'If anything happens to Joseph Acquaro we'll know where to start looking'

• Mafia lawyer gunned down in East Brunswick
• Portrait of a gangland lawyer as a young man
• 'He brought cannoli': Grief over 'gentleman' lawyer
• Melbourne's most notorious underworld executions

On June 19, 2015, detectives from Victoria Police's Purana taskforce made two important visits to two Italian community members.

The first was to criminal lawyer and cafe owner Joseph "Pino" Acquaro. They warned him a suspected senior Mafia figure had put a $200,000 contract on his life. The second visit was to the workplace of the alleged Mafia figure himself.

Their message to him was clear: "If anything happens to Joe Acquaro, we'll know where to start looking."

Mr Acquaro was handsome, caring and passionate about his community and culture. He helped out elderly Calabrians and gave jobs to those who needed a hand. He was a charming and gracious restaurateur.

Joseph "Pino" Acquaro, Melbourne criminal lawyer allegedly wanted dead by the Mafia, was gunned down in St Phillip Street in Brunswick.Credit: Jason South

He was also in big trouble.

In the early hours of Tuesday, almost nine months after they issued that warning, Mr Acquaro was gunned down outside his Brunswick East cafe in what police say was a drive-by shooting. Media described it as a gangland execution.

The police warning last June was part of a tactic, what they call "disruption". They had intelligence about a threat to Mr Acquaro's life, they did not believe they could guarantee his safety, so they told everyone they knew what was happening, trying to make the stakes so high for his presumed attackers that it would deter them.

Police did have another option. They could have thrown resources (surveillance, warrants, phone taps) at watching those who allegedly wanted to hurt Mr Acquaro. Since this alleged threat was presumed to be part of a dispute within the international 'Ndrangheta, or Calabrian honoured society, Victoria Police could have invited the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police to join their investigation.

Police outside Joseph Acquaro's Gelato bar in Brunswick East.Credit: Jason South

Italian organised crime is highly disciplined, with an almost impenetrable honour code. As any number of police reports can attest, it operates nationally and internationally, using family ties, history, culture, and language to conceal its operations.

For police, cracking the code using the full suite of anti-gang police activity would be hugely expensive. Those tactics had last been deployed by Purana at the height of Victoria's gang war. It was successful in gathering hard evidence that led to arrests and prison terms, but in the meantime many people died.

Victoria Police and State Emergency Service workers at the scene where the body of Joseph Acquaro was found in Brunswick East on Tuesday.Credit: Eddie Jim

On this occasion Victoria Police decided not to use the multi-agency taskforce approach, they preferred to try to disrupt any impending violence. They also urged Mr Acquaro to take his own security measures. For whatever reason – bravado, fatalism, distrust of police – he refused.

In the months following, the case cooled. The alleged protagonists kept their heads down. Mr Acquaro relaxed back into his life. Then he lost it, to be discovered by garbage men on a roadside at 3am.

As a lawyer, Mr Acquaro represented those at the highest levels in Melbourne's Mafia. This began after Melbourne's then undisputed godfather, Liborio Benvenuto, requested he represent the legal interests of several well-known Melbourne Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable market grocers. For decades he defended the organisation's scions in criminal cases, likely giving him a rare insight into the plotting and planning at the higher levels of the organisation.

But sources say he was never in the inner sanctum and was not directly involved in any criminality.

The role allowed him to float between the underworld and the political world. He had many political contacts in both Liberal and Labor parties.

It was Mr Acquaro who arranged the community lobbying campaign, which included a series of donations to the Liberal Party, and which ultimately resulted in then immigration minister Amanda Vanstone granting a visa to criminal figure Frank Madafferi. Madafferi is now doing an extended stint in prison for Australia's biggest ever party drug import.

In recent years, though, Mr Acquaro had developed many enemies in the Mafia. He fell out with senior figures who were one-time clients of his criminal law practice. He had a fist fight with one of them in his shop. His family was estranged from him. Some friends chose other people to spend their time with.

Apart from all this, from 2014, Fairfax Media was giving an extraordinary level of scrutiny to the activities and political connections of Mafia figures. Police warned Age reporter Nick McKenzie the Mafia was organising surveillance on him. He should do something about his personal security, they said, and he did.

Mafia figures blamed Mr Acquaro for being the source of those stories. This is among the number of things the police are now investigating as a possible motive for murder.

But there was also immense tension with family members and a restaurant world where people were jealous of his success. He was involved in a tussle for control of Melbourne's Reggio Calabria club. Perhaps he'd become embroiled in a financial dispute, or a criminal he'd represented, completely unrelated to the Mafia, was unhappy with the service. Perhaps this was a random drive-by event.

His Mafia links may be behind his murder. Or they may not.

But with all that the police know about his connections and the threats to him, it's time for them to move from disruption to concerted action.