The A to Z of crime, 2024 style

One of the laziest ways for a sneaky columnist to end the year is to rehash old material in the guise of producing a semi-serious annual review. And so here it is! The 2024 A-to-Z of crime.

A: Arson. Tobacco shops, gyms, and gangsters’ homes lit up more than the Olympic flame in an international battle for a billion-dollar business.

The big stories that dominated headlines in 2024 included the High Country killings trial, mushroom deaths, tobacco store fires and the charges laid in the decades-old Easey Street murders.Credit: Monique Westermann

B: Bail. The criminal’s version of working from home. We have young offenders on up to 30 charges repeatedly bailed.

The revolving door of justice is creating more G-Force than a NASA simulator.

C: Christmas. A time to exchange gifts, and what could be better than a copy of the most excellent crime book Dark City by John Silvester? The perfect present for a relative who displays psychopathic tendencies.

Dark City by John Silvester. A worthy addition to the Christmas stocking and excellent bedtime stories for small children.

D: Day, Tim. 3AW Breakfast Police Officer of the year Superintendent Day retired after more than 30 years’ service. In 2001, in Homicide, he took on the cold case of Bonnie Clarke, the six-year-old murdered in her bed in Northcote in 1982.

Within days of the murder, police became obsessed that the family dogs did not bark that night, leading detectives to believe the killer was a regular at the house, eventually concluding it was her mother Marion Wishart.

Day went to the files and found that a man named Malcolm Joseph Clark – a projectionist described in the file as creepy – had been a boarder at the house.

What was not known then was that he had already killed. Day won back Wishart’s trust and recommended an undercover investigation into the suspect, who was convicted of Bonnie’s murder.

E: Easey Street. The arrest of Perry Kouroumblis in Italy for the 1977 murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett. As a teenager, the suspect was stopped near Easey Street days after the murders. A knife was found in the boot of his car, allegedly stained with dried blood. He has now been extradited and charged.

F: Freezer Files. The forensic scientist who had the foresight to see that DNA was coming and so bagged and froze samples that can now be used to solve historical crimes.

G: Nicola Gobbo, barrister turned informer. There have been eight inquiries into her role as a double agent. Her clients confessed, the courts were obsessed, judges unimpressed, lawyers distressed, names suppressed, she changed her address, had a ballistic vest, while Tony Mokbel’s Ferrari was repossessed.

Tony Mokbel's Ferrari, seized in 2001 as part of Operation Kayak.Credit: Wayne Taylor

H: Home Invasion. Families are being terrorised by armed gangs that break into homes looking for valuables and the car keys to steal vehicles.

The victims can be left so traumatised they sell their homes. Police say that often offenders gain access through unlocked doors and windows. Complacency is crime’s best friend.

I: Illicit Alcohol. Police have uncovered a billion-dollar liquor substitution racket that blends dangerous industrial alcohol into whisky, vodka and other top-shelf spirits.

The Australian Tax Office estimates the modern-day bootleggers avoid more than $700 million in alcohol excise per year, with Victoria the centre of the illegal industry.

Police have a list of 80 licensed premises – from small service clubs to popular nightclubs – and estimate more than 2 million bottles of illicit booze are sold in Australia every year.

J: Justice delayed. As long as it takes years to get to trial, people will be bailed, with many reoffending. Until the system becomes more efficient, the rest is window dressing.

K: Kleptomaniac. Self-service checkouts have led to a massive spike in stealing. While Bunnings has been told that the use of face recognition technology is a breach of human rights, the images of their staff being assaulted are truly shocking. Retail staff are being subjected to an unprecedented level of abuse.

(Many years ago an armed robber threatened a member of the security staff who happened to be an off-duty detective. The thief was shot in the testicles. His attitude and the pitch of his voice were instantly altered.)

L: Lynn, Greg. Charged with the 2020 High Country deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay. He was convicted of Clay’s murder but acquitted of Hill’s. The case is off to the Full Court, as Lynn has appealed.

M: Marrogi, George. A rich gangster who forgot that the key to making dirty money is to be able to spend it. He built a crime syndicate worth $100 million, but has spent only one year outside of prison in his adult life.

There is a contract out on his life, and he spends his day in solitary confinement, has to wear handcuffs and ankle shackles if he has to be taken from his cell, and is forced to kneel if near anyone so he can’t attack.

While he can afford endless tinned sardines from the prison canteen, it’s a long way from the salt-and-pepper calamari at the Flower Drum.

N: New laws to deal with racist demonstrations, including banning protesters wearing masks and balaclavas. Protesters wear face masks for two reasons – to disguise themselves because they intend to break the law and to protect themselves from pepper spray when they do.

The proposed changes are entirely sensible and designed to target groups such as the attention-seeking twits who front up to perform illegal Nazi salutes in the hopes of getting their pictures in the paper. If their grandfathers who fought against fascism were alive they would be spoken to quite sternly and sent to bed without their supper.

Men hiding their faces during an unannounced march in Ballarat last year. They would be better off going to the town’s war memorial to reflect on actual bravery.Credit: Twitter

Hiding your face means you don’t have the courage of your convictions, and hopefully will now result in criminal convictions. Neo-Nazis are about as influential as flatulence on a bus. Momentarily nasty but if you hold your breath it is soon gone.

O: Office of Constable. A concept that appears foreign to modern governments, it goes like this: all police take an oath when sworn in as constables to uphold the law of the land. They are, like courts, independent of governments. However, increasingly politicians and their faceless advisors see police as a tool to the ballot box. Interfere with this concept at your peril.

P: Punisher. Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim is both unlucky and lucky. Unlucky to have so many enemies that have access to more explosives than Guy Fawkes and lucky they have the aim of Mr Magoo.

Earlier this year they torched Sam’s parents’ cars over in Brunswick. When Sam jumped in his car to help, opened the electric security gates and headed off, a hit team was waiting. The gunmen fired about 17 shots, missing him and often missing his car.

Two years earlier his enemies managed to shoot him eight times when he was in a car in a funeral procession.

When Sam recovered he returned to professional boxing, although the venue where he was to appear was set on fire. (See A for Arson.)

Q: Queasy. How the crooks must have felt when they tried and failed to snatch the body of George Marrogi’s sister Meshilin from the family crypt.

R: Ross Guenther. Outstanding deputy commissioner, an international expert in counter-terrorism, Guenther is retiring after 40 years’ service.

S: Stupidity. How dumb are crooks to start gang wars? They make more money than they can spend and could live a life of illicit luxury, but choose to go to war and spend half their lives in compounds, casualty wards, jails or in fly-blown countries trying not to be killed. They should remember that a bombe Alaska beats a bomb under ya. (See M for Marrogi.)

T: Trinity. The police operation where around a dozen police cars are on the road every night catching young offenders who steal cars and rob homes … only to be released to do it all over again (see bail).

U: Unlawful Associations. The state government has finally strengthened unlawful association laws designed to stop known crooks meeting to plan crimes.

The previous version introduced in 2015 and hailed as a game-changer had more holes than an old man’s socks, which meant not one person was charged.

Teenagers spotted by the Air Wing and arrested as part of Operation Trinity.Credit: Victoria Police

Undercover. A police method designed to gather evidence where the suspect is unaware of the operation until they are arrested. (See Easey Street.)

V: Vengeance. The tit-for-tat crime war being fought out over, among other things, the illegal tobacco industry. Local crooks are living in compounds while some crime bosses now live overseas to avoid being extradited to Melbourne. (See Easey Street.)

W: Wellington, beef. A delicacy that will be the subject of furious debate in court next year during Erin Patterson’s trial on three counts of murder and several of attempted murder.

One of the allegations to be tested is that a beef Wellington created by Patterson and served to her guests contained deadly mushrooms. Podcasters, police, lawyers, chefs and documentary makers are waiting with bated breath.

X: Lawyer X. (See Gobbo.) All the names of lawyers she mentioned were suppressed. Funny that.

Y: Youth crime. (See H for Home Invasions, T for Trinity and B for Bail.)

Z: Zeal. The quality showed by cold-case investigators to charge suspects in cases that would otherwise be shelved. (See E for Easey Street.)

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.