The Gangland War (10 page)

For a career drug dealer, jail time is like splinters to carpenters and drunks to barmen: an annoying occupational hazard.

But when he learned just days before his trial was to end that he was in the frame for murder, the plan changed. It was time to go, ready or not: he would just have to wing it before he could wing it.

While police were calling on Interpol to scour the world and detectives and reporters were speculating on increasingly exotic escape theories, no one thought to have a good look closer to home.

No one, it seemed, thought to use the most basic police method of hunting an escapee: knock on his mates' doors.

While everyone was assuming that Mokbel was an international man of mystery, he was shacked up less than 160 kilometres from Melbourne in a modest farmhouse at Bonnie Doon owned by a subordinate and alleged syndicate drug courier.

From March until October the closest Mokbel got to Monte Carlo was when he snacked on a biscuit of the same name with his evening mug of Milo.

Mokbel lived the serene country life while his courier host was kept busy with company business. Bonnie Doon locals say they believed a relative had been staying on the property in a caravan next to the main house. It must have seemed a world away from his Melbourne penthouse but it was a much better alternative than the cell that was waiting for him in Port Phillip Prison.

In July 2006, Mokbel's mistress, Danielle McGuire, loudly proclaimed her love for the missing drug dealer and said she was delighted he had escaped. She closed her Mokbel financed hairdressing salon and announced she was moving overseas ‘indefinitely'.

It was an elaborate ruse: the hairdresser was acting as Tony's hare. She was to distract the dogs with her very public flight from Melbourne. Police tracked her through Dubai, France and Italy and, for a woman suspected of being on her way to meet Australia's most notorious fugitive, she seemed remarkably relaxed. She visited resorts, tourist spots and went shopping with her ten-year-old daughter.

McGuire didn't need Mokbel to teach her about anti- surveillance and how to pick police on her tail. Years earlier, she had worked at a major Melbourne department chain as a store detective and one of the fellow part-time workers was a policeman — a drug-squad detective who would later be jailed for corruption. The detective showed his fellow workers — including McGuire — the latest surveillance methods. Much later, and before he was exposed as a crook, the investigator would work on the Moran and Mokbel drug syndicates, proving that it is indeed a very small (drug) world.

McGuire continued to play tourist, fully aware that international police had been alerted to follow her. She made no effort to conceal her identity and withdrew money electronically, allowing police to follow her movements. She even waved cheekily to international surveillance police tailing her.

Then, at what appeared to be a designated time, she slipped the net, easily dodging trailing police in Italy.

It was around the time that Mokbel left his Bonnie Doon hideout, slipped out of Australia to Asia on a ship and then flew to Europe on a false passport.

Round one to Tony.

AFTER Mokbel jumped bail, there was one group of police who didn't bother looking for him — the Purana taskforce.

While it was publicly embarrassing to mislay such a high profile suspect, it actually worked in the taskforce's favour. Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland confidently predicted that Mokbel would surface eventually: ‘You can spend five years on the run. That's fine. We will find you eventually, and we will bring you back to face justice.' Taskforce detectives knew Mokbel's ego would not allow him to hide under a Lebanese olive tree for long. He always craved the spotlight and would never retire gracefully from the drug world.

But his absence meant he could not control his network from the ground up. The head of Purana, Detective Inspector Jim O'Brien, (the fourth appointed boss since its inception), used the same methods that had brought Carl Williams down: he would destroy the syndicate from the ground up.

He knew that Mokbel's power was based on his money. Tony demanded loyalty and was prepared to pay handsomely for it. Stop the flow of money and drugs and, O'Brien predicted, the hired help would jump ship. But police had to work out the extent of the empire before they could bring it down.

When Mokbel was arrested as the master mind behind a massive drug chemical importation in 2001, police seized $6 million in assets. Later they estimated his wealth at $20 million.

The Purana taskforce was staffed with dedicated investigators, committed analysts and support staff. But because of a special grant from the state government it was also able to employ lawyers and forensic accountants. The man who led the asset identification team was Detective Sergeant Jim Coghlan, who had worked on Mokbel for more than four years.

Their findings were staggering. They estimated Mokbel had turned over $400 million through his criminal enterprises while other senior members had grossed $350 million.

The task of following the money trail was made all the more difficult because there rarely was one. They found that Mokbel spent $10,000 a week just as pocket money. The rest was punted, invested, laundered or ploughed back into the drug business.

Tony Mokbel ran his vast enterprises through the carrot and stick approach, exploiting greed and fear. There was no great paper trail — no contracts and no agreements — just a river of black cash. Mokbel would use drug money to set up companies and then put in an associate as the front man. Mokbel would tell his puppet he would be expected to hand over the company when instructed, and in return he could share in the profits along the way.

There wasn't much risk the front man would refuse to hand over the asset when he received the order. The subordinate would be paid well but when Tony wanted it sold it was immediately liquidated — or else the ‘front' risked the same fate.

One of the first places Purana went to examine Mokbel's incomings and outgoings was the race track. They found that despite being banned from owning horses since 1999 and being banned from the Crown Casino and racecourses after his arrest, Mokbel had spent $80 million in gambling.

With the help of the Australian Crime Commission, Purana detectives examined his links to major racing identities.

Years earlier, Mokbel had led the notorious ‘Tracksuit Gang' that regularly plunged money at race meetings up and down the east coast. With the benefit of hindsight it is obvious that Mokbel's minions were laundering millions with massive cash bets.

In the days of mobile phones and electronic money transfers, big punters rarely lay large cash bets. But it would appear that Tony was a leopard that wouldn't change his spots.

One Melbourne bookie started to become embarrassed when one serious punter kept displaying the $5000 cash he was about to wager.

The bookie eventually quietly advised the punter to discreetly place the cash in a bag before handing it over so track regulars who pass on gossip and tips with equal relish would not observe the transactions. If the bookie ever doubted who was behind the bets, he soon learned when the front man handed over the cash and whispered, ‘Tony wants to do this.'

Few people achieve such fame or infamy that they are instantly recognized by their first name. Mokbel was one of the few.

He was one of the few punters, leaving aside the late Kerry Packer, bookies knew could lose millions and still come back for more (or less).

No wonder they were happy to receive fat envelopes of cash from Mokbel's runners. For some of them, Fat Tony was the closest thing to Santa they would ever find.

As part of the Purana/Australian Crime Commission investigation, two jockeys, two trainers and three bookmakers were subpoenaed to appear at secret hearings.

Purana used the commission because it can compel witnesses to answer questions under oath and demand financial and legal documents connected with investigations into organised crime.

Those given an offer too good to refuse by the crime commission
included bookmakers Alan Eskander, Frank Hudson and Simon Beasley, jockeys Danny Nikolic and Jim Cassidy and trainers Jim Conlan and Brendan McCarthy. They were not suspects, but investigators wanted them to provide an insight into Australia's most wanted man.

The inquiry established that Mokbel set up betting accounts under the names of front men so he could place massive bets he hoped would never be discovered.

At least one bookmaker told the commission he knowingly accepted large bets from Mokbel more than a year after he was charged with importing $2 billion worth of drug chemicals and importing two kilograms of cocaine.

One bookie admitted opening a ‘ghost' betting account to enable Mokbel to punt under another man's name. In just one week during the 2002 spring racing carnival, records show the account turned over $445,000. To Tony it was just pocket money. The bets were made just weeks after Mokbel was finally granted $1 million bail on the serious drugs charges.

The name on the ghost betting account was Emido Navarolli, a close friend of Mokbel's. But the bookie has admitted it was Mokbel and one of his associates who placed the bets and never the mysterious Navarolli.

Just two weeks after the drug trafficker disappeared, Navarolli returned a $500,000 Mercedes once used by Mokbel to a car yard, as it was surplus to requirements.

On 17 August 2005, Mokbel gave evidence before the Australian Crime Commission that his gambling winnings were paid into a bank account at the South Yarra branch of the ANZ bank under Navarolli's name.

Two days later, the Office of Public Prosecutions took out a restraining order to freeze the funds under assets-of-crime laws.

Mokbel liked to give the impression he had inside information but his betting was wildly erratic. One rails bookmaker claims to
have won nearly $6 million from the drug dealer over several years.

Another said Mokbel once invited him to a Port Melbourne coffee shop, within walking distance of the drug dealer's bayside penthouse, to collect $80,000. He recalled they walked to Mokbel's car, where the trafficker opened the glove box. ‘There was at least $300,000 there,' said the bookmaker, who is used to judging the worth of large bundles of cash. Mokbel handed over the required notes to square the ledger.

The big punter did not mind the occasional big loss. He was trying to launder drug money into semi-respectable gambling revenue that could not be seized as assets of crime.

While Mokbel appeared to have almost unlimited funds to bet, some bookmakers were not prepared to allow him credit. One claims Mokbel refused to pay a $1.8 million debt run up on credit bets. Another was owed $60,000 — Mokbel rang and declared he had placed a $10,000 winning bet on a six-to-one shot on the last race in Adelaide. The bet was non-existent but the bookie realised it was pointless to argue. He wrote off the debt rather than risk being written off himself.

But the man who liked to describe himself as a professional punter did have strong ties with some of the biggest names in the business — who either didn't know or didn't care where their rich friend made his millions.

In the months before Mokbel's arrest in August 2001, police telephone taps showed the drug dealer had regular conversations with key players in the racing world. Up to seven racing identities, including three top jockeys, were recorded talking to Mokbel on the police tapes.

In 2006, shortly after Mokbel disappeared, top jockey Jim Cassidy said he considered him a friend. ‘I've got nothing but respect for him,' he told the
Herald Sun
in a frank moment.

Not everyone was as charitable as Gentleman Jim.

In 1998, racing officials started an inquiry into the Mokbel family's ownership of horses. They found Tony and his then wife, Carmel, owned a string of gallopers. They also found the Mokbels tried to ‘give' a horse to the wife of a leading jockey.

In the same year, racing officials gave police a confidential report suggesting the Mokbels were dangerous, corrupt and out of control. One senior official was shocked when he was confronted by one of the Mokbel family and threatened just weeks after the information was passed to police. The official still believes the information had been leaked to the drug dealer.

It was part of a pattern where Mokbel seemed to know about investigations into him only days after they had begun.

In 1999, the Mokbels were banned from owning racehorses. It wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Tony still had a string of horses — he just kept them under the names of subordinates and associates. Sort of Trojan racehorses.

Again it was his standard business practice. Place your assets under your mates' names and collect later. Even after Tony's eventual arrest in Greece in 2007, his brother, Horty, was named in a public controversy over the ownership of three-quarters of a brilliant young galloper called Pillar of Hercules, which was banned from racing then auctioned by order of the stewards as a way of guaranteeing it was not controlled by a silent partner in the Mokbel camp.

The colt, which had cost $475,000 as a yearling, was auctioned for $1.8 million just days before the 2007 Melbourne Cup carnival. This was a lucky break for one Irene Meletsis, a woman reputedly with little knowledge of racing, whose name had appeared in the racebook as three-quarter owner of the colt. In an embarrassing twist for the trainer, Peter Moody, police had taped telephone conversations of him discussing the purchase and naming of the colt with Horty Mokbel. It wasn't really Moody's business who paid the bills, as he pointed out.

In 2004, Tony Mokbel bragged he won nearly $400,000 on the Melbourne Cup and was seen punting heavily on Oaks Day two days later.

The public display infuriated senior police and racing officials to the extent that laws were changed to ban suspected crime figures from Crown Casino and Victorian racetracks. Mokbel was one of the first to be blacklisted.

The ACC investigation was not the first time racing figures were questioned over their alleged links to major crime figures.