‘It’s like you sending me
to Hitler.’
WHEN Mokbel did a runner there was no shortage of theories about what had happened.
He was said to have jumped on a ship using the same connections he used to import drugs from overseas: after all, if you can import container loads of chemicals, surely you can export one little Lebanese drug dealer?
Others had him driving north to be picked up by a luxury yacht. The more imaginative speculated that a high flyer like Tony would have escaped in a private jet. Bizarrely, it was claimed he had flying lessons at Essendon Airport while on bail.
One thing was certain: his passport had been surrendered when he was granted bail so there was no way he could have left through usual channels under his own name.
The job of finding out the facts fell to the Federal Police but under international law they could only request assistance from overseas police.
Mokbel’s name and photograph were lodged with Interpol. It sounded impressive but meant little as the international agency is nothing more than a bureaucratic clearing-house, not a global man-hunting outfit. For Interpol, the greatest risk of danger comes from a nasty paper cut while filing documents.
Mokbel was just one more name among thousands of drug dealers, bail jumpers, armed robbers and murderers scattered around the world. Foreign police are more interested in catching a local burglar than trying to find someone else’s crook. It was only much later, when a million-dollar reward was offered, that Victoria Police were contacted by former European secret police and asked, ‘Is that dead or alive?’
But, in the days weeks and months after Mokbel disappeared, the Federal Police needed a lead before anyone could help them. There was a lot of disinformation around.
At one point police were told he was dead and had been buried in country Victoria. Then police looked for him at the Dubai races, convinced he could not resist the glamour of the international event. A popular theory, possibly spread by Mokbel’s family, was that he could have been hiding with relatives in Lebanon, but there were others: he could be back in his native Kuwait, sharing a cottage by the sea with Lord Lucan, or doing a warmup act for Elvis in Brussels as far as police knew.
Some sections of the media breathlessly reported he had used an old escape route pioneered by the Moran clan, which came as a surprise to the surviving Morans, who had no idea of such a route.
He was then said to have been involved in a shootout in Lebanon but was saved by his own heavily-armed guards, which would have come as an even bigger surprise to Mokbel, who was not in Lebanon and didn’t have guards.
In truth, police didn’t know where he was but they were convinced he had planned his escape long before slipping out of the country.
But they were wrong.
It would now appear that Mokbel decided to run just days before he jumped bail. He had planned to see out his drug trial and was prepared to do several years jail, believing his syndicate would continue to prosper under the guidance of loyal family and friends. He would then emerge a slimmer, fitter multi-millionaire with his enemies in the underworld dead or jailed and his enemies in the police force retired or promoted to desk jobs. His enemies in the media would probably be in rehab.
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.
Cassidy and fellow jockeys, Gavin Eades and Kevin Moses, were suspended in Sydney in 1995 for race tipping, after their conversations were recorded during a major Australian Federal Police drug investigation code-named Caribou.
And in 1981, several racing identities, including jockeys and callers, were recorded on illegal NSW police tapes giving inside information to notorious drug dealer, Robert ‘Aussie Bob’ Trimbole.
They don’t call them colourful racing identities for nothing.
WHILE the crime commission was busy on the racing side, Jim O’Brien continued the dual strategy of attacking Mokbel’s resource base while turning trusted insiders into prosecution witnesses.
If Tony had been in Australia, even in jail, he may have been able to control his team but, with him overseas, the fabric began to fray.
Police began to target Mokbel’s closest family and friends. They discovered the syndicate, code named ‘The Company’, had set up seemingly legitimate industrial businesses to buy massive amounts of chemicals used to make perfume. They then redirected the precursor chemicals to be used in the production of amphetamines and ecstasy. While it was inconceivable that the massive amount of chemicals they bought could be used for a small perfume production run, no one within the industry queried the purchases. For the Mokbels it was a licence to print money.
But slowly Purana put their hooks into the company.
In September 2006, they (literally) unearthed $350,000 in cash, eighteen watches, 61 items of jewellery and 33 jewellery boxes concealed in PVC pipes hidden on behalf of the Mokbel family in a Parkdale backyard.
They jailed Renate Mokbel, Tony’s sister-in-law, after she failed to honour a $1 million surety she offered as part of Mokbel’s bail conditions.
The Brunswick property used as surety was seized. It was the place Mokbel had run a speed lab in 1997 and, after a fire, had been rebuilt. Some close to Mokbel became disillusioned that he remained free when Renate was jailed.
His brothers were also arrested and charged. Milad Mokbel was charged after police discovered an alleged drug factory near a primary school in a shop that was supposedly being fitted out as a juice bar. Horse-loving brother Horty was also arrested on drug-related charges. Sister-in-Law Zaharoula Mokbel was charged over an alleged $2.3 million fraud.
A Mokbel financial adviser was arrested and his luxury car seized. When he saw reporters, the adviser loudly advised that they should get ‘real jobs.’ He may have had many assets but a sense of irony was not one of them.
Police needed the time that Mokbel was in hiding to build their case. Nearly one year after Mokbel had jumped bail, O’Brien was confident they now had enough information to charge him with two murders, Lewis Moran at the Brunswick Club and Michael Marshall in South Yarra. He was convinced they could finally charge Mokbel over being the head of a massive drug syndicate — although a jury will ultimately make that decision. Police had statements from two hit men, his alleged amphetamines cook and others close to the camp.
In February 2007 Mokbel was charged in his absence with Lewis Moran’s murder. It was a strategy to show his followers he was now facing life in prison and so not a man to slavishly follow.
Having stripped Mokbel of his key advisers, police started phase two — Operation Magnum — the identification of Mokbel’s hideaway and his ultimate arrest.
In April they announced a million-dollar reward for his capture. Mokbel had always used money to control his underlings and now police were using the same incentive to get them to betray him.
Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland intensified the pressure when he said: ‘We’ve got no doubt there are people out there who know where he is, who are probably in regular contact with him. Every time he now contacts those individuals, there are going to be huge seeds of doubt in his mind: is this the person who’s going to sell me out?’
It would be no coincidence that in the same month an insider code-numbered 3030 approached police, saying he could provide information on Mokbel and four of his top men. The informer was a trusted insider but his own brother had died of a drug overdose and he saw this as the moment he could exact the maximum in revenge.
While police were ready for the long haul the breakthrough came within weeks. By following the electronic transfer of about $400,000 to Athens they deduced that Tony was in Greece. But where exactly?
By using 3030 and introducing two police undercover agents they managed to get close.
The informer was the one who had been assigned to provide a passport and mobile phones for Mokbel. At least one of those phones was bugged by police before it was provided for the number one target.
The passport was later altered for Mokbel to the alias of a supposed Sydney businessman, ‘Stephen Papas’. Why use that name?
It was rumoured that when a local football team supported by Mokbel used a ring-in player they always used the one alias — Stephen Papas. Dishonest habits die hard.
Thanks to the bugged phone, police could soon hear that Mokbel was still running his business, long distance. He would advise his staff when there was a problem with drug production and organise chemical deliveries.
And they continued to send him money — if not truckloads — at least bootloads.
On 5 May police watched as a Mokbel courier collected $440,000 hidden in Collingwood storage facility and then was given another $60,000 by a trusted insider.
But if detectives grabbed the cash courier it would alert Mokbel that Purana was getting close. Instead they used uniformed police to intercept the man — making it look as though they had accidentally discovered the money during a routine car check.
A marked unit slipped in behind the courier’s car near Box Hill. The courier became nervous when he saw the police car and kept checking his mirror, which is why he didn’t see the red light he ran on the Maroondah Highway. It gave police the perfect opportunity to pull him over and search the car. They found the package of $499,950 in cash. At the man’s home they seized a further $8950.
One of the team rang Mokbel to tell him the cash instalment was gone. Tony, sunning himself in Athens, told the subordinate not to worry. He would ensure the same amount would be in his hands within six days. Put it down to a business expense, he said. He might not have been so casual had he known the truth: the police net was closing.
On 15 May the investigators narrowed the location to the prestigious Athens suburb of Glyfada, where Mokbel rented an upmarket home. They also found he was living with Danielle McGuire and their six-month-old girl, Renate. It is not known whether his sister-in-law, Renate, left in jail when he jumped bail, was chuffed that the baby was named after her.
According to Jim O’Brien: ‘He was living in a double-storey apartment there with a rental of EUR2000 ($A3237) a month, living fairly high with a lavish lifestyle.’
In late May, Purana Detective Senior Sergeant Jim Coghlan, who had spent years unravelling the Mokbel empire and had previously holidayed in the area, flew to Athens with a federal investigator to work with Greek police to find the fugitive.
Mokbel spoke on the bugged phone of having ‘coffee at Starbucks’ — there were only two of the chain in the area. They were close, but not there yet.
In early June they thought they were. Danielle McGuire had given birth to Tony’s baby and the doting dad was always there during infant swimming lessons. Police arrived at the pool just minutes after the family had left.
Three days later they were tipped off he would visit a small seaside restaurant for a financial meeting and would be carrying a folder with paperwork. They arrived at the crowded restaurant but could not spot the balding head of the fugitive. The local police then carried out what was to appear to be a routine identity check. When a well-tanned man with long dark hair opened a folder to produce a passport with the name Stephen Papas, Coghlan realised it was Mokbel in a wig.
At first Mokbel appeared relaxed, thinking he would be able to bribe his way out of any minor passport offence. But his face dropped when he saw the Purana detective. He had the good grace to say, ‘I don’t know how you did it but you’ve done a brilliant job.’ He later lost his sense of fair play, telling the police he had ‘evil dreams about what I was going to do to you and your families.’
Perhaps he should have checked his stars for that day, which read, ‘Leos tend to feel they’re entitled to more freedom and independence … others might not agree today.’
On word of the arrest, more than 120 police in Victoria raided 22 properties (including the Bonnie Doon farmhouse where Mokbel had hidden) and arrested fourteen suspects. Later, eight people appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with drug-related offences. Police also seized almost $800,000 in cash, drugs, eight vehicles, two power-skis, a Taser stun gun, mace spray, a pistol, a shotgun and a rifle.
It was also, by pure coincidence, Jim O’Brien’s birthday.
Round two to the police.
TONY Mokbel was never going to come quietly. From day one he made it clear he was going to fight any extradition attempts.
Back in Melbourne authorities faced a race against time. They had to present the charges to a Greek court in Greek within 45 days. Under international law a suspect can only be tried on the charges approved under extradition treaties. Eventually Mokbel was charged with the Lewis Moran and Michael Marshall murders and drug trafficking offences. This meant he was facing life in jail — and he already owed a minimum of nine years for his cocaine conviction in 2006.
Despite the odds against him, Mokbel remained remarkably chatty. In the back of the court he spoke to The Age’s European correspondent, James Button, declaring: ‘I would be on a plane tomorrow if the Australian Government would agree to sort out the truth from the crap.’
He said he was not involved in the murder of Lewis Moran. ‘Mate, I deny full stop all this.’
He claimed he had jumped bail because he knew he was facing more charges and would not have been able to defend himself from jail. ‘Eventually, I do want to go back to Australia,’ Mokbel said. ‘All I’m asking is that the Australian Government sit down with me and talk and nut out the crap from the truth and I am hoping to go back.
‘If they came and they talked to me and we came to an agreement I’m more than happy to get on a plane tomorrow.’
It was typical Mokbel bluster. He seemed to believe he had such political clout that he could deal directly with the government. His delusions were such that he had once been recorded saying that when ‘Paul gets back from leave, Con will have a chat and sort it all out.’
‘Paul’ was the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Coghlan, and Con was his barrister Con Heliotis QC. Mokbel was kidding himself. There would be no deals.
Mokbel went from delusion to denial and eventually to anger.
He said Purana was picking on him.
‘If I were going to jail for things that I did that would be OK,’ but Purana was ‘hungry to convict whoever they would like, not for the right reasons’.
He said the underworld war had been a tragedy. ‘We were all friends and it (the gangland killings) was the saddest thing happening, it was just sad.’
In a later hearing he was less relaxed, claiming that being sent back to Australia was like facing trial in Nazi Germany.
‘It would be impossible for me to get a fair trial,’ Mokbel told a Greek court. ‘It’s like you sending me to Hitler.’
The churlish may have pointed out that Mokbel was familiar with the concept of summary execution without trial.
Eventually a panel of three Greek judges granted the extradition. His local lawyer, Yannis Vlachos, said Mokbel would appeal. ‘It is an uphill struggle, but we will fight it and remain optimistic,’ Vlachos said.
The process was further delayed when he was sentenced to a year in a Greek jail on false passport charges. He was moved to the maximum-security Korydallos prison complex, fifteen kilometres from the city. Built for 640 inmates, it houses nearly 2000 and was described by Amnesty International as one of the worst jails in Europe.
So it was a surprise when the phone rang in the Purana office and the voice at the other end belonged to Mokbel, who had apparently bribed prison officials for access to several mobile phones.
Angling for a deal, he wanted the murder charges dropped if he was to return. He said he was prepared to talk about police corruption or anything else. He said to O’Brien, ‘I’m a drug dealer, not a killer.’ Hardly the best admission for your CV.
The House of Mokbel had fallen. Now he was trying to salvage something from the wreckage.
It meant the police could claim a massive victory against organised crime. But the win came twelve years after their failure to act had set the scene for gangster to turn on gangster in what became the underworld war.