‘He has never done a day’s jail and I doubt that he ever will. He is the classic quiet achiever’
ANYBODY who thinks there is no such thing as white slavery in Australia ought to meet a guy I will call ‘Milo.’ Then again, perhaps they shouldn’t. He’s not the sort of bloke you’d want to take home to mum . . . especially if you’ve got a sister.
Milo is an Albanian but he speaks Italian and uses an Italian name. He can’t spell Ovaltine. He has no police record, but he’s a top operator in the flesh for sale racket.
He runs a string of very physically beautiful callgirls. These are whores but they don’t look like hookers. They are the silk department in the oldest profession. The catch is that they are slaves to Milo because he keeps them all drug-addicted . . . and he sells them like cattle when he’s finished with them.
The key to Milo’s success is that he oversees his girls’ daily drug use like a concerned doctor. He sees to it that they get vitamin injections, B12, C and E. They are kept on a program to promote physical well being: aerobics, dance classes, swimming and sun bathing. I have seen some of them and they are real glamor girls. They all look as though they are from rich families and expensive private schools.
As a cover for his caper Milo runs a small legitimate modelling agency. But the real bucks come from the top of the range escort market. Each of his girls are on heroin and totally enslaved, although they seem to like their lives. But what they don’t realise until it’s too late is that the only way home for them is an overdose.
Milo has a few lucrative earners on the side — spin-offs from his main line of business, you might say. Because he supplies escort girls to the rich and famous, he does a nice line in blackmail. He would be making at least $1 million a year out of his beautiful but smacked-out flock of females. And I doubt, somehow, that he pays much tax.
I have met some of his girls. Heroin and bent sex is their life. Take away the needle and they would rather be dead.
Milo sends Australian girls to Asia, Bangkok and Japan and so on. After he is finished with them he sells them and they don’t even know it. It is a slave trade, but as long as they are given heroin, they don’t seem to realise they are being hawked like sides of beef.
The power heroin seems to have over women is greater than the physical effect on males. Of that I am sure.
*
THE only area of criminal activity where you still find a lot of real hard, tough bastards, the real head-banging stone killers, is in the world of the criminal arms dealer.
This is a section of the underworld that I pride myself on knowing well, although not many do. But under no circumstances will I go into great detail about the people in it. It would not be healthy.
I am talking about para-military style criminals. The men of this world are 1000 miles Right of Adolf Hitler. Few of them ever end up in jail. They deal in guns and they have a select group of buyers. If it is on the market they can get it — at a price — from anywhere in the world.
A gun dealer can make a major drug dealer look very tame. The heavyweights of the drug trade are girl guides compared to the arms dealer.
I have seen a man shot because he arrived at a gun sale and questioned the impact hitting power of a 9mm Glock Special. He was simply shot in the leg by way of example. He was then forced to pay for the gun, and his friends then carried him to his car.
Lesson: don’t ever question the impact of a gun at a criminal arms deal. Not unless you have tin legs, anyway.
A criminal arms deal is no place for a two-bob tough guy. This is my world, and I know the men involved.
The bulk of the men involved in this world are not really part of the criminal culture. They stand in a world of their own, many of them ex-army, so Right-wing they make neo-Nazis like poor old Dane Sweetman look like a gay Commie.
One of the biggest arms dealers about is a war veteran known as Agent Orange. He is dying of cancer so he won’t mind a little mention. At any rate, he owes me money so bugger him.
These men deal with the hard men of the underworld. Very little of the real good stuff ever finds its way down to the run of the mill crim.
*
YOU pick up a newspaper or you go to the movies and you see a million stories about the mafia. But really, in Australia, we should be far more concerned about some of our Asian friends than the boys in the black shirts and the wrap-around sunglasses.
The Vietnamese will be the next great crime wave we face in this country. There are only a few down here in Risdon jail, but in Pentridge they are growing in numbers and are already trying to get a big slice of the action.
Physically, the Vietnamese have lost every major battle they have tried to fight inside Pentridge, but they simply never forgive and forget. They re-arm and they wait their chance to attack again and again.
The king pin of the ‘slopes’ in jail is a man who goes by the nickname ‘Small One.’ This is because he is the baby son, the fifth child in the family. ‘Small One’ has gained absolute power over all Vietnamese prisoners and crews inside Pentridge.
The biggest Vietnamese crime gang in Australia is Su Doan 18, the equivalent to the Chinese 14K. And ‘Small One’ is a leader in the gang whose influence is growing both inside and outside jail.
So far the Vietnamese have no real access to fire power, and the mainstream crims have made sure that they don’t get too many guns. They have got where they have with knives, cleavers and a love of blood. However, it is as sure as eggs that they will get the weapons. Drug power and money will bring the influence and buy the hardware.
Another strong man and growing leader in the Su Doan 18 is the man they call ‘The Monkey.’ I befriended him in jail and helped arm him and his bodyguard, ‘The Tiger.’ Both these men are known in their world as ‘Sat Thu’ or gunmen.
This all sounds like nonsense but the Vietnamese crime world is very serious. I see them almost as little children trying to find their way as they grow bigger and stronger. They have already learned the power and money that comes from heroin. I have told ‘The Monkey’ that there are other ways to make it in the crime world without dealing in the powders. He is a good listener and learner. I have told him that my methods can also bring power. So remember the name of ‘The Monkey’ because he will become a low-profile, but much feared headhunter within the Vietnamese crime world. While the ‘Small One’ is the rising star in Asian crime, I think he will not live long.
Australian crime figures laugh at these little men, but they are too stupid to see that they will eventually lose their power to them. They will gain fearful power within 10 years, I have no doubt about that at all.
The Su Doan 18 is also known as the 18 Division. It has about 200 members and is growing fast. It is based in Springvale, Richmond and Footscray and has a branch at Cabramatta in Sydney.
The gang began by running protection rackets against Vietnamese shopkeepers but is now also heavily involved in prostitution, heroin, blackmail and general standover tactics. They will never stop and if the authorities don’t move soon, they will become a major evil influence in Australia.
It could be worse. While the slopes are making a quid at least I can pick up some walking-around money playing Russian Roulette with them. They love gambling almost as much as they love blood, and they throw down plenty of dough to see The Chopper take a chance on blowing his brains out.
*
WITH all that has been written about ethnic crime it never ceases to amaze me that the so-called experts have steered away from groups who really do have a large slice of the action. The mafia in Australia has a fearsome reputation for violence and ruthlessness. It is high time this was exposed as a myth.
In mother Italy they may be strong, blowing up police, politicians and judges all over the place, but their poor gelled-up Australian cousins couldn’t knock the froth of a cappuccino in a street cafe.
The police and the press watch television and read books and think the same thing must be happening here as has happened in America and Italy. When you talk of real blood and guts violence in Australia you will note the names of those involved: Flannery, the Kanes, Taylor, Twist, Bradshaw, Turner, Freeman, Smith, Cox, Minogue (Craig, not Kylie) and, of course, the old Chop Chop himself. You could toss in a few Jewish names as well, just for spice, but you will notice that there are no wogs amongst them.
The Dagoes may hit the headlines, but they don’t hit much else.
In the invisible empire that is called the Australian underworld the Italians count for nothing. They hold financial power and drug power, but they are not feared by anybody except Italian shopkeepers, market gardeners and grandmothers.
No, the Australian criminal world does not shake in fear at the thought of the Italian mafia. But there is an ethnic crime group in Melbourne which truly does hold the power of life and death in the underworld . . . The Albanians. To be precise, a small group within the Albanian community which can strike terror into the hearts of most crims.
When it comes to death and violence this group is beyond compare. For sheer guts and love of blood, they are the tops. They have 1000 per cent attitude towards family honor and revenge. There is no question that they have a siege mentality towards the outside world. It is interesting to note that the Russian KGB used the Albanians as hit men and assassins.
I can say that in my time in Melbourne, the greatest friendship and loyalty I was shown came from this small and feared group. Two of my greatest and most trusted friends were Albanians.
No, it would be wrong of me to suggest that these two fine men had any connection with crime or criminals. They were just tough and honorable gentlemen who were well known and highly respected within the Albanian community.
One man is Neville Darbovski, who I simply called ‘Neville the Albanian.’ He was one of the bloodiest and gutsiest street fighters it has been my pleasure to know.
One of the toughest and hardest men I have known, however, was his father, Norm, a publican. He was seen as a father figure by many members of the Albanian communtity.
His loyalty and kindess to me in 1987 was given without question. I love him like my own father, and he is still in my heart.
I used to go with him to clubs in Lygon Street. It was the first time I ever saw so-called hard men kiss another man’s hand and cheek. I felt like I was an extra in a Marlon Brando movie.
Norm was kind and gentle and he was always there to give advice — or money, if it was needed — to friends in need. However, I always had the feeling that if you crossed Norm, you were entering a world where suicide would be the kindest and most humane advice.
I must state that Norm and Neville were hard men but were not involved with Albanian criminals. I was happy to know that when I was out and about in Melbourne in 1987, when there were many big-mouth criminals who wanted me dead, that I had the backing of two such rock-solid types.
They showed me more guts and loyalty that I had seen in a long time. I was always able to go to the Builders Arms Hotel in Fitzroy knowing I could have a drink, a meal or even a sleep in total safety. There were many men who were frightened of Chopper Read. There were more who shook with fear at the thought of upsetting or crossing old Norm and his family, God bless them.
I mention them here as a sign of my deep respect and gratitude for the loyalty they have shown me. I have no doubt that if I had not known them in 1987, I would have been killed. They stood between me and the grave in those days and I cannot forget them.
They taught me that honest men can be hard men.
*
FOR some years now many and various motorcycle gangs have controlled the amphetamines, or speed, market in Australia. While they no longer have a monopoly, they are the biggest participants in the huge industry.
The bikies have cornered the market in relation to production, bringing them wealth far beyond most people’s estimates. The wealth and drug power they have acquired has made them big players in the underworld.
But the rub is that these men are not cradle-to-the-grave criminals and when the shit hits the fan, the vast bulk of these so-called motorbike tough guys run for the cover of police protection. Or worse, they turn Crown witness.
There would only be a very small percentage of the members of the various clubs who could be called real tough guys. Many of the bikies are non-criminals involved in crime and this, in my opinion, is very dangerous. It is like non-medical people involving themselves in operations.
You are dealing with men who will holler copper at the first hint of trouble. I have some good friends in the bike world, but even they admit that they have a great deal of trouble with some patch-wearing members from some of the clubs.
Much of the inter-gang violence and distrust comes down to the fact that half of them spill their guts whenever they get into a police station. This results in great unrest and bloodshed between them.
I personally think that most of them have fallen off their Harleys onto their heads too often. I don’t pretend to understand the political intrigue or the thinking involved, but I do know that they have great power and wealth through their involvement in drugs.
This means that they are rich, violent and weak. A senior policeman once told me that he hadn’t met a bikie who wasn’t prepared to talk inside a police station as long as his name was kept quiet. They are dangerous, venomous and amateurish.
Of course, there is a handful of strong men in the bike world. They know who they are and so do I. As for the rest, I piss on them. They are like overgrown boy scouts with bad attitudes. They like to run around in uniforms with patches on their back. Obviously, they should all have gone to Scotch College to get it out of their systems. You would think they would grow up.
I suppose I shouldn’t try to analyse these boys. In the end, when all the talk and politics is over, a gun in the mouth is the only answer.
*
SOLLY is Melbourne’s bonfire king. He is a torch, an arsonist who comes from a wealthy Jewish family involved in the interstate rag trade.
Solly is more a friend of Dave the Jew’s than mine. He used to get around with the Surrey Road gang a bit in the old days. In the 1970s Dave the Jew and I were standing around watching a large fire when Dave said, ‘Good Golly, it’s Solly.’ There was Solly talking to one of the firemen as Solly’s mate’s factory burnt to the ground.
Solly is now a millionaire involved in a legitimate business. But, so I’m told, he’s still busy after hours. He is the Chopper Read of the fire insurance industry.
He has never done a day’s jail and I doubt that he ever will. He is the classic quiet achiever.
*
REÇen observer of the small, but growing group of Right-wing criminals who call themselves neo-Nazis.
The two criminals with alleged neo-Nazi sympathies who have grabbed the public attention have been Phillip Grant Wilson and Dane Sweetman.
Wilson, a 200-centimetre tall giant, wanted to rule the underworld. He began a protection racket and was allegedly involved in the murders of drug couriers Lina Galea and Ricky Parr. He was involved in planning armed robberies and other crimes and had his ‘soldiers’ carry out the raids.
Wilson claimed to have been a mercenary in Rhodesia before setting up a factory in Melbourne. Police believe he planned to kill a Melbourne policeman by dropping him from a light plane as revenge after his best friend, Thomas Messenger, was shot dead by police during a raid on his Wantirna house in 1985.
Wilson was shot dead in South Yarra in August, 1987. The killing has never been solved.
Dane Sweetman is not a good looker. He was sentenced to 20 years jail for the murder of David Noble in April, 1990. The Supreme Court was told that Sweetman and another man had been celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday when they killed Noble.
Sweetman is not eligible for release until November 18, 2005.
I’M not one for commenting on politics, as a rule. But I really must say that all these neo-Nazis getting around are in poor taste and have bad manners, and should be dealt with accordingly. And, believe me, they will be handled rather severely if they make the mistake of sticking their shaved skulls into the real crime world. The fact is that the ‘Nazis’ are a little bit of a sick comedy and a bad joke.
The late but not lamented Phillip Grant Wilson, the so-called ‘Iceman’, was one of the better known neo-Nazi nitwits to come into the scene. He was an enforcer with the strength of a bull and the heart of a sparrow. He was a pretender: a vegetarian who ate meat, a non-drinker who drank, a white racist who loved Asian prostitutes, a man who said he hated drugs but snorted speed and smoked hash.
Wilson was a classic criminal Walter Mitty. He once spoke rudely to a mate of mine in the South Yarra Arms Hotel. I followed the big fool into the toilet and punched him repeatedly. He fell to the ground, cowering and whimpering and I relieved myself on his fallen body. He was a coward — a wet coward.
He was looked upon by the mainstream criminal world as a dangerous fool and a dreamer. The only dangerous thing about him was that he actually believed his own lies. He was involved in drugs as he wanted the money to arm his own band of Right-wing mental cases. He really did believe he was Adolf Hitler reborn. The man was in reality not a heavy thinker and he was used as a front man by others who really pulled the strings.
It was known for sometime that ‘Phil the Dill’ was about to die. I was offered $8000 to do it myself but the money was not forthcoming. I was also asked to get rid of the remains of Lina Galea and Rick Parr, but I refused.
It was rumored for some time that there was police involvement in the murder of Wilson. This is something I do not believe. There were people close to Wilson who believed he was a big mouth who had served his purpose and was drawing too much attention to them.
I found out that a member of Wilson’s gang had put up the money and set up Wilson. Phil had been mouthing off that this person was a police informer and that he intended to kill him. Wilson telegraphed his punches, so he got hit first.
The man who pulled the trigger on Phil is known to me and is a bit of a nitwit himself, and the price for the hit was $5000. Set up by a junkie and killed by a semi-retard for peanuts. That about sums up how the Iceman got melted.
You’d think the other idiots would learn from what happened to Wilson. But you can’t tell some of these would-be Hitlers. Pentridge has a growing neo-Nazi population — and a fool called Dane Sweetman is one of the better-known of these fools. Neo-Nazi, the way they play the game, doesn’t mean Right-wing, it just means right off.
It takes more than a couple of swastikas tattooed on your body to make you a tough man. These mental pygmies march around Pentridge, poking their right arms into the air screaming ‘Heil Hitler’ to every bugger they see. They stick needles into their arms and they justify it because Hitler was an amphetamines freak. The two most Right-wing nations in the world, in my opinion, are Israel and South Africa. Now I am Right-wing, so Right-wing that I make these neo-Nazi nit wits look like bleeding heart liberals.
These bald baboons think it’s smart to act like Nazis, but the are really just kids fantasising after watching too many ABC documentaries. Bloody halfwits.
For all I know Dane Sweetman may not be a bad chap at all but he really is a lightweight. As someone who has read Mein Kampf, I think it’s safe to say dear old Dane wouldn’t have had the mental capacity to make the short list for Uncle Adolf’s SS. I think Himmler would have stuck him in a large bottle of metho and put him on display in the Heidelberg University. There are few neo-Nazis in Australia who would have read Mein Kampf, let alone understand it. It’s pretty heavy going.
I didn’t know Dane that well, but we did jail together in Pentridge’s H Division in 1990 and 1991 and I know that he is a registered member of the Ku Klux Klan.
He got married in the H Division contact visit area, with his bride wearing Doc Martens boots, and the female version of neo-Nazi high fashion. I believe the marriage celebrant didn’t know whether to read from the bible or Mein Kampf.
Dane is a bit of a fearsome-looking fellow at first sight, with his shaved head and and swastika tattoos, and he is seen by the public as a dangerous monster. But the real hard men in the system think of him and his type as an amusing comedy. Mind you, there are plenty of impressionable idiots behind bars, and he does have a small and growing following inside.
Why this fascination I don’t know. Personally, I have always found the neo-Nazis to be boring and brain dead. Their only topics of conversation are Hitler and Right-wing nonsense, and the fools sucked in by the Nazi crap are just young people with nothing and no-one, looking for something and someone. Hitler said that people will more readily accept a large lie than a small one and he might be right, at that. I think most politicians would secretly agree.
Ratbag political movements first stir the ratbag criminal class and work their way up. While they are no real danger at the moment, the neo-Nazis should be watched.
ONE of the favorite tricks of any self-respecting standover man is to try and get a dollar out of the trendy nightclub scene. After all, it always looks to be ripe for the picking. Lots of glitter, money, drugs. No-one in that scene wants their boat to be rocked because they are making too much money.
But it is not as easy as it may first seem. The Kanes tried it in the 1970s and after a few small victories, failed to make a mark. Others tried it and came a cropper as well.
In 1987 I had a go at it and had 100 per cent success — but I picked my targets with great care and never got greedy. But my success was only in the short term, so I suppose I failed as well.
We all try to get a piece of the action, but always from the outside. It was from the inside, from the so-called security business, that the money could be made. While the outsiders can create a stir for a short time, it is actually the security people, the old-fashioned bouncers, who control the club. And it is, of course, the security firms who control the bouncers.
Now, many of these firms are well respected and beyond reproach but some have strong underworld links. One of Melbourne’s top men in the nightclub security business also acts as the personal bodyguard to an Italian underworld identity from Carlton who is a major illegal gambling identity. And this security man is connected with a firm that has a piece of the action in many Melbourne nightclubs.
A big trick with some clubs is rorting the cover charge money. While the tax man can keep his eagle eye on the bar takings the cover charge money is anyone’s guess. Out of that money comes the payoffs to officials who turn a blind eye over parking, overcrowding and other matters, as well as the payoffs to certain criminal interests. Anyone who needs to be sweetened with a sly sling gets a whack out of the door takings.
This may not go on in every case, but it is widespread, believe me.
I always found that when I spoke to a nightclub owner or manager in private about the need for Chopper Insurance, they might stamp their feet and scream blue murder at first, but after a little straight talking they would see the sense in what I was saying.
After all, business is business . . . and, besides, we all have to do our bit to keep money in Australia. Those nightclub owners just waste it on imported luxuries.
*
EVERY dog has his day, and the old underworld monster known as the Victorian Federated Ship Painters and Dockers has become a faded phantom that no longer applies in the real criminal world of today. Most of the dockers’ real hard men are dead and gone and their criminal big thinkers have had second thoughts.
They still have a reputation — but that is all they have these days, and I doubt that they will re-emerge as a force on the Melbourne crime scene. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
I have written a poem about the decline and fall of the dockies, and it goes like this . . .
The Kanes got it in the head,
Bye bye Brian, Les is dead,
Shannon got hit with the apple cucumber,
Now Pat rests in final slumber.
Pat even had a bodyguard,
But Machinegun Bobby wasn’t trying too hard.
As for Puttynose,
Who can say? All we know is,
He’s not here today.
Ha ha. The dockies, in my opinion, were only ever the mice who roared. Now they can’t even do that.
