The Gangland War

by John Silvester

  In the 1990s he was charged over an attempt to import a record 15 tonnes of cannabis resin. Police flew to Sydney for the initial court hearing, in which Kinniburgh was granted bail.

  Detectives flew back in economy seats only to see Kinniburgh in first class. The case against him later collapsed.

  In his younger days Kinniburgh usually carried a gun. He was charged in the early 1980s after a parking officer saw a gun sticking out from under the driver’s seat. The grey ghost turned a whiter shade of pale and contacted police, who arrested Kinniburgh when he returned to the car.

  He was also charged after police found a gun stashed in a storm water drain opposite his house when he lived in Balwyn.

  He once punched a detective outside a city nightclub, breaking his nose. A well-respected detective later went to his injured colleague and said Kinniburgh was upset at what he had done and would give 100 pounds — then several weeks’ wages — as a peace offering if the charges were dropped. But the only thing bent about the battered policeman was his nose. He refused the bribe and the case continued.

  In his later years Kinniburgh saw no value in exciting police, and other members of the underworld, by carrying a gun.

  But in the weeks before his murder, he again began to carry a handgun. Friends say his mood became morose and they believe he knew he had been marked for death.

  A few days before he died, he dined in Lygon Street, Carlton, with five colourful Melbourne identities. It can only be assumed none knew this would be the last time they would see their friend alive.

  On the night of his murder he returned home to Belmont Avenue and parked on the street just past his driveway shortly after midnight. He walked about six steps, carrying a bag of groceries, before he was ambushed.

  A pistol was found next to his body and the bag of groceries he dropped. He had been able to fire just one shot before he died in front of the house that crime built.

  Kinniburgh was a careful man, but like many of the gangland victims he had become lazy. He had installed state of the art video security but it had broken down a year earlier and he had never bothered to repair it. He had a secure garage, but chose to park in the street. He had a special fortified door fitted inside the house so intruders could not get upstairs, but he wandered outside in the street rather than driving into his fortress.

  And, a creature of habit, he always arrived home around midnight on Friday nights. You could set your watch by it. The killers obviously did.

  Typically, the murder appeared to have been carried out by a hit team of two — a gunman and a driver. Witnesses who heard the shots say one gunman fired at least two volleys of bullets before fleeing in a car just after midnight.

  Ambulance paramedics called at 12.07am found Kinniburgh dead at the scene.

  The killing appears to have been meticulously planned. Within seconds, the hit team was driving north along Belmont Avenue towards Parkhill Road before doubling back to cross Cotham Road.

  They were using a blue Ford Falcon. Any chance of the killers leaving clues in the car appeared to be destroyed when it was found burning about one kilometre from the scene soon after the murder. Residents among the million-dollar houses of nearby Doona Avenue reported the car had been dumped and set alight in a hidden driveway down a narrow, cobbled service lane.

  The killers had certainly planned the hit for at least a week. The getaway car had been stolen from South Melbourne the previous Saturday and hidden until used in the attack.

  Police also believe the gunmen had carefully scouted the local area before striking. The fact that the Falcon was dumped and burned in a tiny laneway not shown on any maps shows they had done their homework.

  Detective Inspector Andrew Allen told the media that police would keep an open mind about motives but the fact that the murder was immediately referred to the Purana Taskforce and not left with the homicide squad showed that detectives accepted ‘The Munster’ was the victim of an underworld hit.

  ‘There’s a number of things that may have been attributed to this man in his past which may or may not relate to why this has happened,’ he said.

  ‘The fact that there’s another execution-style murder is obviously impacting on the community; it impacts on lawlessness and quite clearly we are pulling out all stops to investigate this to our fullest ability,’ he said. ‘This sort of behaviour and this type of lawlessness must stop.’

  While several million law-abiding citizens agreed with the policeman’s sentiments, the people who really mattered — a handful of Melbourne gangsters — took no notice at all, as subsequent events were to prove.

  And Kinniburgh? Long-time residents of Belmont Avenue said they knew of his reputation but said he was ‘a quiet man who kept himself to himself’. There were no surprises here.

  They said he had lived for at least fifteen years in his red brick house, which is fronted by a high brick fence and sprouts several video security cameras. Neighbours said he was occasionally seen walking a small, white fluffy dog.

  Kinniburgh had many friends. One of them was the ill-fated Lewis Moran, father of the late Jason and Mark.

  When evidence was led at one court hearing that Lewis had been caught on police telephone intercepts talking about crime, Kinniburgh just shook his head as if perplexed that his old friend could be so stupid.

  Perhaps Graham Kinniburgh was killed because of his wide network of friends; it may have been his Godfather-like reputation that made him a target.

  Some elements in the underworld are convinced they know who did it. They say he is a former armed robber who once tried to organise a million-dollar raid but ended up suffering the wrath of the Special Operations Group. Police have been told that Williams once approached the gunman to ask if he would accept the contract to kill Kinniburgh. They believe he was at first reluctant but later agreed to carry out the hit.

  No-one has been charged and investigations are continuing.

  A MONTH before Kinniburgh’s death the Purana Taskforce arrested Williams over making threats to kill a detective and the man’s wife.

  Police hoped that with Williams in jail the murders would stop, but two weeks before the Kew killing, Carl was freed on bail.

  So when Kinniburgh was murdered, the Williams name was on top of the suspect list. But the day after the killing he told one of the authors he was not violent and could not explain why so many of his associates had been killed over the past six years. He denied claims he was trying to take over the illicit drug market and said he was not systematically killing any opposition. He also said he did not know ‘The Munster’.

  ‘I’ve never met him and I’ve never heard a bad thing said about him. I have nothing to profit from his death. It’s a mystery to me.

  ‘I haven’t done anything. My conscience is clear.’

  Seemingly relaxed, he and family members met one of the authors in a city coffee shop about 36 hours after Kinniburgh’s murder. He said he did not carry a gun, had never owned one and did not employ any form of security.

  Carl’s wife, Roberta, said Williams had the perfect alibi. ‘It was his lawyer’s birthday and he was out with him. He got Chinese and came home drunk as a skunk. They can’t blame him for this one.’

  The food wasn’t from the Flower Drum. That was ‘The Munster’s’ hangout.

  Williams says he knew dead gangsters Jason Moran, Mark Moran, Mark Mallia, Dino Dibra, Willie Thompson and Richard Mladenich. ‘That doesn’t mean I know what happened to them,’ he says. ‘People die … that’s life. I have known people who have died in car crashes and overdoses. I also know people who have been shot.’

  Immediately after Kinniburgh’s death, the speculation began that close friend Lewis Moran was on an underworld death list.

  But Williams claimed he had no grudge against Moran Senior. ‘I’ve only met Lewis once,’ he said before the latter’s death. ‘I haven’t got a problem with Lewis. If he thinks he has a problem with me I can say he can sleep peacefully.’

&n
bsp; So it would now appear that Carl told pork pies as well as eating them.

  A few months later Lewis was put to sleep — permanently. Williams later pleaded guilty to the murder — one of many he had ordered since he was shot in the stomach in October 1999.

  Williams said he was a close friend of The Runner — one of the men charged with the murder of former kickboxer and hot dog seller, Michael Marshall, who was shot dead outside his South Yarra home on 25 October.

  ‘(He) is a good friend but I don’t ask him about his business. I’ll stick by him now.’ Later the good friend gave evidence against him and Williams was convicted of the murder.

  At the time the former supermarket shelf stacker said he was between jobs although he dabbled in property development and was a lucky punter. ‘I did well over the spring carnival.’

  He said he couldn’t understand why Melbourne’s gangsters were killing each other. ‘I don’t know how this started and I don’t know where it will end. All I know is that I have had nothing to do with it. This should all stop. It is only hurting everybody else.’

  He said public speculation was putting his life at risk. ‘They can have a go if they like. They know I’m unarmed. If it happens I won’t know about it.’

  In the office of the Purana Taskforce in St Kilda Road there was a short list of potential victims. The name of Graham Allan Kinniburgh was on that list. The name of Lewis Moran was also there. So was Andrew Veniamin’s.

  It would turn out to be three out of three.

  18

  COUNTERPUNCH

  I was trying to kill him.

  He was trying to kill me.

  MICK GATTO has made a career out of grabbing his chances as they come along. From boxer to enforcer to the more sophisticated title ‘industrial mediator’, Gatto has methodically crafted a reputation as a man who can persuade others to see his point of view. Circumstances outside his control during the underworld war have led to that reputation becoming bigger than he might wish.

  Media reports suggest the Melbourne identity first came to prominence as a boxer who was close to winning the national heavyweight title. Some say he won fifteen fights by knockout.

  The truth, always elusive at ringside, is that as a heavyweight boxer Mick Gatto was never going to be a genuine headliner. But he would make page one much later for actions more violent than those inside the square ring. He was tough, with a knockout punch and a big heart, but too slow to make the big time and too smart to allow himself to become another punching bag for young, faster fighters.

  Gatto’s official record is modest. Over seven years he fought under Queensberry rules just nine times. The records do not record what happened in the streets. In 1973 he had five bouts, losing one when Mark Ecimovic — a boxer who later fought for the Australian heavyweight crown — knocked him out in the first round.

  The following year he fought twice, losing once on points and winning the other by knockout. Strictly a preliminary fighter, he did little for three years until a main event on the then popular TV Ringside threatened to fall over when one of the boxers withdrew.

  Enter Big Mick, who entertained the crowd by going the distance in a ten-round fight with Reno Zurek — later to be crowned NSW heavyweight champion. Two years later he again fought Zurek, this time in Griffith in an eight-rounder. Again Mick lost on points but went the distance. It was Gatto’s last big fight, but he was the main event.

  Mick Gatto learned much in his journeyman boxing years. He learned that if you are wounded never let your opponent know he has the upper hand. He learned that when cornered it is best to cover up. He learned that the clinch can be the boxer’s best friend because when you are holding an opponent he can do less damage than if he has room to swing. He saw that big fights are rarely won with one punch and good boxers don’t fight out of anger or fear. They do their homework and anticipate their opponent’s likely moves. In seconds they can calculate the risks and rewards of every option and choose their moment to launch an attack. Hotheads get the crowds cheering but it is the cool ones who more often take home the purse. Unless, of course, the fight is fixed.

  Gatto knew that local boys win more than their fair share and so, given the chance, you should fight on your home turf with trusted friends in your corner. He also learned that the men who are truly feared and respected — from lightweights to heavyweights — have one thing in common. When faced with danger they never blink.

  MORE than 25 years after leaving the ring, Gatto would enter another gladiatorial arena where there could only be one winner — the Supreme Court of Victoria — to face the charge of murdering a hit man named Andrew Veniamin, who had gone from obscurity to notoriety in a few murderous months before copping a fatal dose of his own medicine. Melbourne — made up of sprawling suburbia with a low crime rate, a respected police force and a tendency towards self-congratulation — had been the centre of a vicious, and unusually public underworld war.

  Colourful men with strange nicknames, no jobs and unexplained wealth were turning up dead. A man like Nik ‘The Bulgarian’ Radev — a refugee who hadn’t held a legitimate job for twenty years yet managed to maintain a five-star lifestyle — was typical of the victims.

  Virtually unknown until his very public murder, Radev was shot next to his luxury Mercedes in Coburg in April 2003. Shortly before his execution he had paid a dentist $55,000 in cash to whiten and crown his teeth, turning them from basic Bulgarian to glitzy Hollywood. It was a waste of money: he was shot up to seven times in the head and body. Fittingly, he was later buried in a gold casket with what was left of his million-dollar smile.

  Usually, Melbourne’s main players in the criminal world watched the flashy ones like Radev come in full-on and go out feet first. But this time it was different.

  First, the war was public and embarrassing. The police force, which had long fancied itself the best in the country, was beginning to look silly.

  The then Assistant Commissioner (crime) Simon Overland would later admit police had dropped the ball in investigating organised crime. This meant — as police hate to look silly — there would be a major reaction. They would form a taskforce called Purana, and it would prove to be more effective than many thought possible. The taskforce would crack the gangland code of silence and charge 157 offenders with 485 separate offences including 25 counts of murder.

  The war had also made the state government look silly. Politicians seen as ‘soft on crime’ can imagine themselves losing their seats, so the government gave police new powers to call suspects to secret hearings and seize hidden assets. All of this was bad for business in Mick Gatto’s circle.

  It had long been a standing joke that for decades Gatto had spent a fortune on flowers and death notices as friends and foes lost their lives in violent circumstances. Some cynics suggest he had the death notice number of the Herald Sun classifieds on speed dial, often ringing before the latest victim’s name had been made public. In the early 1970s and ’80s he paid his respects as gangsters such as brothers Brian and Les Kane were gunned down. But by the 1990s many of his own network were targeted.

  Alphonse Gangitano was a close associate of Gatto’s and police often saw them together. Both belonged to the Carlton Crew. Of Italian origin, but raised in Australia, they had some of the mannerisms of the so-called mafia but would spend their Saturdays like many other Aussies, sipping a drink, watching the races and having a punt. When invited to the Collingwood President’s Room at Victoria Park, Gatto spent more time out the back watching the races on television than the football in front of him. Gatto and Gangitano both had an interest in Italian food, imported suits, gambling and boxing. In fact, Alphonse was a fight promoter and boxing manager for a short time, although his form for negotiating deals bordered on the eccentric. Heavily in the camp of local boxer Lester Ellis, he once attacked, bashed and bit champion Barry Michael — an Ellis rival — in a city nightclub in 1987. Even a shark like Don King didn’t chew on his opponents. He left that to Mike Tyson.


  While Gatto and Gangitano were friends, they were not as close as many thought. Gangitano liked his reputation as the Black Prince of Lygon Street and spent a decade in the headlines. Gatto preferred to remain out of the glare of media attention. Gangitano was the show pony, Gatto the stayer. Repeated police investigations found that while Gangitano was a professional criminal he did not have the asset base to justify his reputation as a Mr Big. More style than substance, they believed. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

  IT has become part of gang war lore that on 6 February 1995, Gangitano was at a party in Wando Grove, East St Kilda. And that at 4.40am, he went outside with another colourful Melbourne identity, Gregory John Workman. There was an argument, and Workman was shot seven times in the back and once in the chest, which meant he lost both the debate and his life. After Gangitano persuaded two key female witnesses to change their stories and then rewarded them with long overseas vacations, the murder case against him collapsed. But he didn’t take his second chance and continued to participate in high-profile criminal activities until his own violent death. He was shot dead inside his Templestowe home on 16 January 1998.

  Present, but not directly involved in the shooting of Gangitano, was Graham ‘The Munster’ Kinniburgh — a father figure to Mick Gatto. The shooter was said to be Jason Moran, himself soon on the list of gangland murder victims.

  Some say Gatto and Gangitano had grown apart in the years before the shooting. Alphonse drew the attention of the media and police to business matters that people like Gatto felt were best left private. However, in a rare interview, Gatto said later they were still friends at the time of the murder but he had grown tired of his name always being linked to the dead gangster. ‘Why can’t they let him rest in peace?’

  LIKE Gangitano, Mick Gatto did not hanker for a nine- to-five job. He has been described over the years as a standover man (a claim he hotly denies) a landscape gardener, a professional punter and a gambling identity connected to Melbourne’s once profitable illegal two-up school. These days he is a consultant for the building industry — a highly-paid problem solver. He also has an interest in industrial cranes. Combining business with pleasure his company, Elite Cranes, is a prominent sponsor of young boxers in Victoria.