‘He told me they were the crew behind the Bookie Robbery and they wanted another job worth between $8 million and $10 million,’ Robertson remembers.
On 22 April Robertson met key gang members at Werribee races. Bikkie introduced him to ‘Kelvin’. It was Russell Cox.
‘He was super fit and super smart. The consummate professional at what he did,’ Robertson said later.
The undercover told the team he had identified a likely target – the Country Roads Board offices in Denmark Street, Kew.
While it wouldn’t be a $10 million heist, it was still worth the risk.
The payroll would usually be $600,000 but on 4 May it would be swollen to $900,000 because of back pay.
Embellishing the story as he went, he told them it would be ‘a piece of cake.’
The inside man was promised 10 per cent of the takings in funds that would be laundered through Dennis William Smith’s Manila bar operations.
He was told he would get $5000 up front and the rest about a week later.
Police planned to take the sting to the line. This was their chance to catch the Bookie Robbery master-minds. But it was uncharted waters. Undercover work in the 1970s was rudimentary – largely ‘buy-bust’ drug deals at a street level. No police in Australia had tried such an elaborate – and dangerous – ruse.
They fitted out a Mayne Nickless armoured van with James Bond style electronic devices to foil the robbery and the Special Operations Group was briefed. The briefing was straightforward: If the crooks have guns don’t hesitate to fire. In other words, police were preparing for a gun battle.
They were simpler times and Coroners tended not to ask too many questions.
On 26 April Roberston met ‘Kelvin’ and ‘Bikkie’ at a North Melbourne coffee shop. ‘They wanted to check me out. Ray Bennett just wandered past to have a good look,’ Robertson said.
Four men, including two identified as Bookie Robbers, followed them to the target for last checks before the job.
Cox authorised the raid but only after doing his own homework. He later told Roberston he had donned a workman’s dustcoat to check out the building and found the payroll office was protected by only a plywood door. ‘He said they would kick it in and do the job without any problems.’
Once Cox approved the job, the team began to gather, with up to fourteen staying in different motels around Melbourne.
At 8pm on the night before the raid, Cox and Robertson met again in North Melbourne. They were waiting for Bikkie to arrive with the $5000 deposit for the information but the Queenslander was late.
Cox suggested they go somewhere quieter to wait and the undercover agreed. They went to the nearby deserted Victoria Market where the police back-up team couldn’t follow without being seen.
One of the shadowers said they knew if they went in they would blow the job but if they didn’t the undercover’s life was at risk.
‘He was an ex-serviceman who was absolutely fearless and a first class operative. Basically, I think he was half crazy. He wasn’t that flash at his paperwork but he could think on his feet. We decided to let it run.’
Robertson says he felt fully in control. ‘I didn’t have a gun and I wasn’t wearing a tape. I had a knife in my shoe but that wouldn’t be much good against a gun. To this day I don’t think Cox had any intention of harming me.’
But as they were standing and chatting, a police car with three uniformed police on board pulled over. One of the police recognised Robertson, but was alert enough to realise it was an undercover operation and continued to perform a routine identity check. Robertson produced a fake licence while Cox produced a real, long-barrelled .38 revolver.
‘I have no doubt he was going to kill the coppers,’ Robertson said. The undercover started talking, telling Cox that he could solve the problem and there was no need to shoot.
He ripped the microphone from the police car and took their guns, throwing them on the market roof.
Robertson then forced them into a large rubbish bin and placed heavy wooden pallets on top.
‘Before Cox ran off he said to me “You’re a true Briton, and then fired a shot in the air”.’
Robertson ran back to the coffee shop to ring for back-up when another police car arrived. He told the two policewomen in the car he was in the middle of an undercover operation and they should not use their radio but ring the head of Osprey, Detective Chief Inspector Fred Silvester.
Despite the warning, one police officer foolishly used the radio to inform headquarters they were talking to an undercover policeman at the market.
‘Cox always used police radio scanners. He could have been tipped off straight away. He had the knack of knowing when a job wasn’t right and he would walk away from it.’
Cox ran from the market to the Marco Polo Hotel where he met the team leaders.
Meanwhile the SOG was already in the Country Roads Board building, doing a floor by floor search to check if the bandits had already set up.
Cox told the others their inside man had probably been arrested and was still wearing his Mayne Nickless shirt. They believed that if the police connected him to the robbery he would be able to identify some of them. They decided to abort the job and scatter.
It was just as well – for them. The SOG also had a meeting. They were not going to take any chances. The fact that a key gang member was prepared to kill three police hardened their resolve to shoot first.
But Bikkie did send the undercover $500 with a message that he was sorry the job didn’t go ahead. Proof that occasionally there is honour among thieves.
Years later, when Robertson was working at the Consorting Squad, he saw Bikkie at the races, sauntered over and just said: ‘How’s Russell?’
The Queenslander quickly lost his tan, as he turned white.
‘Years later I got some feedback from Russell – he said he thought I had done a good job,’ Robertson would recall.
IN the end it was dumb luck that brought down Russell Cox and it was sheer luck that kept him alive.
It was on 22 July 1988 when the crew from an armoured van heading to Doncaster Shoppingtown in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs radioed police to say they feared they were being followed.
A local divisional van was despatched to check the scene but saw nothing suspicious and radioed headquarters to say they were leaving the area.
But an armed robbery squad crew in the area, headed by Paul ‘Fish’ Mullett, turned up and located the car, a Holden station wagon, in the shopping centre car park.
Mullett contacted the armed robbery squad office and three crews, all heavily armed, headed east.
Members of the squad, armed with concealed pistol grip shotguns, wandered around the shoppers trying to see would-be armed robbers.
Meanwhile police opened the back of the Holden station wagon and the first item they saw was a prison library card in the name of notorious gunman Raymond John Denning, who had escaped from New South Wales’s Goulburn prison just days before.
The detectives knew they were onto a heavy criminal but they were unaware that Denning had teamed up with Cox.
When Denning had escaped he’d headed to Queensland and made immediate contact with Cox, who told him to go to Melbourne where they would meet in Doncaster. He set Denning up in a local motel and began to plan the next armed robbery.
Armed with a scanner Cox, Denning and a woman were inside the shopping complex where they remained until they heard the divvy van report that it was leaving the area.
But the armed robbery squad was equipped with new, ‘silent’ radios that could not be intercepted by scanners.
Denning, wearing a brown Stetson hat, walked back to the Commodore and slipped in behind the steering wheel. Then a second man, wearing a black hat, wandered over, opened the passenger door and stood there chatting. It was Cox, not that the watching police knew that.
He sat in the passenger seat but left the door ajar as he continued to chat. Finally, he moved away but returned
for a few more words before heading to the car parked next to it – a yellow Ford Fairlane sedan.
They were on the move.
As Denning took off an armed robbery squad car, driven by Paul Mullet, drove straight at the station wagon then stopped, just kissing the front bumper. But to be kissed by this Fish did not involve a quick release.
His passenger, Ken Ashworth, later to win a Churchill Fellowship, jumped on the bonnet of Denning’s car and pointed a loaded shotgun at the driver. The escapee quickly realised that the gig – and his hands – was up.
But Cox had spent more than a decade on the run because he could slip through doors just before they shut.
He drove straight at detectives while brandishing a dark-coloured revolver. Police opened fire, yelling, ‘He’s got a gun!’.
Members of the armed robbery squad in the 1980s were famous for many things, such as bravery and the capacity for marathon lunches. One detective even had the ability to sing the Robin Hood theme song backwards. But subtlety was not among their many talents.
What occurred next was more fitting to a John Wayne movie than a staid suburban shopping centre.
Police on foot and in cars chased the suspect, who continued to wave a gun. He drove to the edge of the carpark until he saw there was no exit, then threw a U-turn and drove straight back into what must have appeared to be the Guns of Navarone.
The ‘robbers’ and local police began to fire – sending more than 80 slugs from handguns and shotguns in his direction and peppering the car. The handgun shots bounced off the wind-screen until Cox drove directly at them – then Ashworth blasted it out with a shotgun.
Cox’s car hit another vehicle and smashed head-on into a wall. But Cox was still armed and ready to chance his luck until Ashworth fired another shot into the passenger door. Only then did Cox concede his eleven years on the run was over.
Miraculously, despite the hail of lead, Cox was left with just a slight nick to an eyebrow caused by a glass fragment. All the shots had missed him.
Over the following few days, police were to receive reports from people whose cars had been parked in the shopping centre inquiring how their vehicles ended up with ‘shrapnel’ damage.
Dave Brodie was one of the armed robbery squad that day. He joined the police force in 1977, around the time Cox became Australia’s most wanted man. ‘I always thought it would be fantastic to catch him one day.’
But when the man in the black hat was arrested, no-one knew who he was. ‘He just said, “You blokes will jump through hoops when you know who I am.”’.
When they checked the cars, police knew they were dealing with a serious crew. In the Ford they found gloves, binoculars, beanies, three sawn-off semi-automatic rifles and shotgun cartridges.
In the wagon they found maps, bullets and a motor vehicle lock pick, a revolver, hair dye and a manual for a hand-held police scanner.
It would have appeared the visitors weren’t there for the Myer winter sale.
Detectives took the mystery man back and it was only fingerprints that established they had arrested Russell Cox.
Cox remained staunch and refused to answer questions but he sportingly posed with members of the armed robbery squad for a team snap. The big-game hunters wanted a record of catching the biggest name in Australian crime.
But most of the pictures were stolen when the police photographer’s car was burgled the same night.
While Cox refused to talk, Denning – who had escaped while serving a life sentence for escape, malicious wounding and armed robbery – opened up.
‘He said they were following the van “for fun” and had no intention of robbing it – at least not then.’ Brodie said.
Denning was a cult figure in New South Wales and was seen as a latter day bushranger. So it was a surprise when he became a police informer.
When Denning gave evidence in New South Wales, a man in the gallery threw a bone towards him yelling: ‘You forgot your lunch, Denning – here it is.’
Cox and Denning fell out after another armed robber, Graeme Jensen, was killed by police in October 1988. Jensen was killed when police botched an attempt to arrest him over the murder of security guard Dominic Hefti in a robbery. The trouble was, Jensen didn’t do it.
According to Denning, Cox was happy that Jensen was killed, believing the Hefti murder would be wrongly pinned on the dead man.
Denning then decided to talk and he had plenty to say. He listed armed robberies and other crimes he knew Cox had committed.
‘Russell Cox told me that this murder and armed robbery committed on Dominic Hefti had been done so by himself with Sam Mercuri and a person named Mark Moran.’
He said that after Mercuri was wounded, Cox planned to kidnap a doctor to tend to his mate. ‘Mark then said that wasn’t a very good idea and Russell was dirty on him for that.’
According to Denning, Cox acted as a crime mentor to Mark and Jason Moran. He said Cox showed them how to build secret compartments after he went to Jason’s flat and saw two kilos of speed sitting in a normal drawer. ‘Russell told me that he has given Mark and Jason advice in relation to drugs, money, guns and all that in secret compartments.’
Denning said one of the reasons Cox’s mail on armed robberies was always right was that he had inherited a security guard contact from Ray Bennett. He paid the guard ten percent for information and once gave him a video player as a bonus.
But the close connection with Bennett was obviously a problem as the Morans were linked to the Kanes through friendship, business and marriage. The tension would have been somewhat greater because it was suspected that Cox almost certainly killed Brian Kane in the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick in 1982.
‘Mark’s father wasn’t to know that Mark was working with Russell because Mark’s father had been close to the Kanes over the years,’ Denning told police.
According to Denning, Mercuri and Moran turned on Helen Deane when Cox was jailed. ‘Sam Mercuri and Mark terrorised her and drugged her, trying to find out information as to where he had money buried.’
He finished his statement saying, ‘I realise that I am in great danger of being killed by any number of persons through what I have informed to the police.’
He was right.
Denning received a shortened jail term in exchange for his cooperation but died of a drug overdose in 1999 that many believe was a hotshot. He died only days before he was to give evidence against Cox.
After Cox was arrested, police found a card for a lawn mowing service and through it tracked the gardener’s client list to a property in Bowen Road, East Doncaster.
In January 1988 Cox rented the house directly from the owner under the name Peter John Roberts.
Police found a false cupboard in the laundry, disguises, dustcoats with pens in the pockets, notes on movements of armoured car deliveries, a fake plaster cast for an arm and a list of coded phone numbers. The list was given to ASIO but its experts could not crack the Cox code.
Cox had even cut off the tags on his clothes so that if he had to abandon his safe house police would not be able to work out where he shopped.
Police also found a grappling hook with a rope attached and a rowing machine.
But it took police ten days to find his house and the secret storage cupboard was empty.
But the most sinister find was a single page from a telephone book with one name underlined. It was the name of a woman who had inadvertently been involved in the armed robbery in which the security guard Dominic Hefti had been killed.
Just eleven days before Cox’s arrest he had led the team of bandits who jumped two armed guards carrying a cash tin from a Coles Warehouse in Barkly Square, Brunswick.
In the struggle, Hefti was shot in the chest and the leg. He died two days later at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
But Hefti had managed to fire a shot, hitting one of the bandits, Santo Mercuri, in the hand. Cox and his team, including Mark Moran, fled with $33,000.
The bleeding
Mercuri commandeered a car from a woman and drove away, eventually making his way to Cox’s East Doncaster home, where Helen Deane tended his wound.
The phone book address found at the house was for the woman whose car Mercuri had stolen. Denning later told police, ‘It was decided … that they try to find her home address and knock her because she was the only one that Sam believed had identified him.’
When Cox was caught Deane and Mercuri saw the police helicopter above the shopping centre and fled. A policeman’s mother, who lived across the road, later identified both suspects as having been tenants in the house.
Hefti’s murder sparked a spate of killings. Police wrongly believed that armed robber Graeme Jensen was responsible and he was shot during a seemingly clumsy attempt to arrest him on 11 October 1988.
The following day two young uniformed police, Constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre, were murdered in Walsh Street, South Yarra, as a payback by criminals who believed the armed robbery squad was shooting to kill.
Much later, Ken Ashworth would be assigned to investigate the Hefti murder and he used groundbreaking DNA technology to link Mercuri to the crime. Mercuri, 47, pleaded not guilty to murder and armed robbery but the DNA and X-ray material was overwhelming. He was sentenced to 25 years with a minimum of twenty. He died in jail in 2000.
Before he became a robber, Mercuri was an outstanding sausage maker. Perhaps he would have been better sticking to small-goods than small arms.
In September 1982, Helen Deane and Russell Cox were invited to a family wedding by Mercuri. A photo taken at the reception shows a smiling Mercuri and Deane. But between them is an empty chair. Even at weddings Cox preferred to be invisible.
After his arrest Cox was charged with a number of offences, including the murder of Carroll but he beat that charge on grounds of self-defence.
At one of his first hearings, police noticed a demure looking woman in the public gallery. It was Helen Deane. They later found out she was armed with a pen pistol.
Cox was never convicted over the many armed robberies he pulled in Queensland (six between 1978 and 1983), the jobs he organised in Victoria nor the three murders he was said to have committed. He was extradited to New South Wales, where a judge found that Katingal was not a gazetted prison and so he beat the escape charge. His initial life sentence for an earlier escape bid and shooting at guards was reduced to a 29-year minimum but the 11 years on the run were included.
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