Italian Mafia in Australia, Updates on Italian-Australian OC groups

Pasquale Barbaro makes fresh bail bid citing tough jail conditions prompted by Carl Williams' death
Melissa Iaria, AAP
May 13, 2010 2:18PM

ALLEGED drug king pin Pasquale Barbaro is making a fresh bid for bail, arguing he is suffering under new custody arrangements brought about by the jail death of gangland killer Carl Williams.


Bail application: Pasquale Barbaro has reapplied for bail after being accused of the boss of large drug syndicate. Picture: Lisa Nolan Source: Herald Sun

Pasquale Barbaro, 48, of Griffith, NSW, is charged with multiple drug offences, including the laundering of more than $7.4 million from drug sales and importing 150kg of cocaine.

Police allege he headed a syndicate that shipped 4.5 tonnes of ecstasy into Melbourne hidden in tomato tins.

His defence lawyer Bruce Walmsley QC told Melbourne Magistrates' Court today that Barbaro deserved bail because the circumstances of his custody had changed and he was now in segregation following Williams' death in jail.

“Mr Barbaro was recently placed in detention circumstances that amount to extreme protection and punishment, not as a consequence of anything he's done, but the consequences of a month ago following the murder of Carl Williams and the general attitude that comes with such things,'' Mr Walmsley told the court.

Barbaro has been placed in 23-hour lockdown at the Melbourne Remand Centre as he awaits trial on drugs charges.

But a letter he wrote, read to the court by his lawyer, stressed he was not housed in a protection unit, but rather a punishment unit “due to what happened in Barwon Prison''.

Barbaro said, in the letter that followed Williams' jail death, prison authorities were evaluating the location of high-profile prisoners such as himself.

Mr Walmsley asked the court to adjourn the bail application so more information could be obtained about Barbaro's situation in custody, his psychiatric state and delays in his case.

Barbaro was granted bail by a magistrate in 2008 and released on a record $2 million surety.

But the Victorian Supreme Court over-ruled that decision and remanded him in custody, a decision upheld on appeal.

Crown prosecutor Richard Maidment said any bail bid would have to be heard in the Victorian Supreme Court.

The bail application before magistrate Simon Garnett resumes next month.


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Convicted killer on the run for six months
Wednesday, August 18 2010
Nine News


Graham Gene Potter is at the end.

Police have relaunched an appeal to catch a convicted killer on the run for more than six months after he was allegedly hired to kill a guest at the wedding of underworld figure Mick Gatto's son.

Graham Gene Potter, 53, failed to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on February 1 to face the charge of conspiracy to murder.

He is one of three men charged over the alleged planned murders of two men, including Gatto associate Fedele D'Amico and an unknown target, related to disputes that allegedly broke out within a major drug syndicate.


Pictured: Mick Gatto

"Vengeance" murders were allegedly planned on three different occasions, according to police: at a kickboxing tournament at Docklands in Melbourne on March 28, 2008; the following night at Damian Gatto's wedding also at Docklands, in which Mr D'Amico was the target; and at the Reggio Calabria Club in Parkville on July 24, 2008.

The hitmen were thwarted for various reasons, including the targets being tipped off and a getaway car's breakdown at the Parkville club.

Neither Mick Gatto nor his son are believed by police to have anything to do with the plot.

Potter uses several aliases, including the names Josh Lawson and John Page.

He is described as Caucasian, 185cm tall, medium to solid build, brown eyes, fair complexion with brown greying hair.

He wears gold sleeper earrings in both ears and regularly wears a gold chain around his neck.

Reported sightings of Potter in the Riverina area of southern NSW and northern Victoria earlier this year are now believed to be unfounded.

Police believe he befriended a woman while living in the Ravenshoe area south of Cairns for several months but she was unaware of his background.

Potter was last sighted at the Sydney Central train station on April 22 after travelling by train from Queensland, where he was known to have lived before he went missing.

He was granted bail on May 28 last year despite his long and violent history.

He is also facing Commonwealth charges over a record ecstasy and cocaine haul in August 2008, when police intercepted 15 million smuggled ecstasy tablets with a street value of $440 million and subsequently charged 24 people connected to it.

Potter, a former Wollongong coalminer, spent 15 years in prison between 1981 and 1996 after being convicted as a 23-year-old for the mutilation murder of 19-year-old Kim Barry, whose head and fingers were cut off.

He protested his innocence, claiming two men broke into his flat and killed the woman whom he had met the previous night.

Detective Superintendent Gerry Ryan of Victoria Police said it was likely Potter was living somewhere on the eastern seaboard.

"He is considered dangerous with a propensity for violence and should not be approached under any circumstances," he said in a statement.

Supt Ryan also appealed for Potter to hand himself in to police.

"Police are prepared to co-ordinate a successful surrender plan if Mr Potter so desires in the interests of bringing this to an end safely without incident or injury."


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Antonio Mazzitelli, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Mexico City said yesterday that Mexican cartels are now collaborating with the ’Ndrangheta to explore new opportunities in Australian cocaine market, where the retail price of cocaine is twice what it is in the United States.

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Plus we have such a large border that it's easier to get ht estuff in. And per capita we consume more of it than almost everyone else

Becuase of the aussi dollar rise - australia became very atractive for the ndrangheta...so i guess they now send larger shipments of cocaine and ecstacy and for more sources of cocaine their interests met with those of the mexicans that they already brokering (ndrangheta) the mexican's cocaine in other areas in the world.

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found this belgium name which was also connected to the Melborune 14 million XTC pills bust

Belg blijft in de cel voor xtc-smokkel naar Australië
0 reacties
E-mail bericht
Bookmarken/Delen
23/08/'08 Sinan U. (42) uit Opgrimbie blijft in de cel voor zijn betrokkenheid bij de recordvangst van 4,4 ton xtc vorig jaar juni in de haven van het Australische Melbourne. Dat heeft de Hasseltse raadkamer vrijdag beslist. De man blijkt elke betrokkenheid bij de drugssmokkel ontkennen.


De federale politie van Hasselt rekende de man op 8 augustus in na huiszoekingen op drie plaatsen in Maasmechelen en in As. Sinan U. was toen net terug van een vakantie in Cambodja. Hij had 290.000 euro in zijn bezit.

De man werd toen al maandenlang geschaduwd. Zo zou hij enkele maanden geleden in Brussel zijn opgemerkt met een Australiër en zou zijn wagen in oktober vorig jaar zijn opgemerkt in een pizzeria in Heusden-Zolder waar hij ook een ontmoeting zou hebben gehad met een Australiër. Dat de man geschaduwd werd, was het gevolg van een intenstief onderzoek van het Australische gerecht.

De speurders van down under luisterden maar liefst 3.600 telefoongesprekken af en zouden zo gestoten zijn op telefoonnummers van enkele Nederlandse topcriminelen én van Sinan U. Een belangrijke naam die bij de operatie ook opdook was die van Nederlander Peter van Dijk, een drugsbaron die banden had met de geliquideerde topgangster John Mieremet.

Sinan U. weet niet hoe zijn telefoonnummer zou verzeild geraakt zijn bij de Austrilische bende. “Mijn cliënt ontkent alle betrokkenheid en wij kunnen alles weerleggen,” zegt zijn advocaat Roger Vanhoyland die Sinan U. al verdedigde bij eerdere drugsdelicten. “We gaan in beroep tegen de beslissing van de raadkamer om zijn aanhoudingsmandaat te verleggen.”

N’Drangheta
Gevolg is dat de kamer van inbeschuldigingstelling in Antwerpen binnen de 14 dagen moet beslissen of Sinan U. al dan niet in de cel moet blijven.

De Maasmecheleaar was één van de 30 verdachten die op 8 augustus wereldwijd werden ingerekend. Enkele bendeleden hebben contact met de N’Drangheta, de Calabrese tak van de Italiaanse maffia.

Het internationale onderzoek startte een jaar geleden na de vondst van de 4,4 ton in de haven van Melbourne. De pillen zaten verstopt in 3.000 blikken met zogezegde Italiaanse tomaten en hadden een straatwaarde van 260 miljoen euro. De organisatie achter de bende zou verantwoordelijk zijn voor 60 procent van de drugsinvoer in Australië.

Thanks for that article Puparo.

Are we able to get someone to translate that for us into English (some online translation sites don't do a good job of conjugating verbs etc...).

ciao,
Cassandro

Pasquale Barbaro denied bail15:02 AEST Mon Dec 6 2010
Ninemsn News

Alleged drug kingpin Pasquale Barbaro has been refused bail after a judge found he posed an unacceptable risk of reoffending.



Victorian Supreme Court Justice Paul Coghlan refused the bid on Monday, saying he was satisfied Barbaro posed an unacceptable risk of reoffending and answering of his bail.

Barbaro, 49, allegedly headed an international syndicate that shipped $445 million worth of ecstasy hidden in tomato tins to Melbourne.

He is charged with five offences that attract life jail terms, including plotting to murder two men.

It was his fourth bid for bail.

Defence barrister Con Heliotis QC had argued during an earlier hearing that Barbaro could raise $3.45 million in sureties, be subject to home arrest and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet to make the prospect of flight very difficult.

He said it would be unacceptable for Barbaro to be held in custody until he faced a trial in more than three years' time.

Justice Coghlan is expected to publish his reasons later on Monday.

© AAP 2010

"Mafia and Mexicans unite for drug push :

TWO of the world's most feared organised crime groups are working together to exploit the Australian cocaine market."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-a...x-1225997097488

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Griffith mafia returns to its grass roots
Les Kennedy
April 3, 2011
Sydney Morning Herald


Large haul ... aerial police survey an orange orchard, one of four sites near Griffith in which marijuana crops were found hidden among the vegetation. Photo: NSW Police

ORGANISED crime is back in business in Griffith as the mafia returns to its traditional ''grass-roots'' operation in the Riverina district.

More than 30 years after the contract killing of Griffith anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, police have finished a two-week swoop on the area, netting $23 million worth of marijuana hidden in three vineyards and an orange orchard.

''Organised crime is back in business here but we have put a major dent in their operation and will continue to do so,'' the local area commander of the Griffith police, Detective Superintendent Michael Rowan, told The Sun-Herald.


Burning the crop. Photo: NSW Police

The scale of the crops showed the mafia was behind the operation, Superintendent Rowan said. ''There is organised crime behind it. Clearly it has got to be destined for the Sydney and Melbourne markets.''

The police attention that surrounded the 1977 killing of Mackay, a Griffith businessman whose body was never found, forced the local branch of the Calabrian mafia syndicate known as Ndrangheta (the Honoured Society) to move its marijuana-growing operations far afield to areas such as Bungandore, north-east of Canberra, and Cobar, north-west of Dubbo.

It was Mackay's covert information on the whereabouts of major marijuana crops that made him a target, particularly his disclosure to police in November 1975 of a then Australian record crop worth more than $100 million at today's prices. It was found at Tharbogang, where police found another big crop of marijuana plants in last month's operation with the aid of helicopters, Superintendent Rowan said.

Police found 10,447 cannabis plants and 917 cut plants with an estimated value of $23 million in a five-day operation targeting farms, vineyards and other properties at Tharbogang, Bilbul, Nericon, Hillston and Coleambally, all within 60 kilometres of Griffith. ''A number of cannabis crops were located growing within grapevines at a number of vineyards and amongst orange orchards in an attempt to disguise the presence of the crops," Superintendent Rowan said.

The seized cannabis was destroyed by fire.

Superintendent Rowan said 19 men, a woman and a 14-year-old boy had been charged as a result of the raids. Charges included cultivation of large commercial quantities of cannabis, enhanced cultivation of cannabis and indictable quantities of cannabis. Six of those arrested were Indian nationals, three of them illegal immigrants. They were detained in a shed used to dry cannabis.

Police seized 14 kilograms of cannabis leaf, one kilogram of cannabis seeds, seven firearms, including a .357 Magnum pistol, and ammunition. Also involved in the operation were members of the Dog Squad, Southern Region Operational Support Group and detectives from the Drug Squad and the Firearms and Organised Crime Squad.

A police strike force code-named Urwin concluded a separate five-month cannabis eradication operation on the north coast on Friday that seized and destroyed 13,987 cannabis plants worth $28 million.

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Great thread. You're a great poster Cassandro. Ive been following Italian-Australian OC for many years and the wealth of information on here it just great.

This is a great site. Lots of good info - Anyone here from S.A.?

No, but I reckon you better post some stuff about that guy I've been reading about these past few months..Vince Focarelli. He sounds an 'interesting' character (with a humungous ego)

Biggest drug bust a reminder of Italian group's global reach

Dan Oakes
May 25, 2012

THE long slippery slope towards a life sentence began for Pasquale Barbaro in June 2007, when customs officials on Melbourne's docks singled out a container of Italian tinned tomatoes.

When X-rays showed ''image anomalies'', the customs officers opened them, uncovering 15 million ecstasy tablets weighing 4.4 tonnes - Australia's biggest ever drug bust and the world's biggest ecstasy haul.

From then, the fates of Barbaro, his cousin, Saverio Zirilli, and four other men were sealed.

The downfall of Barbaro and Zirilli is a reminder of the reach of the 'Ndrangheta, an Italian organised crime group with ties to the region around Griffith.

Barbaro's father, Francesco ''Little Trees'' Barbaro, was named by the 1979 Woodward royal commission as a member of a secretive clique of Calabrians who lived in Griffith and who were linked to the 'Ndrangheta. There is no suggestion he is involved in the Melbourne importation.

Barbaro, 50, and Zirilli, 55, pleaded guilty last year in Victoria's Supreme Court to charges of trafficking ecstasy and attempting to possess cocaine, but their pleas remained secret until yesterday, when the other four men were convicted.

The final nail in the group's coffin, in July 2008, was an attempt to smuggle 100 kilograms of cocaine, hidden in bags of Colombian coffee beans, into Australia. Officials X-rayed the cargo and found the drugs.

Less than a fortnight after the discovery, police raided properties all over south-eastern Australia, arresting syndicate members and others.


http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/b...0524-1z7yo.html

Italians pursue Mafia trio here

Nick Mckenzie, Richard Baker and Jo Mckenna
Sydney Morning Herald, June 16, 2012

THREE Mafia figures living freely in Australia and labelled "extremely dangerous" by Italian authorities have been sentenced in absentia to long jail terms for international drug trafficking.

Nicola Ciconte, Vincenzo Medici and Michael Calleja have been convicted and sentenced in Italy for their role in a plot to smuggle up to 500 kilograms of cocaine into Australia.

Australian and Italian police received intelligence that the cocaine - which has never been recovered - was meant to be smuggled from Melbourne by corrupt workers and taken via truck to a container yard in Sydney, where some was to be hidden in a second truck and driven to Adelaide.

Ciconte, 56, formerly of Victoria, now living on the Gold Coast, was sentenced to 25 years' jail last month by a Calabrian court for his role in the conspiracy.

The court heard that Ciconte and a small group of Calabrian Mafia bosses had worked as "promoters, directors, organisers and financiers'' of a plan to import cocaine sourced from Colombian cartels to Australia between 2002 and 2004.

Medici, 47, of Mildura and Calleja, 53, of Melbourne, were found to have assisted Ciconte in the plot and were each sentenced to 15 years in jail.

An assistant prosecutor, Maria Vittoria De Simone, told the Herald Italy would be pressing the Australian government to extradite the convicted men.

''We will be strongly pursuing the extradition. These individuals have been convicted of heavy sentences in a huge trial and they are extremely dangerous."

The trio's convictions and sentences highlight a common story of global organised crime investigations, in which suspects escape justice due to jurisdictional hurdles.

During the Italian police inquiry into Ciconte, Medici and Calleja, the Australian Federal Police launched its own drug-trafficking inquiry into the trio.

But key evidence from Italian police, including the testimony of an informer, could not be used in Australian courts and the

Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions advised against charging the men.

Before the trio were convicted and sentenced last month, Italian prosecutors had alleged in court that the men had conducted a trial run using an empty shipping container.

The prosecutors alleged Ciconte ''maintained contact with associates in Vibo Valentia, supplying the materials for the trial containers in collaboration with Medici, Calleja … who made several trips from Australia to Calabria to determine the details of the shipments and the payments.

"The ultimate goal for Ciconte, Medici, Calleja … [was] to supply the imported cocaine in the Australian market.''

Ciconte's key contact in Italy was a Calabrian Mafia boss, Vincenzo Barbieri, who was sentenced for his role in the plot but was gunned down last year.

Between 2002 and 2004, Italian authorities tapped phone calls between Barbieri in Calabria and Ciconte in Victoria and filmed meetings in Italy between Ciconte and his Australian associates and Barbieri and other Mafia figures.

The Calabrian Mafia, known as the 'Ndrangheta or Honoured Society, established deep roots in NSW, Victoria and South Australia through migration during the last century.

Ms De Simone told the Herald: ''We urge the Australian authorities to remember that 'Ndrangheta … represents an enormous risk for countries far from Italy. The 'Ndrangheta is the organisation that runs the international cocaine market. It doesn't do its business in Calabria but around the world. It has infiltrated all economic sectors and it controls voting and political candidates at a national and international level. I urge the Australians not to underestimate this organisation. Otherwise it will be too late.''

Ciconte, the son of Calabrian migrants who settled in country Victoria in 1955, forged his Mafia ties via family connections in Italy. Medici's father was a well known Mafia figure who was murdered in the early 1980s.

Ms De Simone said a request to extradite the trio would be made by Italy's Ministry of Justice to the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon. The Attorney-General's Department said it did not comment on extradition matters.