Nicola Gobbo accused Rob Karam of using her credit card before ecstasy trial

Nicola Gobbo accused Rob Karam of nicking her credit card details to blow more than $2500 on a weekend in Sydney.

‘He owes me a significant amount of money and he has ­accused me of being a police informa­nt and cut me off’: Nicola Gobbo.

Nicola Gobbo accused Rob Karam of nicking her credit card details to blow more than $2500 on a weekend in Sydney, at a time when the drug-trafficker was on trial for what was then the world’s biggest ecstasy bust.

In a series of conversations with then Victoria Police detective inspector John O’Connor in 2012, Ms Gobbo accused the notorious drug-trafficker of blowing $1600 at the Sofitel in Sydney, and spending about $1000 on Qantas flights from Melbourne on the ­December 2011 jaunt.

The lawyer turned informant told Detective ­Inspector ­O’Connor that her former client­ had checked in at the five-star hotel under his own name.

She said that she was “not gonna wear it”.

“For what it’s worth, I’ve rung him, I’ve text-messaged him, emailed him, and rung him to say: ‘You, I’m warning you, if you don’t pay this back I’m gonna go to the police’,” she said.

Transcripts of the conversations between Ms Gobbo and the former detective inspector are contained within thousands of pages of new exhibits released by Victoria’s Royal Commission into the Management of Police Inform­ants.

As Karam’s lawyer, Ms Gobbo had photographed and given to detectives in 2007 a bill of lading detailing the shipment of 15 million pills hidden inside tomato paste tins shipped from Italy, in what was then the world’s biggest ecstasy bust.

Ms Gobbo’s tip-off led to the arrest of Karam and 33 others after a joint operation by Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police.

Ms Gobbo said it appeared Karam had made the trip to Sydney at her expense when he was out on bail in December 2011, ­facing trial over the tomato tin sting.

He was out on bail on trial for drug-trafficking charges when Ms Gobbo was fretting about her stolen­ card details to Detective ­Inspector O’Connor.

The woman know known as Lawyer X said if she was still on speaking terms with Karam she would probably just “cop it sweet”.

“If the situation was different and Rob and I were still on speaking terms, I’d be able to either talk to him about it or make a decision to do nothing about it … Cop it sweet,” she said.

“But he owes me a significant amount of money and he has ­accused me of being a police informa­nt and cut me off … My attitude­ now is whether he is in custody or not, he‘s gunna say whatever he’s gunna say about me, I can’t change that … So why should I be out of pocket to boot?”

On May 30, 2012, Ms Gobbo received a call from Detective ­Inspector O’Connor while she was in hospital just after Karam had been found guilty.

She predicted that he would get at least 20 years.

“I guarantee it,” she said. “And the beauty of it is that … well, I shouldn’t say this because I actual­ly have felt overwhelmed with guilt, even though I shouldn’t feel guilty … He’s got three more trials to face after this one, he’s ­finished.”

Karam is serving a 35-year-sentence after the County Court of Victoria slapped an additional 27 years on his term in 2015.

His appeal bid will be heard early next while several other ­former underworld heavies embroil­ed in the tomato-tin sting — including mastermind ­Pas­quale Barbaro, Saverio Zirilli and Jan Visser — are also seeking freedom after the Lawyer X scandal was exposed by Melbourne’s ­Herald Sun newspaper. The police conversations with Ms Gobbo shed new light on her life after she was deregistered in early 2009.

She told Detective Inspector O’Connor that she had been left with the responsibility of home renovations, spending a lot of time painting despite being in constant pain.

“I reckon I could go on that, um, you know that TV show The Block?’’ she said. “I’m quite talente­d at plastering and painting now.’’

Detective O’Conner replied: “Oh, very good.”

Ms Gobbo said: “I kind of like learning new things and I reckon if you’re a single female who wanted to pick up a bloke, the one place to do it is Bunnings.”

After receiving nearly $3m from Victoria Police in 2010 in a confidential settlement after a bungled attempt to turn her witnes­s in a failed murder case against former drug squad detective Paul Dale, Ms Gobbo has been forbidden from speaking to her former handlers.

She bemoaned the fact that she could not assist in the case against Dale to an officer who was given the pseudonym “Richards’’, ­fretting that the information she had given against her former lover would be lost. “Somebody, ­somewhere high above, has got some memo from the (Victorian Government Solic­itor’s Office) that says, ‘Oh, be aware, she might sue us, so we can’t speak to her’,” she told Richards­.

While she was keen to keep informin­g on Dale, Ms Gobbo became­ incensed when she learned that another Melbourne lawyer who acted as a solicitor for her had begun representing him.

“I’ve made a pretty strongly worded complaint,” she said.

“Because if I sought legal advice­ from you in relation to specifically … being called as a ­witness in terms of settlement and that kind of thing, so obviously that means you’re privy to all kinds of information, and then you turn around and you act for Dale …

“I think that is just absolutely outrageous.”

In her final report, royal commissioner Margaret McMurdo said Ms Gobbo’s conduct was a “sustained and systemic violation of individual rights and of the criminal justice system”.

Ms Gobbo was finally struck off the legal roll last month due to duplicito­us conduct.

A request for comment made through her lawyer was not answered­.