Underbelly 2

by John Silvester

  In a diary she wrote later, she painted a stark picture. ‘People are trapped in the third carriage, some crushed and others pinned beneath concrete and giant steel girders … This is switch-off time. No room for emotions here. I look for survivors and ignore the dead.

  ‘A woman is very severely crushed and only barely conscious. A young man is pinned by his legs. Another man has one of his ears ripped off. I give them pain killers, wrap them up, joke with them. Swear, too, occasionally. The police rescue squad are marvellous. They swear too, heaving and tugging, cutting and burrowing with their bare hands. It’s hot and filthy. Oxygen offers some relief for the trapped but they are getting weak.

  ‘I come out with the crushed woman, manning the resuscitator over the wreckage, up the embankment and on to the hospital. Once she is there … I turn around and go back. No point in sending a young nurse into a thing like this where she’ll carry the memory of it for the rest of her life. I’ve seen it before … I know how to cope.’

  Sister Warby was credited with saving seven lives.

  BY nightfall all survivors had been rescued, but for police the job wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot. They had to remove the slab to retrieve the dead strewn beneath.

  They worked all night and next day. Workmen broke the bridge with jackhammers, cut steel beams with blowtorches, and lifted sections of concrete off by crane. As each piece was winched upwards more bodies were exposed. Each had to be tagged, photographed and carried to the temporary morgue set up in an army tent in the railway yards.

  ‘The worst thing,’ Dick Lamb was to recall, ‘was facing more bodies each time a slab section came off. It seemed as if it would never end. It played on my mind. The body of a little girl affected us all. Her mother was across the top of her, trying to protect her. A mother’s instinct…’

  His voice trails off as he wakens old feelings. His friend Bruce Gane twists a paper cup in his hand, lights another in an endless chain of cigarettes, and stares into the distance.

  The last bodies were recovered late on the second day. The exhausted rescuers threw their gear into heaps and started sorting it. It was then they found that onlookers had stolen tools from some of the rescue trucks. Gary Raymond went home drunk. His wife put him in the bath, put him to bed and burned his bloodstained overalls. A year later he was divorced. Not all scars from Granville are physical.

  GARY Raymond is now a NSW police inspector and Salvation Army officer. Margaret Warby and Gerard Buchtmann were among five people awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for their efforts at Granville. Glen Summerhayes was one of five awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery. Other rescuers were later awarded a Granville medal struck to mark their selfless conduct.

  CHAPTER 13

  Let’s make a deal

  The man who couldn’t take no for an answer

  ‘What about the charges? Can’t we work on the charges.’

  AS a successful drug dealer and a would-be corrupter of police, Hussein Issa believed there was nothing or nobody that couldn’t be bought at a price.

  Issa dealt in the best green (marijuana) that money could buy. His product was in huge demand. He could sell any amount and in his own words: ‘Some weeks I make – I dunno, ten grand.’

  He had a steady stream of customers who were prepared to pay top prices for his product. The unemployed Brunswick fencing contractor was on his way up. He was rolling in cash.

  He was never going to be a drug boss, a crime baron or an organised crime czar, but as long as the grass was green, it seemed to him he would never have to work for a living again.

  But in early April, 1996, the Brunswick special duties police became aware of a new super-strong marijuana in the area and began to hunt down the suppliers.

  ‘We were finding this top quality hooch in a number of raids and we began to work on the dealers,’ Sergeant David Taylor was to explain later. The marijuana was eventually traced to a hydroponic crop grown inside a Fawkner house where a man was paid $10,000 to protect the property from being ripped off.

  It didn’t take long for police to find Hussein Issa, one of the main distributors of the drug. He was selling the marijuana for $5000 for around five hundred grams.

  It was money for old dope.

  Issa, twenty-six, liked the money he made from dealing but definitely didn’t want to cop the down side of his chosen occupation. He was absolutely terrified of jail and would do anything, short of going straight, to keep out of prison.

  When he was arrested at his girlfriend’s Brunswick home in May police found he had $820, a knife, three bongs, plastic bags, foils and one hundred and eleven grams of marijuana.

  He had something else which sparked the police’s curiosity. A book of cab charges from the ‘Office of the Premier and Cabinet, Central Office.’ He claimed to have bought them at a local hotel.

  Now Issa may not have been the smartest drug dealer in town but he knew the amount of cannabis seized took him into the trafficker category. He also knew he had a three-month suspended sentence hanging over his head over a burglary matter.

  If he went to court to face trafficking charges, he would end up in jail. In his panic-stricken state, he decided to try and cut a deal in the police station.

  He thought with the amount of money he was making he could cut the police in on the action and they could all get rich together. After all, he reasoned, if he made the police his partners then they would have a vested interest in letting him continue dealing on the outside.

  He asked to go to the toilet when he was taken to the Brunswick police station. In the privacy of the gents, well away from the tapes in the interview room, he said to his escort, Constable Nick Lumb, he would pay $20,000 if police would lose the trafficking charges.

  ‘If you just charge me with a little grass, I’ll pay you a lot of money, heaps,’ he said, while washing his hands.

  Police set up a secret camera in the toilets and later Issa repeated the offer. The deal was struck: $10,000 before the case and $10,000 at its completion. Then the grateful crook and what he thought were his new bent mates headed off to get some cash. At Fawkner he went into a house and came out with $5000 wrapped in silver duct tape. Then he went back in and got another $2000 which he handed to the police. In the next few days Issa handed over the $10,000 first payment in dribs and drabs. He was happy, believing he would easily make the money back from dope dealing.

  What he didn’t know was that every deal, every payment and every word was being recorded. He was taped telling the police he would pass on the names of drug dealers for police to raid if they passed the drugs back for him to sell. It was a new twist on recycling.

  He promised the police $4000 for every five hundred grams they gave him. He even urged them to bash the dealers to make sure they passed over their money and drugs.

  When he was finally arrested for bribery Issa just couldn’t comprehend that his code – that money talks all languages – might not be right. He decided to talk louder. While being escorted to jail after being charged with bribery he made a new offer.

  ‘We’re going to work together … I will get you a few – few decent busts. No worries, man, just work with me. Please.’

  He saw the problem as being a financial rather than a moral one.

  Had he left some police out? Was his offer too small? ‘I can come up with, I don’t know, at least twenty grand.

  ‘Talk to me, talk to me, I’m trying to work with youse. What about the charges, can’t we work on the charges?’

  ‘He simply couldn’t work out that not everyone would sell out for money,’ Sergeant Taylor said.

  ‘Right to the end he believed if he made the right offer then the charges would be dropped. Even after the committal hearing we would see him in the street and he’d ask if there was some deal we could make.

  ‘He wasn’t what you’d call a quick learner.’

  In late 1997 Judge Nixon sentenced Issa to two years six months with a minimum of eighteen months ov
er the bribery attempts. In all, he had offered $70,000. The judge praised the police involved, saying ‘these police officers can hold their heads high.’

  THE BRUNSWICK TAPES – 27 May, 1996.

  Brunswick police station toilet.

  Sergeant David TAYLOR: ‘I’m running the show.’

  Hussein ISSA: ‘Yes.’

  Constable Nick LUMB: ‘Tell him what we’ve discussed, so he’s sure.’

  ISSA: ‘Look. I’ll give you ten grand.’

  TAYLOR: ‘Hang on.’

  ISSA: ‘I’ve got ten grand to give.’

  TAYLOR: ‘So you want – so, you don’t want me to charge you for traffick?’

  ISSA: ‘No, just possession and use … my place, all right. Brunswick. We’ll go there, when I get the money. I’ll take you in my car. I’ll give you the money …’

  TAYLOR: ‘That’s what I’m not happy with mate.’

  ISSA: ‘Why?’

  TAYLOR: ‘I mean, you could have – you could have – five blokes at home with a machine gun.’

  ISSA: ‘No, man. No, I’m not that type. I’ll give you, I’ve got money at home.’

  TAYLOR: ‘Right. You’re asking us not to charge you with a bit of trafficking and to only charge you with a little bit of possession.’

  ISSA: ‘Yeah.’

  TAYLOR: ‘And then?’

  ISSA: ‘That’s all.’

  TAYLOR: ‘Yeah, that’s a big ask. Cash?’

  ISSA: ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s cool. $100 bills, $100 bills.’

  LUMB: ‘And they’re not all new ones?’

  ISSA: ‘No, no new ones, I hate new ones. All the old ones like these ones. My money … I’ve got $5000 cash at my home.’

  TAYLOR: ‘All right. And in return for ten grand.’

  ISSA: ‘No trafficking …’

  TAYLOR: ‘All right. Then you still give us.’

  ISSA: ‘Some dealers.’

  Alphonse John Gangitano … charismatic, impulsive, violent … and dead.

  Alphonse Gangitano with his arm around a visiting boxer. He loved the fight game.

  Here with world champion Lester Ellis. At least he saw who signed this contract.

  Alphonse’s best form … Form Four Gold at Marcellin College, 1972.

  The Premier and the pen thief … Lindsay Thompson (far left) when he was a teacher, and the young Peter Lawless (bottom right).

  Alphonse pictured on his own home security video days before he died.

  Senior Constable Rod Miller … a former soldier and new father who was shot dead in a routine car check with Gary Silk.

  Gary Silk … an old-school detective who was shot dead during a surveillance operation.

  An impression of one of the two men wanted for the shooting of policemen Gary Silk and Rod Miller.

  Bandidos president Michael Kulakowski (left) … a former soldier and rodeo rider who drove a Mercedes. Shot dead at a Sydney nightclub.

  ‘God forgives, Bandidos don’t.’

  Something to look up to … sons of Bandidos members with their fathers and friends.

  A Harley Davidson bought by undercover police from the Bandidos for $17,000. ‘We were ripped off.’

  Hot Chocolate Rapist … drugged his ‘victims’.

  The Beaumout children … the great Australian mystery.

  Mersina walked this path before she was killed.

  Mersina Halvagis (right) with her sister Dimitria. Mersina was tending her grandmother’s grave (right) when she was stabbed to death.

  Mersina Halvagis … stabbed to death at her grandmother’s grave.

  TAYLOR: ‘Some dealers?’

  ISSA: ‘Yes, I will give that.’

  TAYLOR: ‘All right. And you give us ten grand tonight and then what after the court case? So how much profit are you making out of dealing?’

  ISSA: ‘Give me three months, I’ll probably make ten grand.’

  TAYLOR: ‘So in three months time, you’ll have another ten grand for us?’

  ISSA: ‘Another ten grand, yep.’

  TAYLOR: ‘And that’s when you walk away or you’re probably going to get a bond then, aren’t you?’

  ISSA: ‘Well, that’s what I’m hoping for. That’s what we want.’

  LUMB: ‘Is that a lot of money to you.’

  ISSA: ‘What?’

  LUMB: ‘Ten grand.’

  ISSA: ‘Not really.’

  27 MAY, 1996. Edward Street, Fawkner, at 4.20am. Issa meets three police. He tells them he has $7000 in cash and will get the remaining $3000 for the initial bribe. He puts forward the plan to have police raid drug dealers and provide him with the seized drugs to be re-sold.

  TAYLOR: ‘How much gear are you moving a week?’

  ISSA: ‘Well, I can move heaps. That’s why, if youse help me with a few cheap pounds, mate, you know.’

  TAYLOR: ‘Well, what – what sort – what are you doin’ at the moment?’

  ISSA: ‘Well, this is what – you can move up to two pounds, three pounds a week. Fifteen grand you can make in a week, you know. And some weeks I make – I dunno, ten grand. Some weeks I make one grand, you know what I mean. It’s that type of business.’

  LUMB: ‘Easy work.’

  ISSA: ‘Easy. It’s easy work. That’s for sure.’

  Issa enters a Brunswick house and returns with $7000.

  31 MAY, 1996, 8.11 pm. Issa and police are in a police car. He sets up a deal by which he believes police will raid identified dealers and pass on the drugs to him to be sold. He identifies a number of marijuana dealers for police to raid.

  ISSA: ‘I’ll say it now, we’re going to make money, they deal in pounds, they help me out now and then … Every pound I can get five grand cash for it. So, if youse got, you know, like four pounds, just think. I dunno, I’ll take – even five, I’ll be happy with, youse can keep the fifteen.’ TAYLOR: ‘We have to raid the house then.’ ISSA: ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  GROWING in confidence, Issa began to advise on the best way to make drug dealers confess where they hide their money and drugs.

  ‘Hit ’em a bit so they show youse, because I’m sure youse can’t find the – the hidden spots everyone – you know what I mean. Everyone’s got a hidden spot and …’

  TAYLOR: ‘Yeah.’

  ISSA: ‘Some of these bludgers, they’ve got at least five grand hidden you know. I know they’re not small timers.’

  TAYLOR: ‘And then – well, say if we raid them.’

  ISSA: ‘Well, you raid them, you get three, four pounds out of them, I dunno. Youse give it to me, I’ll give youse the money in two, three days. Simple as that.’

  TAYLOR: ‘If we gave you three pounds what … what would you then do.’

  ISSA: ‘I would give you the money, what, I’ll give youse probably ten grand, twelve grand.’

  LUMB. ‘Are you in a position to move that amount?’

  ISSA: ‘Yeah, yeah. Give me two, three days and it’ll be gone.’

  ISSA told police he was not interested in dealing heavy drugs. ‘So with the white, I can’t deal mate.’

  LUMB: ‘So, Sam, if this business relationship works, how long do you think we can do it for?’

  ISSA: ‘Long as you want. I don’t know. I let youse know where there’s money and where there’s dope all the time mate, don’t worry. So long as I get a cut. I’ll get – I’ll get rid of the gear or whatever youse give me, just I’ve got to make a bit too, you know … Well you can make five – five thousand you can make a pound. You give me a pound, I – I’ll make a grand, I’ll give youse four. One for me, four for youse. Is that fair enough?’

  TAYLOR: ‘Mate, I reckon that’s very fair.’

  THE police ask Issa where he thinks drug dealers would hide their money.

  ISSA: ‘Like some have buried, some have it, I dunno, in drawers or in socks, you know how it is, some in books, some in butter, albums, you know.’

  TAYLOR: ‘When you gave us the five grand the other night, that was.’

  ISSA: ‘Yeah, buried,
man.’

  ON 19 June police moved in and arrested Issa on bribery charges, but the drug dealer still could not accept he was the victim of a sting operation by honest cops. In the police car on the way to the Melbourne Custody Centre Issa tried again, telling police he can’t understand why he has been arrested.

  ISSA: ‘I haven’t wrecked anyone else’s life. I’ve been doing everything by the book … I’ll give youse the money, fifty grand. I can’t come up with fifty grand. I can come up with twenty grand, maybe in a couple of months, but not fifty.’ Constable Scott RUDDOCK: ‘Well, mate, if we take fifty, when are we going to get it?’

  ISSA: ‘Six months or so, this is too much, man. I’ve never had that amount.’

  RUDDOCK: ‘Mate, fifty grand in six months and what are we going to do until then. What are we going to do with you?’

  ISSA: ‘We’re going to work together … I will get you a few – few decent busts. No worries, man, just work with me. Please.’

  RUDDOCK: ‘And what do you want for fifty grand?’

  ISSA: ‘Get all these charges off.’ He then complains that the police are getting greedy and $50,000 is too much. ‘I can’t come up with fifty, no fucking way. Fifty man, no. I can come up with, I don’t know, at least twenty grand.’ He then offers cash to be granted bail. ‘I don’t want to go to jail.’

  ISSA: ‘Twenty grand, that’s it. I can’t come up with much more than that, please. Unless youse give me the dope and I’ll sell it … The more dope youse give me, the more money youse will get … I’ll make five grand in three days, four days, but to make twenty grand, it takes me two weeks, three weeks, maybe.’