Why Tony Mokbel is taking a gamble that could end in a life sentence

There are two types of drug dealers: dumb ones and smart ones.

The dumb ones keep going until they are caught or shot. The smart ones know when to cash their chips and move on, often to become property developers or currency traders.

The smart ones are like deep-sea divers who surface just in time to avoid the bends, while the dumb ones wait too long and are found with a belt full of precious pearls and a bellyful of salt water.

Some get addicted to the game of beating the police rather than keeping their eyes on the purpose, which is to acquire obscene amounts of wealth.

If there was a degree in drug dealing, the notorious George Marrogi would be forced to repeat the unit “Why We Traffic Drugs”.

Marrogi, 33, has had only one adult year of freedom. That hasn’t stopped him running the Notorious Crime Family from inside prison.

Serving a minimum of 27 years for murder, that term was extended to 32 years due to his drug trafficking. If he behaves himself – which he won’t – he’ll be out at retirement age.

Georgie doesn’t understand you traffic drugs to make money to buy nice stuff and eat in posh restaurants with cosmetically enhanced girlfriends.

It is highly unlikely that George will ever require a Harvey Norman online catalogue to order a flat-screen TV, leather La-Z-Boy and a shiny coffee machine for his maximum security cell. And even if UberEats could deliver to prison, it would be highly likely the XO prawns from the Flower Drum would be cold and a little chewy by the time they had got through security.

Another who didn’t understand the rules was Nik Radev. His nickname in the underworld was The Bulgarian, though some geographically challenged members of the media decided to change it to The Russian.

Radev’s ex-wife, Sylvia, says he just wanted to be a gangster. “He had no fear and no shame. It was just a power thing for him. He wanted to be like Al Pacino in Scarface.”

This drug dealer from behind the Iron Curtain spent $55,000 cash to have his teeth straightened, whitened and capped. As he was shot dead soon after – in April 2003 – the dental work proved to be the ultimate in negative gearing.

Al Pacino in Scarface. Radev wanted to be a real-life version.

Some drug dealers become caricatures of themselves.

A while ago now I was wandering along the footpath lost in thought when two wannabes in their high-performance hatchback roared past. One opened his window, yelled my name and poked his steroid-swollen arm towards me, fashioning his stubby fingers into the shape of a gun and pulling the trigger. Luckily for me, it wasn’t loaded (although I suspect he was).

Which brings us to Tony Mokbel, the drug dealer who had it all – except the brains to know when to quit. Just released from hospital and returned to prison after another health scare, the onetime Mr Big is depressed, losing his mental capacity (years in jail and an attack that left him in a coma for three weeks will do that) and despite years of adhering to a strict vegetarian diet, faces a shortened lifespan due to a dodgy heart.

The Court of Appeal has reduced his sentence by two years, giving him a potential parole date of 2031, but whether he ever gets to the exit gate may rely more on the skills of his doctors than his lawyers.

The former Boronia pizza shop owner built an asset base of $55 million before his 2007 arrest at an Athens seafood restaurant.

The menu from Tony Mokbel’s pizza parlour.

His assets in 1995 were $128,000. By 2000 he controlled 38 different companies, including fashion label LSD (Love Style and Design) and had multiple luxury cars, including one with the plates “RUDARE” (are you there?), a tease to police following him.

He planned to build an $18 million 10-storey “winged keel” apartment tower over Sydney Road with 120 apartments and townhouses, offices, restaurants and a gym with pool. When the market he owned was seized as an asset of crime, a store holder asked officials if they wanted the rent in cash, “Like Tony”.

If only he had quit while he was quite a bit ahead. Instead, even when on bail for drug trafficking, he upped production and involved himself in the Underbelly Crime Wars.

A bald-headed alien: actor Ray Walston in My Favorite Martian.

Two hitmen told police they were commissioned by Mokbel to kill rivals – Lewis Moran in 2004 and Michael Marshall in 2003. (He was acquitted of the Moran murder and the Marshall charge was dropped.)

I wandered into the court on the day he was acquitted. He turned to give me a radiant smile and a nod – as if we were pals who recently returned from a caravan holiday to Anglesea.

Over the years his charm faded, and he began to refer to me as the Bald-Headed Alien, which is profoundly unfair (and probably defamatory) to extraterrestrials.

For a drug dealer, Mokbel wasn’t a bad bloke and always preferred a non-violent settlement. He was generous and a big tipper, with one restaurant saying his favourite meal was a medium rare steak topped with prawns and salmon.

A bald-headed reporter. John Silvester with Mokbel’s number plates.Credit: Simon Schluter

When he visited a friend on remand, he gave a prison officer $350 to pick up 40 gourmet pizzas and soft drinks for inmates and staff.

During the Underbelly Wars, Mokbel put on his UN hat and decided to broker a peace deal. He told police he would guarantee the murders would stop, key figures such as drug dealer Carl Williams would plead guilty to some charges, Tony would go back to selling drugs and the Purana Taskforce could concentrate on other crooks.

“Con [Heliotis, his barrister] and Paul [Coghlan, the then director of public prosecutions] will be able to work out the details,” he declared. Police declined the offer.

In 2012, faced with overwhelming evidence, Mokbel pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to drug trafficking, with a doctor giving evidence that due to his heart condition he would be lucky to last a further 24 years.

And this is why Mokbel is fighting to have his convictions quashed – even though if he did win a retrial, pleaded not guilty and lost, he could be sentenced to life. It is a gamble he sees as worth taking because he faces dying in jail.

He argues his lawyer at the time of his original conviction – disgraced barrister Nicola Gobbo – was a police informer and he didn’t have a chance in court.

Nicola Gobbo and her former client Tony Mokbel. Credit: Nine

In the days when real estate ads provided The Age with a revenue stream as big as the Nile, we had a box at the footy, which the bosses stupidly gave to the crime team for a night game. Adjoining corporate box inhabitants complained about the noise, someone kept flicking the lights off and on to replicate the atmosphere of a disco and the staff required salt tablets after cramping from running around serving copious quantities of drinks.

One of the guests was Gobbo, who in between trying (and failing) to chat up a copper in the room made outrageous statements designed to put her at the centre of attention.

She loudly named a fellow female lawyer, declaring: “She does her best work on her knees.”

It was an insightful comment but not about the rival (who has built a reputation as hard-working and competent). It struck me that Gobbo was jealous because she had been replaced by a newer, sharper model.

Why did Gobbo become a police informer? Because she was addicted to attention and needed to be loved.

In August 2001, Mokbel was arrested over importing barrels of ephedrine that could have made 40 million pseudo-ecstasy tablets. He spent several months in prison and when bailed went straight back to manufacturing drugs. If he had pulled up then, even if convicted, he would have done 15 years and been released, no doubt with a fortune hidden away.

He thought he could beat the system and now is a shadow of his former self.

In a massive misjudgment, police wrote in his criminal file in the early days that he “lacked financial acumen”. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

If Tony had stuck to his pizza shop in Boronia, he would have built a small chain and invested in several properties, driven a nice car and lived in a nice house.

He might not have been able to buy the oceangoing yacht he used to escape Australia, but he could have owned a speed boat on the Eildon Lake near where he hid at Bonnie Doon when he jumped bail – eating freshly caught trout rather than farmed salmon.

No one but his friends, family and customers would have ever heard of him.

But he would be free. So it is true, at least for Tony, that crime doesn’t pay.

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