, since he was brutally bashed by other inmates in 2019.

His neighbours include underworld firebrand George Marrogi and Russell Street bomber Craig Minogue, who he can shout to through the walls.

Until recently, Mokbel was running up to 14km a day on a treadmill to kill the boredom and he has turned his sparse cell into a makeshift library, filled with legal documents dedicated to the Lawyer X scandal.

Tony Mokbel being worked on by paramedics at Barwon prison Lara after being attacked by inmates. Picture: Seven News

Mokbel’s mission is to turn this scandal into the key that unlocks his cell door.

The man once known as “The Mayor’’ and “Fat Tony” believes last month’s Fullerton ruling is the best hand he has been dealt by a court since he was flown into Melbourne Airport aboard a Gulfstream jet and immediately jailed in 2008.

But it took a New South Wales justice to deliver it.

Justice Fullerton’s job was to determine fact from fiction on 24 questions.

Over five months, witnesses ranging from Mokbel to former chief commissioners, a sitting Supreme Court judge and prosecutors gave evidence.

In a stern ruling, Justice Fullerton admonished Victoria Police over the Lawyer X scandal and labelled the evidence of the force’s former chief Simon Overland as “unworthy of acceptance’’.

She was also critical of a sitting Victorian Supreme Court justice, John Champion.

As exposed by the Herald Sun during its Lawyer X investigation, Justice Champion, who was then the Director of Public Prosecutions, was told about Gobbo’s role as an informant against Mokbel by Victoria Police in 2012, but failed to disclose it to him, according to Justice Fullerton.

Tony Mokbel arrives at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne on November 25. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

At the time, Mokbel was appealing his case even though he had pleaded guilty to multiple drug trafficking crimes.

Three years later, Champion attempted to rectify the disclosure after the Lawyer X scandal was exposed by the Herald Sun.

But Champion was sued by Victoria Police to stop him.

Justice Fullerton described the initial failure to alert Mokbel that his long-time lawyer was a snitch as an “error of judgment’’.

The impact of Gobbo’s recruitment infected more than 1000 cases.

And Justice Fullerton’s assessment of the Lawyer X scheme would have been noted by newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Kerri Judd.

Last year Judd, in her role as Director of Public Prosecutions, rejected a recommendation by Lawyer X Special Investigator Geoffrey Nettle to criminally charge Gobbo and key police involved in the scandal.

Tony Mokbel in jail. He hopes to one day be at home with his daughters when his matter is heard in 2025.

But for the former Ferrari-driving Mokbel, there hasn’t been a wind in his sail like this since he fled Australia on a luxury yacht named the Edwena en route to Europe.

His great escape came just six months after Gobbo’s recruitment as an informer known as “human source 3838’’.

Her first meeting with the man who would turn her into a “golden’’ informer was in a hotel room in Southbank, a stone’s throw from a penthouse apartment Mokbel owned.

Tellingly, the first question Gobbo was asked when she met the officer in charge of the “Source Development Unit’’, “Mr White’’, in the city hotel room was: “Tell me everything you know about Tony Mokbel.’”

At the time Mokbel was about to face trial over a 3kg cocaine importation.

During the 2006 trial, Gobbo, who was acting for him, kept police informed of his defence strategy and, toward the end of the hearing, as Mokbel has testified, told him to flee in the knowledge he was about to be hit with a murder charge.

Mokbel says he took her advice while Gobbo has denied telling him to flee.

So far Mokbel, who has taken legal action to get out of the Acacia Unit, where his mate Carl Williams was killed in 2010, has had his cocaine importation conviction quashed due to the Lawyer X scandal.

Tony Mokbel has many convictions linked to drugs before and after he fled overseas.

His remaining convictions involve drug trafficking before and after he fled Australia in 2006.

The Quills police operation captured Mokbel trafficking the drug MDMA in 2005, Operation Magnum related to Mokbel’s drug syndicate known as The Company and the trafficking of methylamphetamine while he was on the run, and Operation Orbital captured Mokbel’s attempts to import illicit drugs from overseas.

Currently, his earliest parole date is 2031.

But freedom may not be enough.

Mokbel might come back for about $60m in assets that were confiscated under proceeds of crime laws, which would be a first under Victoria’s Confiscations Act when a conviction is set aside.

Authorities seized more than 60 properties, dozens of cars and motorcycles and millions of dollars in cash and jewellery.

Mokbel mixed legitimate business with his drug dealing, beginning with a pizza shop in Melbourne’s outer east to owning the Brunswick Market, restaurants, bars and even a hair salon.

And he almost got a major apartment complex approved all while feeding an emerging party-drug market with millions of illicit pills.

The big question for Mokbel is, will police attempt to re-charge him?

Mokbel, who was the underworld’s biggest gambler, feels he has nothing to lose.

And he is ready to go all in.

Originally published as Tony Mokbel first words from jail as he bets his appeal is ‘next big chapter of Lawyer X scandal’