Crooks who zigged when they should have zagged

If you can manage to valet park your ethics, the gangster lifestyle is a most attractive option. You can work from home, you rarely worry about bracket creep and you have no need to fuss about staff social clubs or if anyone will steal your lunch from the office fridge.

The downside is if you happen to stuff up you might get blown up.

Tony Mokbel was arrested in Athens in 2007 wearing a wig.Credit: Reuters

Here, we list the top 10 blunders that brought down the high-flyers.

1) Mokbel goes to Greece

Drug dealer Tony Mokbel was not only a prolific drug dealer, but also an accomplished jailhouse lawyer, often seeking second and third legal opinions before embarking on a courtroom strategy.

When he jumped bail in 2006, fleeing overseas the following year in a 17.4-metre ketch named Edwena, he made two rookie errors. He sailed to Greece, which has an extradition treaty with Australia, and he believed international calls couldn’t be bugged.

In May 2007, he rang a member of The Enterprise, his drug syndicate back in Melbourne, asking, “Hey, buddy, what’s happening?” He said he was at Starbucks at the Glyfada Piazza.

The Edwena, which Mokbel bought as part of his plan to escape to Greece, after it was impounded by police.

Listening in the Purana taskforce office was Jim Coghlan, who was married into a Greek family. He instantly realised Mokbel was hiding in Athens. Further phone calls led police to the Delfinia restaurant, where Mokbel was arrested in a bad wig.

2) Carl’s three boo-boos

For a drug boss and killer, Carl Williams made many dumb decisions. Here are three.

Williams commissioned one of his hit teams (he had five) to kill hot dog vendor Michael Marshall, and the paid killer known as “The Runner” sourced a clean car for the job.

Police had got there first, bugging the car and hiding a tracking device in the rebuilt sedan. But the brake light stayed on, leading The Runner to find the device.

He sought advice from Williams, who told him to carry on, using The Runner’s own car, which was already bugged.

After he killed Marshall, he was recorded ringing the “Big Fella” with the message: “You know that horse you and George [Carl’s father] tipped me? It got scratched.”

The Runner and the driver were arrested that night.

The next mistake Carl made was not to pay his hitmen.

He had promised The Runner $100,000 to kill rival Jason Moran – which he did, during an Auskick morning in Essendon North. But by June 2003, Williams had paid him only $2500.

The Marshall contract was worth $300,000. The Runner was paid a $50,000 deposit, but once jailed, Williams sent the hitman’s mother a paltry $1500.

You shortchange hitmen at your peril. The Runner became a prosecution witness and was one reason Williams eventually had to plead guilty to several murders.

The third mistake was when Williams wanted to do a deal, and he believed informing on an allegedly corrupt cop would not be seen by the underworld as being a snitch. But one gangster thought Williams needed to take certain secrets to the grave. In 2010, he was beaten to death inside prison by fellow inmate Matt Johnson.

3) Why they invented voicemail

On December 22, 2003, Carl Williams and hitman Andrew “Benji” Veniamin met Melbourne identity Mick Gatto at Crown casino for peace talks.

Andrew Veniamin and Carl Williams. Credit: Ten News

Gatto said he wanted to remain neutral but made it clear he could fight gunfire with gunfire.

“If anything comes my way then I’ll send somebody to you. I’ll be careful with you, be careful with me,” Gatto said. “I believe you, you believe me; now we’re even. That’s a warning. It’s not my war.”

When Williams considered a truce, Veniamin urged, “Kill him”.

The second dumb decision was when Benji answered his phone on March 23, 2004. It was Gatto inviting him to a Carlton restaurant, where Veniamin was shot dead. Gatto was charged, then acquitted on the grounds of self-defence.

If only Benji had let the call go to voicemail.

4) The dumb cop and the public phone

William Stephen “Dingy” Harris was not much of a cop, but he was an excellent conman.

In the police force, he was a sergeant stationed at Hawthorn, but to the underworld he was known as “The Captain” and had impressive contacts that could protect massive hashish importations of more than 300 kilos a time.

The syndicate would pay him $300,000 a pop. Dingy’s identity was known by few, and to protect himself he would never use the Hawthorn police station phone to talk business, preferring to use the public one across the road, believing it couldn’t be bugged. By the time he knew he was wrong, the jig was well and truly up.

In the secret investigation code-named Rock, police recorded 14,000 phone calls and in October 1987, Dingy was sentenced to 14 years’ jail, where he was allowed a couple of phone calls a week.

5) Know when to walk away, know when to run

The six-man burglary team was to pull off the crime of the century. Break into the Sigma pharmaceutical company and steal amphetamines with a street value of $166 million.

They broke into the plant 25 times – perfecting their methods based on the movie Heat, in which the message was: at the first sign of risk, walk away.

When they were setting up CCTV monitors in the ceiling, they found a system that had been set up by police to watch them.

Rather than walk away, they convinced themselves it was the management that was using the system to monitor staff.

One was recorded saying: “Flash a brown eye at them. It was our idea to put a camera in, anyway.”

In September 1996, they were arrested at the scene by the special operations group as they broke into Sigma.

6) The clock was ticking, but not in a good way

As a terrorist, Hagob Levonian should have spent less time studying international politics and more time swatting up on chemistry.

In 1986, he came to Melbourne to blow up the Turkish consulate. However, he ignored the fundamentals of OH&S.

He was supposed to set the timer for a few hours. Sadly, he stuffed up and was blown to pieces. Forensic experts found a piece of skin the size of a 5¢ piece at the blast site that matched a fingerprint on an invoice book from Levonian. The only other remains found were a pair of feet in the bomber’s shoes.

7) Drugs are bad, OK?

Allan Williams was a drug dealer who used his own product and was too big for his boots. Why else would he agree to the crazy scheme to kill an interstate undercover cop to stop him testifying in a case so weak it was doomed to fail?

Roger Rogerson: Should have been given 10 years for the safari suit.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

He wanted to bribe the undercover, Mick Drury, but when he refused the offer, Williams, NSW rogue cop Roger Rogerson and hitman Christopher Dale Flannery conspired to kill him.

On June 6, 1984, Drury was shot in his Chatswood home, but survived. The backlash was immediate. Although never convicted, Rogerson was finished, and he died in prison serving time for another murder. Flannery was considered too hot to handle and killed in cold blood, while Williams pleaded guilty to trying to bribe and then kill Drury.

He later told me: “I was a giant in the trade; I thought I was invincible and unpinchable. But I stepped over the line with the Drury thing. It is something I will regret for the rest of my life.”

8) Milking a snake without gloves

Barrister-turned-snitch Nicola Gobbo didn’t play by the rules. She was too close to her clients, then she turned on them, becoming a police informer while still feeding crooks titbits of information.

She burnt both sides, which has become a stain on the criminal justice system costing north of $300 million, and with criminal appeals and civil action, shows no signs of reaching resolution.

9) The smiling assassins

In a world full of dangerous men, Nik Radev was a man to be feared. He had ambitions to be a drug boss and wanted to “borrow” a drug cook who worked for Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel. The fear was that he wouldn’t give him back.

In April 2003, he was lured to a meeting at a coffee shop in Brighton and then given directions to travel across town to get the cook. He was ambushed in his car in Coburg.

Earlier, he paid $55,000 in cash for dental surgery to have teeth as pearly white as his idol Tony Montana from Scarface, money that would have been better spent on armour-plating his car.

He remembered to floss but forgot to duck.

10) Mafia’s own goal

In the 1970s, the Griffith mafia had a winning hand. Corrupt cops, bent politicians, an Australian-wide transport network and a near-monopoly on massive cannabis crops. They were rich and getting richer. Trouble was, there was a whistleblower and that son of a bitch was brave and getting braver.

Local furniture shop owner Donald Mackay had reported on a couple of crops. Instead of seeing it as a minor hiccup, the mafia took out a $10,000 contract on his life.

In July 1977, he was killed by a hitman.

The outcry created royal commissions and national investigations into the mafia. Sometimes it is best to turn the other cheek.

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