https://mafiainaustralia.wordpress.com/

[AustraliaSteve]

Yo, this is DOPE fabien. I love the tangential link, it’s gives such a better scope to the whole picture.

[Tmr88]

You guys seen the news out of Vic this morning?

John Latorre of Greenvale got shot dead in his driveway

[AustraliaSteve]

Yeah I started to notice my blog getting a surge in views this morning, which tipped me off to something going on.

Latorre was killed at 4.30am outside his house on Buchanan Place, Greenvale. Apparently he was leaving for work at the Markets. I’ve previously covered the Latorre family in an article I wrote about Shepparton. That mainly focused on his brother, Vincent Paul Latorre, who was running an extortion ring in the 2000s. He also oversaw a small crew of thieves in the 90s that Rocky Ilaria participated in; Vince was later linked to the 19 year old Ilaria’s murder.

I’ve got a mate that does work connected to the markets that might have some insight, he messaged me this morning asking if I’d seen it. I’ll see what he replies; he’s a solid dude with an interest in this stuff like me.

I’ll try and post the Herald Sun article but they’ve made it hard to copy and paste from their articles in the app. Here’s some pics though; might be a couple for your collection Fabien.

[AustraliaSteve]

This one’s John Latorre at Vince Benvenuto’s funeral.


This is his brother Vincent Paul Latorre.


And one more of John.

[AustraliaSteve]

Anyway, early theories are speculating that Latorre might have also been involved in the so-called “Tobacco Wars” currently occurring in Melbourne and Sydney, where rival crews have been burning down illegal vape and tax-free cigarette shops.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what happens with it over the next few months. Vince Latorre did nearly a decade in prison and has a reputation as a hitter. The Shepparton ’ndrina has been closely associated with the Melbourne ’ndrine for some time. In 2004, the Latorre brothers were among the group that contributed funds towards Frank Madaferri’s visa troubles.

[motorfab]

I didn't know him, thanks for the info and photos guys

[Tmr88]

Haha first place I looked after I saw the report was your blog, thought I’d recognised that name from somewhere!

As you said, will be interesting to see how it pans out. Whether it’s related to the tobacco/vape war, or whether it’s one faction clearing out the older dissenters after the leadership change last year…

[AustraliaSteve]

Here’s an article from The Age I can share;

Coffee with a mafioso: The time I met John Latorre
By Nick McKenzie
March 12, 2024 — 3.50pm
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When I asked John Latorre whether he knew anything about the existence of the Calabrian mafia in Australia – an organisation I’d been told by police he almost certainly belonged to – he scoffed.

There was no so-called Honoured Society with participants bound by family, ethnicity, tradition and organised, sometimes very violent, crime.

John Latorre, seen here at an underworld funeral in 2015, was executed outside his Greenvale home.
John Latorre, seen here at an underworld funeral in 2015, was executed outside his Greenvale home.CREDIT: JASON SOUTH
Sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Melbourne, Latorre told me that I’d confused a police conspiracy with a close-knit pocket of the Calabrian community whose members did little more than look out for one another.

Making his case, the bald, thickset middle-aged man vacillated between being polite and mildly menacing.

Vince Latorre (right) and his lawyer Peter Ward outside court in 2006.
Vince Latorre (right) and his lawyer Peter Ward outside court in 2006.CREDIT: JOHN WOUDSTRA
When I politely pondered aloud as to how his explanation tallied with the execution-style killings of several figures linked to this same small, but influential enclave within Victoria’s largely law-abiding Australian-Calabrian community, Latorre stayed dismissive.

His position remained unchanged when I prodded him about the 1991 murder of Shepparton man Rocco Iaria.

Latorre’s brother Vince was named by a coroner as a suspect in that crime, which was one of several unsolved homicides linked to the same secretive society John Latorre insisted did not exist.

At the mention of Iaria, Latorre’s coffee companion, who, like John, was a reputed senior member of the ’Ndrangheta, interrupted.
“Rocco went for a walk and didn’t come back,” he said coolly.

Perhaps noting the surprise register on my face, this man then followed up with what he considered to be a joke. “Don’t worry,” he said. “No journalists have ever disappeared ... yet.”


Latorre responded to this by shutting down our discussion.

“We are here to talk about facts,” he said over coffee, implying my questions were founded on falsehoods.

Whatever he knew about the Calabrian mafia, Latorre – who was executed in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday morning – wasn’t about to breach the mafia’s infamous omerta, or code of silence, and tell me. He was a man who had encountered more death than most and knew how to keep secrets.

Alfonso Muratore was killed in 1992.
Alfonso Muratore was killed in 1992.CREDIT: FAIRFAX MEDIA
The best man at John Latorre’s wedding, as well as his former boss at Melbourne’s wholesale fruit market in Footscray, was Alfonso Muratore, who was gunned down in Hampton in 1992.

Prior to this still unsolved execution, Muratore was a candidate to take over the Melbourne arm of the mafia.

When police interviewed Latorre after Muratore’s killing, he told them he knew nothing about who pulled the trigger. Latorre did let on that he worked for Frank Benvenuto, another reputed Calabrian mafia leader who was shot dead in 2000 in what police suspect was a killing to avenge Muratore’s death eight years earlier. This murder, too, remains unsolved.

In the years before his own death on Tuesday, federal and state police intelligence – which is unproven and can be unreliable – sporadically linked Latorre to violence and drug trafficking, including the financing of a 500-kilogram black-flight cocaine load which was seized by police in Papua New Guinea in 2020 when the Cessna carrying the drugs crashed.

The cocaine police seized in PNG in 2020.
The cocaine police seized in PNG in 2020.
The Calabrian mafia is regarded by Western police authorities as one of the most resilient and powerful global crime gangs, with entrenched networks stretching across Europe and the Americas.

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In Australia, the organisation has been the subject of sporadic police investigations over decades, including Operation Inca in 2008 and Operation Ironside in 2021. The Australian Federal Police currently has a dedicated investigative focus on Italian organised crime.

The most recent police intelligence assessments, sighted by this masthead, describe Latorre as part of the “leadership/older generation” group of ’Ndrangheta clan figures.

On Tuesday, a close friend of Latorre, who spoke to him last week, dismissed suggestions he was involved in organised crime, describing him as a popular and loyal fruiterer who, if he ever was involved in crime, had left it long behind.


“He didn’t seem worried about anything,” said the friend, who mentioned as an aside that Latorre had recently intervened in a matter involving a suspected criminal identity stealing from a well- known fruit store.

“I saw him a fortnight ago and spoke to him twice last week. If there was any stress in his life, he didn’t mention it. I was proud to call him a friend.”

My interest in Latorre was sparked after I uncovered $10,000 in donations he contributed to the Liberal Party between 2003 and 2006.

Latorre was one of several mafia-linked figures who had donated large sums to the Liberals as part of a lobbying effort targeting then immigration ministers Philip Ruddock and Amanda Vanstone and aimed at getting a visa for Latorre’s close friend, convicted mafia figure Francesco Madafferi.

Francesco Madafferi in the back of a police car in 2009.
Francesco Madafferi in the back of a police car in 2009.CREDIT: PAUL ROVERE
Ruddock rebuffed the lobbying, but Vanstone approved the visa on the basis of an argument that deportation would have an unfair impact on Madafferi’s children and wife. After getting his visa reprieve, Madafferi was charged with drug trafficking.

Latorre would later seek to again look out for his friend, testifying in Madafferi’s trial in an attempt to shore up what would ultimately be a failed defence that police had confused drugs with pumpkins.

This masthead’s expose of the mafia-linked donations and lobbying sparked another federal police investigation (it produced no charges) and ultimately led me to meet Latorre.

The reason Latorre wanted to meet me was to do more lobbying. He wished to push the case that his brother, Vince, had been framed by police in an extortion trial that resulted in Vince’s jailing in December 2009 for more than ten years. John had no evidence to back up his claims, offering only innuendo.

I absorbed it, and then took a punt, asking him why he had donated to the Liberals and what he knew of the mafia.

Latorre nonchalantly recalled his donations, as well as the fact that he had made one of them – worth $5000 – at a 2004 function in which Vanstone was the guest speaker.

He made no secret of the fact that the donations were given to influence the visa decision (there is no suggestion Vanstone acted improperly), but shrugged this off as nothing more than a case of reputable businessmen, once again, looking out for a friend.

On Tuesday morning, some of Latorre’s reputed Calabrian mafia associates and friends met at the Melbourne fruit and vegetable wholesale market in Epping, where Latorre ran a thriving business.

John Latorre with co-workers at his wholesale fruit and vegetable shop at the Melbourne Market in Epping.
John Latorre with co-workers at his wholesale fruit and vegetable shop at the Melbourne Market in Epping.CREDIT: INSTAGRAM
A source close to Latorre said it was likely they were discussing his death, but conceded this was speculation.

Detectives also told this masthead on Tuesday that if there was no retribution for Latorre’s killing, it may indicate it was an execution sanctioned by the mafia. But this, too, was speculation.

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One thing is more certain.

Just as Latorre fobbed off detectives investigating the death of his best mate Muratore three decades ago, police will likely face mostly silence as they speak to men from a world they still insist does not exist.

[AustraliaSteve]

Hey fellas,
The Lattore hit dominated mob news in Australia for now, actually got the highest level of traffic to my blog on a single day than ever before. I’ve got some more info regarding Latorre I will share soon, also working with some journos and authors to hopefully obtain more resources. In the meantime, I’ve finally updated with articles that cover up to Operation Afghan and the NCA Bombing.
There’s a big piece on Bruno the Fox there. Check it out Fabien. There might be a few scraps of new info there for you, otherwise it collates most of what we know about him.

Working on the next post about Adelaide in 2024, watch this space.

https://mafiainaustralia.wordpress.com/

[motorfab]

Actually, I'm quite familiar with Queensland's Camorra, the Barbaro/Sergi families and connections or with the "Melbourne Market Murders", but not really with Bruno Romeo, so thanks will read this ASAP

[Tmr88]

Fuck oath Steve! Cheers for the Monday reading, stuck into it
Now at work haha

[AustraliaSteve]

Goddamn it I posted the wrong draft. Sorry, fixing typos and editing errors.

Shoot Fabien Id thought I’d had a conversation with you about the Fox. I must’ve been mistaken.

[AustraliaSteve]

Fuck oath Steve! Cheers for the Monday reading, stuck into it
Now at work haha

All g brother. Cheers for the clicks.

[AustraliaSteve]

SOUTH AUSTRALIA ‘NDRANGHETA

In the late 1960s, early 1970s, the old Adelaide Advertiser started running stories about “La Honorata” or the “Honoured Society”. This was where the notion of the “Seven Cells of Adelaide” came from. The papers named Sergi, Barbaro, Trimboli, Romeo, Nirta, Alvaro and Perre. It’s a bit of a misnomer here, but it can be forgiven seeing as this was 50 years ago.
Essentially, the mistake was in assuming that these “Seven Families” were all of equal footing. With the benefit of hindsight, we can identify the leading families and those “secondary” by tracing the lineage back to Calabria and following the hierarchy.

For decades, the Romeo clan was the main conduit back to the Platí Group and operated under the aegis of the Griffith localé. Romeo, Perre, Trimboli families in particular have always been more the forefront of activity, moving between traditional produce rackets, extortion and some evidence of Calabrian run gambling circles. And of course the drug trafficking has not stopped since Bruno the Fox died, as recently as Ironside there were arrests of Romeo and Nirta attached to the Adelaide localé.
As they’ve aged out there’s been more evidence of the clan “gentrification”, as illicit funds are funnelled back into properties and legitimate business. Perre family now operates a decently sized law firm. My recent articles on Adelaide and Bruno the Fox cover that history.

Also interesting is the distinction between the Sinopoli clans and the aforementioned Platí clans. They work with Platí clans, but don’t seem to intermarry with them as much. There are some exceptions, but for the most part they seem to stay apart.
Carmine Alvaro arrived in Adelaide from Sinopoli, R.C in 1924. He had three sons, Cosimo, Giuseppe and Paolo. In 1989, these three were charged with their wives and in-laws (Francesco and Thomas Tigani, Natalè Licari and Francesco Condo) over a tax evasion scam. Operation Coach II targeted them after Coach I, which was the drug investigation into Rocco Sergi, Joe Carbone and Gianni Malvaso, the one linked to former DPP Barry Moyse, later found to be corrupt and a gambling addict.

In 1987, a document titled “ritualé de Camorra” was located on the property of Rafaelle Alvaro. It’s one of several such documents seized around the country over the last 50 years.

In 2008, Paolo Alvaro was named as a person of interest during Operation Inca. He was apparently working closely with Tomato Tins Pat Barbaro, but from the Calabrian side.

In 2012, Cosimo Alvaro and Tony De Ieso were charged with trafficking cannabis during Operation Dream.

*excerpt from a contacts email*
In 2013, A crime commission confidential report mentions "associates of the Melbourne godfather, tied to the notorious Alvaro mafia clan in Adelaide, had cultivated political connections and that through their legitimate public face were capable of achieving [political] influence”
I’ve inferred this to relate to Blonde Tony Madafferi and Danny Luppino, and their links to the Alvaro families in Adelaide.

Currently, the most recent cases involve the arrests that stemmed from Operation Ironside that saw two cousins from Adelaide charged with international drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. They have had their names suppressed despite all their biker associates being named and sentenced (mostly Comanchero and Hells Angels). By checking the court lists, I was able to establish these two men as Raffaele Salvatore Alvaro and Rafael Salvatore Alvaro. There’s two letters in their names that tell them apart. There hasn’t been much development here, and because the investigation involves various international agencies and ABF, it’s being kept very quiet due to what has been described to me as matters of “national security”.

Trying to keep up to date with the case.

Anyway, finally did SA and Adelaide, next I’ll focus on either Mildura/Shepparton or Victoria/Melbourne all together. With the Latorre hit being so current, there’s a bit of disarray atm.

[AustraliaSteve]

Great article from the ABC on the Latorre hit. Fellow member of TBHF Dr Sergi addresses some of the rumours around it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-25 ... /103619610