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[AustraliaSteve]

Wow. I look back on this thread that started in 2015, and think about how far we’ve come. At the time, I was still working with sources that claimed Vincenzo D’Agostino was Milanese, since that’s where he left Italy from. We now know that to be false, as he’s Calabrese, born in Palmi.
At the time, we thought Australian ‘ndranghetisti where doing their own thing, with a loose structure. We now know that they keep the formal rankings and maintain very strong links to the Old Country.

I appreciate the work of all my peers. Together we’ll get further.

[AustraliaSteve]

Before I go on with some other things, I found this interesting piece from journalist Evan Whitton that’s covers some of the various investigations into Australian ’ndrangheta over the years, covering up to 1992.

W H Y T H E L A W D E F E A T S JUSTICE & DEMOCRACY

EVAN WHITT0N
Chapter 10 - The Law and Democracy (1) Incompetence on Corruption and Organised Crime
Summary. Organised crime lives by corruption; corruption is inimical to democracy. A number of case studies show how the common law foils democracy.
... there is a vast difference between the ability of this commission to be comfortably satisfied about events as a result of a wide-ranging inquisitorial investigation, and the satisfaction of a court of law beyond reasonable doubt on a specific issue on the basis of narrowly-focused, technically admissible evidence.
- Hon Sir Edward Woodward QC 1992
Judges are inclined to assert that the 'genius' of the common law is that it adjusts to changing social conditions. That may be, but they don't say that the time lag may be some hundreds of years. John Locke (1632-1704) published his Two Treatises on Civil Government more than 300 years ago (1690). His and others' ideas on democracy were largely accepted in civilised countries by the end of the 18th century, but they have still to be accepted by English law. Democracy is defined here as honest government by representatives of citizens who have legal equality and a free flow of information. It is necessarily reduced by corruption in the trade of authority, lack of equality under the law, and obstruction to the free flow of information. Corruption is a fundamental tool of organised criminals; any hindrance to dealing properly with such people necessarily tends to increase corruption in the Trade and hence to decrease democracy. The basic thrust of this book is that English law remains inimical to democracy, and that this may be demonstrated by its bias in favour of organised criminals, the corrupt and the rich, and its bias against the free flow of information and standing commissions on corruption. In this chapter I touch on the law's incompetence to deal with criminals, some of them organised, and the corrupt.
As noted, the corrupt and their colleagues in organised crime are deterred according to the degree of certainty of exposure, arrest and imprisonment, but the degree of certainty is next door to zero. The libel laws have largely frustrated journalism's obligation to expose them for nearly 300 years; and if they are exposed, the law conceals so much evidence that they may not even be charged, let alone found guilty and imprisoned.
The law daily confirms the view of it expressed in this book; I append some miscellaneous data culled from The Guardian Weekly of 24 October 1993. Research for the David Hare trilogy of plays on the current state of England indicates that no more than three per cent of all crimes in England lead to convictions, but even if more could be convicted there is nowhere to put them. A Home Office report, Analysing Offenders, said that only one in 12 of those arrested goes to prison. Martin Walker reported that 'drug offences ... now account for over half of all American convicts. Prisoners cost an average of $US22,000 [$A32,560] a year to maintain, about the same as the cost of tuition at a first-class university like Harvard. Several States, including Florida and Michigan, are now spending more on prisoners than they do on schoolchildren'. The drug laws are primarily a benefit for corrupt police and organised criminals. We cannot blame English law for the drug laws; we can blame it for the fact that drug lords rarely go to prison. As noted, the task is to get the wrong people out of prison and the right ones in. A few examples should suffice to demonstrate that English law is not competent to deal with corruption and crime.
Mr Bischof and Mr Baystone
Data herein on the Mr Baystone Affair derives from Ken Blanch's series, The Hiley Files, in The Courier-Mail, September 1982. The Hon Sir Thomas Alfred Hiley (1905-91), a Liberal, was Treasurer from 1957 to 1965 in G.F.R. (Honest Frank) Nicklin's Country-Liberal Government in Queensland. He retired from Parliament in 1966. His work as Treasurer included administering the Racing and Betting Act and the Stamp Duties Office, which got a carbon copy of every licensed bookmaker's betting sheets. The law got a second bite at the Bischof cherry relatively soon after the Hon Mr Justice Harry Gibbs found in April 1964 that the Commissioner of Police did not condone or encourage prostitution at the National Hotel, Brisbane. In what must have been one of the more bizarre situations in the history of Westminster government, a deputation of illegal bookmakers from western Queensland approached the Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Hiley, with a complaint about Bischof and local police. The date is unclear, but it must be before Hiley stood down from the Treasury portfolio, possibly in disgust, in 1965. The bookmakers disclosed to Hiley that police in towns throughout Queensland engaged in theft by extortion from illegal bookmakers of agreed sums of between £10,000 [$145,900 at 1993 rates] and £40,000 [$583,600] a year, depending on the size of the town. Local police kept half; half went to 'Brisbane'; the bookmakers were in no doubt that Brisbane meant Bischof. He presumably shared it with his Masonic Grand Master, Chief Inspector Norwin Bauer, and others. Bischof fits the definition of organised criminal; this was corruption / organised crime on a huge scale. In some sense it may be regarded as Stage 5 police corruption (franchising organised crime), as well as Stage 3 (accepting a regular retainer not to enforce the law). However, the bookmakers had no complaint that they were made to pay; submitting to extortion was the accepted price of doing lucrative criminal business in Queensland. Their complaint was that police (perhaps encouraged by the result of the Gibbs inquiry) were now extorting additional sums. However, they were not prepared to give evidence; all they wanted, apparently, was for someone in authority to ask Bischof and the police to reduce their rapacity.
Hiley learned that Bischof was a major nod bettor with licensed Paddock bookmakers at Brisbane tracks, and his officials at the Stamp Duties Office learned, apparently from a disgruntled Paddock bookmaker, how the bribes from the country bookmakers were laundered to him, and confirmed it to some extent from the betting sheets. Betting on credit, Bischof put between £200 [$2918] and £500 [$7295] on two or three horses in most races. His bets were initially entered to Mr B; if the beast won, the name was completed as Mr Bischof., if it lost, the name was completed as Mr Baystone. Thus, all Bischof's bets were winners, and all Mr Baystone's were losers.
Hiley says he consulted the Solicitor-General, Bill Ryan, and told him the whole story. He says Ryan's advice was that if the bookmakers would not give evidence he did not think a charge against Bischof would succeed. Ryan presumably made the assessment on the basis that Hiley's evidence of what the western bookmakers had told him was hearsay and would not be admitted, and that the circumstantial evidence of Bischof's bets thus had nothing to support. On the other hand, Ryan judged that if Bischof were dismissed, he would succeed in an action for wrongful dismissal.
If that was Ryan's legal advice, it would appear that in this case English law made it impossible to remove from office a Police Commissioner who was known to be an organised criminal. On the other hand, European law would accept Hiley's evidence with the judge reminding himself and the jurors that since it was hearsay not too much notice could be taken of it unless it was supported by some other solid evidence. But once the evidence of the betting sheets was in, the commonsense of the jurors would tell them what they meant. What honest police officer could afford to risk up to $20,000 on every race? And what honest human being never places a losing bet?
Hiley conferred with the Premier. Honest (sic) Frank gave Hiley authority only to threaten Bischof to the extent of forcing him to close down, presumably briefly, some illegal bookmakers. In the presence of Police Minister Alex Dewar, Hiley used to Bischof the empty threat of a public inquiry, and the real, and to a corrupt officer frightening, threat that carriage of illegal betting would be taken out of the hands of police if he did not crack down on illegal bookmakers. Hiley says that some illegal bookmakers, warned by police of the raids, provided 'cleanskins' to be caught.
The law had now twice failed to remove Bischof. Queensland continued to have a known organised criminal as head of its police force until he retired for health reasons in 1969 and was succeeded by his old comrade in arms, Norwin Bauer.
Herbert et al
An enlightened Queensland Police Minister, Max Hodges, sought to rid the force of endemic corruption by appointing Raymond Wells Whitrod to succeed Bauer in 1970. Whitrod set up an anti-corruption unit, the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), in 1971. Between 1971 and 1974, the CIU launched prosecutions against 24 police allegedly guilty of corruption or other misconduct. All 24 prosecutions failed. This suggests that the police were all innocent, or that the prosecuting authorities were incompetent, or that there was something wrong with the law. If the CIU had got a result in its last case, 'a seemingly iron-clad case' against the legendary bagperson, Jack Herbert, things might have been different. The case failed in November 1976. Ten days later, Terry Lewis, allegedly Bischof's old bagperson, was promoted from Inspector to Assistant Commissioner; Whitrod resigned in disgust; Lewis was appointed Commissioner. A later inquiry reported that a graft network headed by Lewis and Herbert got a minimum of $3,042,100 in bribes from brothels and illegal gambling from 1978 to 1987.
Corporate Crime
After an inquiry into the collapse of Victoria's Tricontinental Bank, the Hon Sir Edward Woodward QC reported in 1992 that a former bank official was a 'prime candidate for prosecution', but that 'there is a vast difference between the ability of this commission to be comfortably satisfied about events as a result of a wide-ranging inquisitorial investigation, and the satisfaction of a court of law beyond reasonable doubt on a
specific issue on the basis of narrowly-focused, technically admissible evidence'.
Commenting on Woodward's admission that, regardless of the facts, the law made it useless to prosecute, Henry Bosch, former chairman of the National Companies and Securities Commission, said the law 'is singularly ineffective in dealing with corporate crime. Our system is slow, expensive and most people get off
'Ndrangheta
Most Italian / Australian organised criminals derive from perennially impoverished Calabria in the toe of Italy. Calabrian organised criminals are referred to variously as 'Ndrangheta (a Greek word meaning heroism and virtue, spelled at least three ways in English, and pronounced with a grunt), L'0norata Societa (The Honoured Society), La Famiglia (The Family). They are also known as the Calabrian Mafia to distinguish them from their counterparts across the Straits of Messina, the Sicilian Mafia, who are properly called Cosa Nostra. Australian police detected Calabrian cells engaged in extortion and murder in Western Australia in 1922, Victoria in 1926, possibly South Australia in 1927, and in Queensland and NSW in 1929. Eleven Italians were murdered in North Queensland, Sydney and Griffith in the late 1920s and 1930s.
Taxpayers funded no fewer than 18 investigations held into 'Ndrangheta in the 28 years from 1964. Little was achieved. Perhaps Gianfranco Tizzoni, the Melbourne agent for Bob Trimbole, the Griffith cell's distributor and fixer, supplied a reason to reporter Keith Moor in Italy in December 1987. Moor (1989, p. 118) says Tizzoni told him that Trimbole had all sorts of people on side and working for La Famiglia, including State and Federal politicians, State and Federal police, lawyers, members of the judiciary, and public servants in most Government departments. Another reason was that organised crime necessarily involves conspiracy and patterns of criminal activity, but the law makes it hard to demonstrate conspiracy, and rules of evidence conceal from jurors 'similar facts' that would indicate a pattern.
Brief details of some of the investigations:
Cusack, 1964
A Mafia expert, John Cusack, of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was brought to Victoria in 1964 to help the Homicide Squad investigate a number of 'Ndrangheta murders connected with the Queen Victoria wholesale produce market. He reported in August 1964 to Henry Bolte's Victorian Government, Jack Renshaw's New South Wales Government and the Australian Government, of which that ill-furnished lawyer, Robert Menzies, was Prime Minister. The Cusack Report was never tabled anywhere, possibly because the politicians saw no votes in disturbing the electorate. Major beneficiaries of the silence were 'Ndrangheta and the corrupt. Cusack reported that the Society had 500 members in NSW and 300 in Victoria; it operated in all States and was 'already engaged in extortion, prostitution, counterfeiting, sly grog, breaking and entering, illegal gambling, and the smuggling of aliens and small arms. Within the next 25 years [by 1989] if unchecked the Society is capable, of diversification into all facets of organised crime and legitimate business. This could very well include narcotics, organised gambling, including the corruption of racing, football etc, organised usury, and the large-scale receipt and distribution of stolen goods'. He recommended that an Extortion Unit be set up within the Homicide Squad to obtain evidence for prosecutions 'of Society extortionists'. Nearly 30 years later, in December 1992, it was reported that 'Ndrangheta operatives at the Melbourne markets were extorting 50 cents for every case of produce bought by the Coles Myer group.
ASIO 1964-65
The Menzies Government asked the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to examine all available police records to see if an Italian criminal society actually existed in Australia. ASIO reported in April 1965 that Cusack was right about a secret criminal society of mainly Calabrian origin. It said: '... at no time has any concerted attempt been made to thoroughly investigate the Society ... even though an investigation has been repeatedly recommended by police officers coming in contact with it ... Existing counter-measures have proved to be quite inadequate in combating both the influx of Society members and the growth in the activities of the Society.'
The ASIO report was likewise ignored; Menzies presumably thought he had more pressing interests overseas. He spent early 1965 successfully persuading the US to take part in a ground war in Vietnam and formally took Australia into the war late in the month that ASIO reported. Menzies' War eventually cost the lives of some two million Vietnamese, 50,000 Americans and 500 Australians, an achievement against which the criminal activities of 'Ndrangheta, however considerable, might seem meagre indeed. 'Ndrangheta members have reason to be doubly grateful to Menzies; his Vietnam adventure created the circumstances that led to an exponential increase in their wealth. US soldiers on leave in Sydney popularised the use of marijuana, a relatively harmless euphoric and intoxicant that had been around for more than 4000 years; a group of 'Ndrangheta clans based in Griffith and Canberra hastened to fill the demand. Within five years of the ASIO report, they were the major Australian producer of cannabis, the base product for marijuana. Arlacchi (1983) says that Italian police established that the 100-odd members of the 'Ndrangheta clans at Griffith financed the 'production with the proceeds of a series of kidnappings carried out in Italy over the previous few years', and that their drug operations 'realised a net annual profit of up to $60 million a year'. By 1974, onetime Calabrian peasants were flaunting their new wealth in palatial 'grass castles' in Griffith. Bob Trimbole was the general 'fixer' for the Griffith clans. He handled the bribes, the marijuana distribution, the false passports, and, as if to further vindicate Cusack's prophecy, he fixed horse races.
RICO 1970
An effective counter-measure against 'Ndranghetisti and other organised criminals has been available since 1970, almost to the moment when Bob Trimbole was telling his Melbourne distribution agent, Gianfranco Tizzoni, that there was an unlimited supply of marijuana available from Griffith. RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) legislation, introduced in the United States in 1970, focuses on conspiracy and pattern. Stewart (1983, p. 766) notes that section 1962 delineated four crimes: legally acquiring a business enterprise with funds from a pattern of racketeering activity; illegally acquiring an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity; use of an enterprise to engage in a pattern of racketeering; conspiracy to violate those provisions.
A 'pattern of racketeering activity' is defined as the commission of two or more of those crimes within 10 years of each other and connected by some common scheme. US law enforcement agencies can thus put away organised criminals if they can show a pattern of criminal activity over time; the entire Mafia leadership in New York were imprisoned via RICO conspiracy charges in the late, 1980s.
RICO is not restricted to organised criminals of the sort we associate with guns; 'enterprise' is defined to include any individual, partnership, corporation, association, government agency, union, or group of individuals. We can perhaps see why the Hon Sir Robert Askin would not have been keen to introduce RICO type legislation. It is said that he and his police chiefs were involved in an enterprise involving a conspiracy to extort bribes from organised criminals on a weekly basis, and that one of his police chiefs, Fred Hanson, went duck-shooting with, and accepted gifts from, Bob Trimbole.
The Hawke Government introduced RICO-type legislation, the Proceeds of Crime Act 1987, but it was largely designed to protect taxation revenue. The fact that no Australian Government has RICO-type legislation which is aimed at organised crime generally means that much taxpayers’ money is wasted on federal and state police forces, the National Crime Authority, the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission, and the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Griffith 1974
Perhaps we can blame the non-publication of the Cusack and ASIO reports on the fact that some in the judiciary did not seem to be aware of the true nature of 'Ndrangheta, or perhaps even of its existence; it seems unlikely that sentences imposed on cannabis producers in the Griffith District Court in 1974 by His Honour Judge Russell Jack Miller Newton QC (b. 1910) would have unduly deterred 'Ndrangheta. On Friday 17 May, Rocco Barbaro (b. Plati, Calabria, 23.12.49) pleaded guilty to a charge relating to five acres of cannabis, said to be worth $5 million, at Tharbogang. Newton fined him $250 and gave him a bond. Four days later, Giuseppe (Joe) Scarfo (b. Plati, 3.2.18) pleaded guilty to a charge concerning cannabis said to be worth $2 million at Hanwood. Newton fined Scarfo $500 and gave him a bond.
Mackay 1973-77
It perhaps says something that in practical terms one of the more successful investigators of 'Ndrangheta drug activities was the proprietor of a small furniture business in Griffith, Donald Mackay. He began urging action on drug activities in the Griffith area in 1973. Concerning Judge Newton's sentences on cannabis producers in May 1974, Bottom (1988, p. 18) reports that Mackay complained that young persons charged by local police with smoking marijuana had got heavier fines and sometimes imprisonment. Mackay's wife, Barbara, wrote to the Police and Justice Minister in the Askin Government, John Maddison, to say that the contrast in sentencing was 'alarming', but Maddison appears to have thought Newton's sentences were about right; he did not seek heavier sentences in the Appeal Court.
Mackay got a tip in 1975 about a major cannabis plantation in the vicinity of Coleambally, 60 kilometres south of Griffith. He did not inform Griffith detectives, three of whom later went to prison for corruption, but went to Sydney and helped organise a raid by selected Drug Squad detectives, including Ron Jenkins and Michael Drury, the same Drury who was shot nine years later to prevent him giving evidence against a Melbourne drug-dealer. The detectives raided the plantation on Monday 10 November 1975. Its size, 31.5 acres, and value, then said to be worth $80 million [$306.4 million at 1993 rates] wholesale, were stunning; in 1993, a single cannabis plant produced marijuana worth $2000 on the street. At the March 1977 trial of the five arrested at Coleambally, Judge Jack Newton permitted defence solicitors and barristers, over Detective Jenkins' objections, to peruse his notebook, which contained Mackay's name as the informant. Sentencing the four found guilty, Newton said it was very sad to see 'respectable' men growing cannabis for money, and recommended that they do the time (two got five years, two got two years) on prison farms.
The lack of concern evinced by Menzies and other politicians about 'Ndrangheta had a further effect soon after the Coleambally trial: it was decreed that Mackay was to get the white lupara (he was to be murdered and the body was not to be found). The police chief's friend, Trimbole, asked Tizzoni to procure an assassin. Through gunsmith George Joseph, Tizzoni hired Jim Bazley, a veteran soldier of the Melbourne dock wars of the early 1970s. A jury later found that Bazley murdered Mackay in Griffith on Friday 15 July 1977. The body was never found but there was enough blood and other evidence to indicate that Mackay had been shot. A Homicide officer, Joe Parrington, was in charge of the Mackay investigation, without success, for seven years.
Woodward 1977-80
Premier and Police Minister Neville Wran QC appointed Justice Philip Woodward to chair a Royal Commission on drug-trafficking on 5 August 1977, but declined, on civil liberties grounds, to give him authority to enter and examine Griffith 'grass castles'. In October 1979, Woodward found that 'Ndrangheta, of which he said Trimbole was an 'influential' member, ran a drug growing and distribution network and that the 'organisation was responsible for the disappearance and murder of Donald Mackay'. The detail in the report offered data that might appear to provide a pattern under RICO legislation, but the rules of evidence apparently precluded charges being laid against any member of 'Ndrangheta.
Mason 1980
Trimbole, who had procured false passports for at least three members of the Mr Asia heroin syndicate, is said to have bought into the syndicate for $30 million in April 1979. In the same month, through Tizzoni and Joseph, he procured Bazley to murder two syndicate members, Douglas and Isabel Wilson, who had given information to Queensland police. The Wilsons inquest was held in Melbourne in 1990. An inquest is supposed to be an investigation into the truth, but the law in all States of Australia holds that a person can refuse to answer questions at an inquest on the ground that his answers may incriminate him; in NSW, it is even an offence to report that a person used that excuse to escape giving evidence. Trimbole was called to give evidence, but the Coroner, Kevin Mason SM, was obliged to excuse him on the basis that the Supreme Court had already ruled that Brian Alexander, lawyer's clerk of choice to the heroin trade, need not trouble to give evidence, and that Trimbole might be asked whether he was involved in the murder of the Wilsons. He was thus able to avoid giving evidence at the inquest. It may seem grotesque that the law in its tender care insists that organised criminals should not be embarrassed or discommoded by having to answer questions at an inquest on the body of a person whose execution they may have arranged. Frustrated by the law, Mason recommended a major inquiry on the Mr Asia syndicate.
Stewart 1981-83
Justice Donald Stewart was eventually appointed to inquire into Mr Asia, but Trimbole, apparently warned by police and others, left the country in May 1981. Stewart made strenuous efforts to get the authorities to chase Trimbole overseas, but largely in vain; Trimbole died in Spain in May 1987. If Tizzoni was correct about Trimbole's role as official briber for 'Ndrangheta, a number of politicians, judges, police and bureaucrats would have been happy that he was never brought back to Australia and persuaded to tell what he knew.
NRMA 1978-
NRMA [National Roads and Motorists' Association] Insurance Ltd was the sole compulsory third party (CTP) insurer in the ACT. It appears that it was in 1973 that the first third party insurance claim was made by persons whose surnames ended in a vowel and who were resident in either Griffith or Canberra. In 1978, the NRMA began to perceive a pattern in a number of motor accident claims: many involved were born in Calabria; lived in Griffith and Canberra only; were often related; were often involved in a number of accidents; were mentioned in the Woodward Report; and received no clinically detectable injury. Further, the injured were not at fault, those at fault were not injured; vehicles were old or were hired and often had many passengers; the accidents often occurred late at night in isolated places.
The NRMA began contesting the claims in 1983 and started to get verdicts in its favour in 1984, but the judges tended to be unable to find conspiracy or fraud, merely that the plaintiff had not made out his case. The Costigan Royal Commission on the Ships Painters and Dockers' Union recommended in 1984 that organised insurance fraud be attacked along RICO lines. The recommendation was not accepted.
Alpha 1981-83
The Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence (ABCI) consists of detectives seconded from various States to form what is supposed to be a central clearing-house of intelligence. It was directed in June 1981 to 'collect, collate and analyse information regarding the involvement of persons of Calabrian extraction in the illicit marijuana industry'. This became Project Alpha. A 1983 Alpha report said that 'unfortunately' the 1965 ASIO comments 'are equally true today, 18 years later', and that 'it has become apparent that the marijuana industry is only one facet of the activities of these criminals. The money generated by marijuana has allowed them to diversify into a wide range of activities both legal and illegal'.
Seville 1981-83
In a bizarre and possibly unlawful episode, Australian Federal Police (AFP) and NSW police sanctioned a cannabis plantation at Bungendore, NSW, in 1981. The aim of AFP Superintendent Colin Winchester was apparently to get information on senior 'Ndranghetisti and on the still-unsolved Mackay murder. In March 1982, Gianfranco Tizzoni and Antonio (Tony) Barbaro (b. Plati, Calabria, 25.3.44) took 97 kilograms of marijuana from the Bungendore crop to Melbourne. Winchester advised the Victorian Drug Squad's Sergeant John Weel, and he arrested them. By 1983 every man and his dog seemed to be 'ripping-off' (stealing) the cannabis and Seville was cancelled. In Operation Songbird, later Trio, Tizzoni gradually gave Victorian police details of the murders of Mackay and the Wilsons.
Brown 1984
Bruce Brown SM conducted an inquest on Donald Mackay in March 1984, but Superintendent (as he now was) Joe Parrington did not put all the available evidence before him. Brown found a prima facie case of murder against Tizzoni and Joseph, who had already confessed in Victoria, but because he lacked the corroboration that Parrington could have supplied, he did not find a similar case existed against their accomplices, Trimbole and Bazley.
Trojan 1985-
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) Fraud Squad mounted an investigation, Operation Trojan, in 1985 of suspected fraudulent compulsory third party claims involving the NSW Government Insurance Office (GIO), which had the CTP monopoly in NSW, and the NRMA. The squad perceived a pattern similar to that perceived by the NRMA seven years before, but no prosecutions appear to have been launched as a result of Trojan, presumably because of deficiencies in the law.
Nagle 1986
In 1986, former Justice John Nagle headed a Commission of Inquiry into the NSW investigation of the Mackay murder. In his report, he used the following words to describe aspects of the investigation: ludicrous; judgment ... hopelessly astray; extraordinary; inexplicable; inconceivable; particularly puzzling; dilatory; inexcusable; beyond belief. He also found: 'There is evidence warranting the prosecution of Frederick Joseph Parrington for the offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice', but said that the Government might consider laying departmental charges against him. The (Barry) Unsworth Government took the latter course, and in March 1987 Police Commissioner John Avery found Parrington guilty of two cases of neglect of duty in the Mackay case and fined him $1000. He was later promoted to Assistant Commissioner.
Cahill 1989-91
Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester was executed outside his Canberra home in January 1989, a month before 11 persons, mostly of Calabrian extraction, were to face a committal hearing on charges deriving from Seville. The committal collapsed when the main Crown witness, Joe Verduci, declined to give evidence. Urged by Independent MP John Hatton, the NSW Parliament asked the Federal Government to set up a joint Royal Commission on all aspects of 'Ndrangheta; the Hawke Government said it would wait on the result of the Winchester inquest. The Canberra Coroner, Ron Cahill, was assisted by the Federal Police, an officer of which no doubt startled Mackay's widow with an assertion that L'0norata only killed people within the group. Cahill took evidence about Seville, and a number of Calabrians appeared briefly and uninformatively in the box. Cahill did not find out who killed Winchester. He offered the view that a Royal Commission on Seville would find out no more than he had. The Hawke Government then rejected the NSW Parliament's request for a joint inquiry into ALL aspects of 'Ndrangheta.
NCA 1992-
The National Crime Authority (NCA) was invented by Malcolm Fraser in 1982 to expose scoundrels to public gaze. That changed, presumably on civil liberties grounds, when the Hawke Government took office in 1983. So far from exposing scoundrels, the NCA has since been bound by secrecy provisions that make it a criminal offence to give anyone information. Sources other than the NCA assert that 'Ndrangheta's cannabis production is bigger than ever. The NCA began investigating 'Ndrangheta in 1992 and appears to have had some success in discovering cannabis plantations. Assassinations broke out again among elements of the Melbourne cell of 'Ndrangheta in 1988. Carl Mengler, the Victorian Homicide officer who ran the operation, Trio, that led to the convictions of Bazley, Joseph and Tizzoni in connection with the 'Ndrangheta-inspired murders of Mackay says in Moor (1989, p. 206): 'The inter-related Italian crime group is the biggest single organised crime syndicate in Australia and probably the world. The Chinese triads are coming up close; give them 10 years and they will overrun the Italians.'
Judge Giovanni Falcone was murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1992. In Falcone (1991, p. 99), he says he believes that 'Ndrangheta may have 'joined forces with the Sicilian Mafia', or at least that 'a number of heads of the 'Ndrangheta are affiliated to Cosa Nostra', and had thus 'become much more dangerous'. The implications for Australia seem clear.
As should be apparent from the material above, RICO-type conspiracy and pattern legislation offers part of the solution to Australia's wretched record on 'Ndrangheta and other organised criminals, including the white collar variety. In 1994, RICO was already nearly a quarter of a century overdue. If the parliamentarians and the legal bureaucrats, for whatever reason, refuse to act, the judges might perhaps bring themselves to decline to persist further in error and accept that jurors can understand judges' instructions not to be unfairly influenced by similar facts.

[AustraliaSteve]

Not ‘ndrangheta news but still Australian so I’ll post it here.

There’s currently a pretty big trial going on in Melbourne at the moment involving the Finks OMC.
A cooperating witness has spoken at length about the clubs recruiting practices, inner workings and politics and the ongoing rivalry with the Mongols OMC.
Main points so far is that only family members are getting patched, they sell drugs and are constantly gunning for the Mongols.
So standard stuff really. What’s interesting is that they’ve identified Sione Hokafonu as the Finks “world president”, which is technically true since the Finks are an Australian founded OMC. There’s more to this story. I’m gonna try and dig up what gangs he used to belong to before rising to where he is. I know for a fact that Fink Chapters in Queensland were dissolved in the late 2000s, early 2010s, as well as the Victorian Chapter being patched over to the Hells Angels after Chris Hudson shot those people in 2007.

Hokafonu was shot in the ankle during a recent melee and will apparently never walk properly again (makes sense). Another biker was shot four times in the head and apparently survived. Talk about the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

[AustraliaSteve]

Here’s Sione.

[AustraliaSteve]

I believe this is the guy who was shot in the head.

[AustraliaSteve]

Colin McLaren has made some interesting points in the latest episode of The Sting;
-He names Pasquale Barbaro (the one gunned down in 2016) as being responsible for a string of death threats he received at his restaurant. Apparently he had unknowingly employed an Italian girl with links to Griffith ‘ndrina to work in his Alpine Victoria restaurant.
-He claims he reached out to Mick Gatto, among others, in response to the threats, but the overwhelming opinion was that he should just leave ( he now resides in Europe, and from his latest publications and his early history, I have a feeling it might be Italy)
-He believes then Adelaide DPP Paul Rofe was corrupt and responsible for the case brought against Perre in 1994 being dropped. Rofe was known to have a gambling addiction and had been embroiled in several controversies, including a drunk driving offence. McLaren blames Rofe for the loss of tapes recorded by undercover agents in the Perre case.

[calabrianwatch]

Anna Sergi posted tweet on the episode by Channel 9 Under Investigation on Colin Winchester https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HukObjIrHXo

[motorfab]

Excellent, thanks for the share, I watch this ASAP

I see there is also an episode about Don Mackay

[AustraliaSteve]

This is the content she told me was working on when I was doing part 8’of my series. She advised me to get it finished ASAP, and she was right, it accounted for a huge spike in views. The most this year lol. There’s an author I’m in touch with who said the same thing, they used a lot of his material too. Consulted his archives.

Anyway, they’re on the watch list.

[AustraliaSteve]

Does anybody know anything about a circa 1910s mobster named Angelo Delfino? He’s described as “betraying” the organisation before fleeing to Australia, where he was chased away following knowledge that he was still in danger/killers were possibly in pursuit. He fled to Argentina and then to New York where he was shot in a dancing room. He was described as a member of the Camorra. This is the extent of the info available in the various trove articles I’ve found.

The reason this is tantalising is because his death dates to 1913, which means that he was in Australia sometime before that. This suggests that there was either a network that he aware of, or one that alerted his pursuers to his being in Australia. The term Camorra at the time was also used interchangeably with any Southern Italian criminality, as we’re aware.

Speculative, I’ll admit, but the closest I’ve come so far to finding some evidence of presence in Australia prior to 1922.

In the various trove articles, his name in spelled Antonio/Antonino Delfino/Delfinos/Defino. A cursory search indicates the existence of records of the name in Reggio Calabria around the time in question. Anyone who can contribute anything would be much appreciated, in the meantime I’ll keep digging.

[AustraliaSteve]

I can’t find a record of this death as it’s described in the newspaper articles. There’s a few candidates for arrivals in New York that line up, but you would think a 1913 murder in a “…dancing room in New York” would be more easily traced. The murder supposedly took place between 22-29 May 1913.

Getting frustrated that this will become another dead end. Still, it indicates a mafioso fled Italy, travelled through Australia, then Argentina before ending up dead in New York. It feels like something big, but there’s obviously some crucial details and vital statistics missing which hinders my progress.

[AustraliaSteve]

It’s a bit older and contains much of what McLaren has covered before, but he also did a podcast with Gary Jubelin (a former cop who actually has some negative baggage).
Anyway, here’s the Spotify link for anyone interested.

https://spotify.link/SKdQVBboZyb

Jubelin has also done episodes of his podcast “I Catch Killers” with Franzese and Joe Pistone (the one with Pistone was pretty good).

[AustraliaSteve]

Dr Sergi has just published a new article that touches on Australia. As per usual, she makes some fantastic points.

https://icalabresi.it/rubriche/antimaf ... esso-tilt/

[AustraliaSteve]

Something interesting. Are biker gangs like the Comoncheros trying to cut out the ‘ndrangheta middle men in the cocaine trade? There’s a lot of reporting on brokers representing the Comonchero OMCG entering Canada to facilitate deals. There’s no information on any actual individuals atm, but it’s all over Australian media. Most of it’s behind a pay-wall, but here’s an example.




True Crime Australia
Crime In Focus
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Comanchero bikies, crime gangs move to Canada to get drugs from Mexican cartels to Australia

The Comanchero OMCG and organised crime gangs are mobilising to a new foreign powerbase to get drugs smuggled into Australia from Mexican cartels. See the video.

Tom Minear
Tom Minear
US Correspondent in Los Angeles
@tminear
3 min read
April 20, 2023 - 4:30AM
News Corp Australia Network

Australian Border Force takes us inside Operation Jardena in Los Angeles, where they are stopping the trusted insiders and bikie gangs linked to drugs that Mexican cartels are trying to move to Australia.
Exclusive: Mexican cartels are trying to flood Australia with cocaine and methamphetamine to cash in on sky-high street prices, prompting the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle group to expand its trafficking network in North America.

News Corp can reveal the bikie gang’s operatives have set up shop in Canada, where the cartels are now producing meth in an effort to evade authorities via new global drug routes.

The Comanchero OMCG and other organised crime gangs have also groomed sleeper agents in the freight industry who can sneak illegal shipments into Australia through their legitimate jobs.

The alarming intelligence has been revealed through the Australian Border Force’s Operation Jardena crackdown on trusted insider threats in the supply chain.

For the first time, the border protection agency now has an officer stationed in the US, tasked with partnering with American authorities to stem the flow of drugs on the front line.

The Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Club are moving drugs through Canada.
The Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Club are moving drugs through Canada.
In an exclusive interview, Border Force inspector Vanessa Ruff said it was “very well known to cartels” that Australia had some of the world’s highest street prices, with a gram of cocaine costing as much as $500 and a single hit of ice often sold for $100 or more.

“That was not well known for law enforcement when I got here,” she said.

Law enforcement from aorund the globe work with the US from the San Pedro Port in California to find illegal contraband. Picture: Coleman-Rayner
Law enforcement from aorund the globe work with the US from the San Pedro Port in California to find illegal contraband. Picture: Coleman-Rayner
Her mission has now put US agencies on high alert for drug shipments down under, with US Homeland Security Investigations supervisory special agent Russell Simons warning the cartels were trying to cash in on the “big market in Australia”.

Australian Border Force inspector and Operation Jardena supply chain liaison officer, Vanessa Ruff and US Homeland Security Investigations supervisory special agent, Russell Simons. Picture: Coleman-Rayner
“A lot of our targets here are seizing that opportunity to try and get contraband – mostly narcotics – over there for the mark-up,” he said.

“It’s all about business for them. They want to maximise their profits just like any corporation.”

Australian Border Force inspector and Operation Jardena supply chain liaison officer, Vanessa Ruff and US Homeland Security Investigations supervisory special agent, Russell Simons talking to other officers at the San Pedro Port in California. Picture: Coleman-Rayner
Ms Ruff is based in Los Angeles but has developed relationships with agencies across North and South America, including in Canada, where she worked with local gang squad officers as well as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to identify the presence of drug brokers for the Comanchero group.


If a suspected package is seized it is taken into an undisclosed private warehouse where it is X-rayed and dealt with in the appropriate manner. Picture: Coleman-Rayner

Canada is now one of the top sources of drug imports to Australia, as organised crime gangs try to bypass border scrutiny through alternative supply routes and Mexican cartels shift some production north of the US border.

While the Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to comment on the Canadian expansion of the Comancheros, a spokeswoman said outlaw motorcycle gangs were a “serious criminal threat”.

“They have vast resources at their disposal and their criminal activity in Canada includes drug trafficking, fraud, counterfeiting, money laundering, contraband smuggling, extortion, violence and illegal gaming,” she said.

Ovidio Guzman in a residential compound near the centre of Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico, the alleged leader of his father’s former cartel. Picture: Supplied

The Mexican army’s operation following the recapture in Sinaloa of Ovidio Guzman, son of Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzman. Picture: Getty

Ms Ruff, a supply chain liaison officer for Operation Jardena, said trusted insiders were used by organised crime to move drugs through ports and airports.

“All good crooks in Australia, the Comancheros in particular, they have people in the supply chain,” she said.

“They might have a nephew that’s trained legally to be a customs broker, and he starts off as a warehouse worker and works his way up in the industry, and it’s literally like a sleeper. And 20 years down the track, he’s right to go – he’s a legitimate, well thought of customs broker.

“The wife will own the warehouse licence, the husband will drive the truck, and they’ve got the whole supply chain covered.”

AN0M’s encrypted app led to the set up of Operation Jardena. Picture: AFP
Operation Tin Can involved customs, police, and other law enforcement agencies from across the world, targeting international drug trafficking. Picture: ABF
Mr Simons agreed, saying the “true insider threat” was “the most difficult to identify”.

“They’ve gone through the processes, they have all the connections,” he said.

Ms Ruff said bikie gangs were expanding their presence overseas as they had become willing to shop around different cartels to buy enough drugs to be sold in Australia.

The Border Force inspector, who took on the posting almost a year ago, said drug shipments increased dramatically after pandemic border restrictions eased.

“They kept producing during Covid and they had all the supply chains shut down … so now they’re just trying to move it and get rid of it,” she said.

Ms Ruff played a key role in Operation Tin Can – revealed by News Corp last month – which made more than 100 drug seizures and 43 arrests across 58 countries. The transnational joint operation seized almost 100 tonnes of cocaine and 314 kilograms of cannabis.

Send your story tips to crimeinvestigations@news.com.au or tom.minear@news.com.au

[antimafia]

^^^^
Very interesting, Stephen. The Hells in Quebec seem to be heavily involved in actual production of meth within the province.