Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: The criminal underworld is a grubby place. It welcomes anyone
Speaker 1: willing to make bad choices, and Gaz right made plenty
Speaker 1: of them. For decades, Gas lived in a world where
Speaker 1: violence was a currency and where survival in the most
Speaker 1: dangerous person in the room. Gazz's criminal reasure may runs
Speaker 1: deep assaults, drug dealing, kidnappings, even allegations of murder. Then
Speaker 1: the karma he accumulated finally caught up with him in
Speaker 1: the most brutal way possible. Still, Gaz found the way forward.
Speaker 1: This is an ugly story about crime and its consequences,
Speaker 1: and perhaps the content warning is appropriate given the subject matter.
Speaker 1: Gary Gazz right, welcome to our Catch.
Speaker 2: Killers, Gary Jubilin, Thank you now, I've heard of yours,
Speaker 2: Gaz right, Gary right?
Speaker 1: What do you prefer being referred to us? Okay?
Speaker 2: I was using in trouble. When people call me Gary,
Speaker 2: it's a little form.
Speaker 1: What about yourself? Do you get Gary when you're in
Speaker 1: the ship and it's a bit of a bit of
Speaker 1: a funny name, now, Gary, isn't it fu? Gary? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Have you got one or two? Us?
Speaker 1: One? All right? Okay, Well we'll get over being Gary's
Speaker 1: but you can be Gazz for Gazz for the episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you now, I guess in prepping for the podcast,
Speaker 1: and I've obviously heard about you and know about you,
Speaker 1: and a few mutual friends have steered me in your direction.
Speaker 2: Danny Glenn, if you shil Danny Shannon, Jeffrey Morgan, yeah,
Speaker 2: close friends of mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I know him well too, and they all
Speaker 1: speak highly.
Speaker 2: Obviously doing good things in the community as well.
Speaker 1: I love stories of redemption and they're classics for it.
Speaker 1: But also giving people an understanding of what the world
Speaker 1: of crime is like, because I think people are fascinated
Speaker 1: by true crime, but it's almost looking at the surface
Speaker 1: of it and glorifying it. You can see the cool
Speaker 1: things that happened in the crime, but speaking to people
Speaker 1: like you, I think it allows people to understand, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it can be a bit messy in the
Speaker 1: world of crime. I know part of your platform now
Speaker 1: is trying to help people and steer them away from it,
Speaker 1: and I think it's an important message.
Speaker 2: And we're doing a good job too. Yeah, definitely doing
Speaker 2: a good job at pushing a positive messages, we would say,
Speaker 2: and helping others, you know, which is what it's all about,
Speaker 2: because let's be honest, you know, you've got to start somewhere.
Speaker 2: But some people get online and they said, I've been
Speaker 2: here and I've done that, and you shouldn't do it. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: that's great if people are going to listen, But what
Speaker 2: else have you got to offer, you know? And I
Speaker 2: think people like me, Danny Glenn and Morges, we're really
Speaker 2: getting our hands dirty in the community in a positive way,
Speaker 2: which I think is great.
Speaker 1: And demonstrating that that's possible and can be done for
Speaker 1: a time. I've also you've mentioned karma a lot in
Speaker 1: interviews that you've done or when you're speaking to people.
Speaker 1: Do you believe in karma? Hask come back to bite
Speaker 1: you and got.
Speaker 2: Me a beauty? Yeah, massive part of why I do
Speaker 2: what I do today. Like, yeah, I don't. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of ups and downs in my life. And then
Speaker 2: and then the downs ended up out weighing the ups,
Speaker 2: and I had to take accountability. You know, you create
Speaker 2: your own reality, Like this is what we do. We
Speaker 2: are in charge of our destiny, and life doesn't happen
Speaker 2: to us, it happens for us. And when I woke
Speaker 2: up to that, I was like, Okay, well this is
Speaker 2: all meant to be. I'm only getting what I put out,
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I thought, enough of being a bad guy,
Speaker 2: let's let's start being a good guy.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a good starting point. You've got
Speaker 1: you've got the way that you can go through as
Speaker 1: a victim. And there's a lot of people who've got
Speaker 1: some shit starts to life, and you understand why they
Speaker 1: fall into that path, but at some point in time,
Speaker 1: to dig your way out. You really got to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: well that shit happen, but yeah, I can take control
Speaker 1: of my destiny.
Speaker 2: It's all about owning your shit in it. I think
Speaker 2: that's a big part of where while we're in the heill,
Speaker 2: we would say in the healing space, you know, and
Speaker 2: a big part of it is taking accountability, owning your ship,
Speaker 2: having a hard long look in. Yeah, you know, addressing
Speaker 2: shame and guilt. But then on the back of shame
Speaker 2: and guilt is forgiveness. You know, no one wants to
Speaker 2: walk around with their head down for the rest of
Speaker 2: their life because of the things they've done wrong. So
Speaker 2: you know, you need to find love in your heart
Speaker 2: for yourself, which is very important, and forgive yourself and
Speaker 2: then from there, you know, you can only go up.
Speaker 1: I've heard people plenty of people have sat in that
Speaker 1: chair where you are, or people I've come across in life,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that forgiveness you've got to be able to
Speaker 1: forgive yourself to And I would imagine the lifestyle that
Speaker 1: you lived, the gangster lifestyle that you lived, there'd be
Speaker 1: a lot that you're just going to go, Okay, well
Speaker 1: that was the old me.
Speaker 2: I'm different there, Yeah, I mean, I've forgiven people for
Speaker 2: things they've done to me, and that's important. It's not like,
Speaker 2: you know, I had to ring them and say I
Speaker 2: forgive you, because let's be honest, you know, if we
Speaker 2: can find forgiveness for people that have done wrong to us,
Speaker 2: it's not always because they deserve it, you know, but
Speaker 2: forgiving them for my peace is a no brainer. And
Speaker 2: then obviously more important than that is forgiving self. You know,
Speaker 2: we have to find love, because forgiveness is love, and
Speaker 2: we have to find love for self before we find
Speaker 2: love for anybody else, I think.
Speaker 1: And forgiving others to find peace for yourself. I think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting interest in concept.
Speaker 2: And it's hard. Like there's people who have wrong, man,
Speaker 2: I fucking hate them, But I've also learned that hang
Speaker 2: on to that is just they're not sitting there thinking
Speaker 2: about thinking about me.
Speaker 1: I'm destroying myself. So I understand the forgiveness is for
Speaker 1: bringing peace to yourself. We're going to talk talk about
Speaker 1: your life and most importantly talk about what you're doing
Speaker 1: and the direction your life is heading in now and
Speaker 1: the good, positive stuff that you're doing. I just want
Speaker 1: to give people a sense. But before we talk about
Speaker 1: your childhood. There was one episode in your life that
Speaker 1: was I think significant, but it gives people an understanding
Speaker 1: of how low your life was. I've called it in
Speaker 1: my notes suicide by cop, and you know the incident
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, and we don't have to put it
Speaker 1: in context what led up to it or what occurred
Speaker 1: after it, but just tell us about that incident, because
Speaker 1: I think people will get sceense of how dark the
Speaker 1: world can be for people.
Speaker 2: So I'd come home from prison trying to skim over there,
Speaker 2: like you said before, and the after I come home
Speaker 2: from prison with this mindset of I wanted to do
Speaker 2: the right thing. I'd had enough. I had enough that
Speaker 2: life I was about. I was moving into my mid thirties,
Speaker 2: and you know, by that stage it had just been
Speaker 2: I was an active criminal, served just over seven years
Speaker 2: prison for obviously you know, crimes that I've been caught for.
Speaker 2: You beat it a really big case. I sat in
Speaker 2: front of the courts. You know, I would have been
Speaker 2: lucky to get fifteen if I was found guilty beat
Speaker 2: that had to serve a little time on a lesser charge.
Speaker 2: Come home and was like, well, I'm not doing this anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, what is your career choice, This is stuff done.
Speaker 2: And there wasn't much, you know, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of drug activity, but I wasn't a user, so I didn't.
Speaker 2: I was the guy in the area that sold drugs
Speaker 2: that didn't take it. And yeah, and I had this
Speaker 2: mindset of I want to turn my life around and
Speaker 2: got a good girl, as we would say, from that life,
Speaker 2: a straight girl, a couple of kids. You know, we
Speaker 2: were taking the kids to school and you know, getting
Speaker 2: dinners done by six and I was in bed by
Speaker 2: ten thirty and all the normal stuff. And I wasn't
Speaker 2: used to this normal life, living like a citizen, living
Speaker 2: like it's yeah civilian, yeah, literally, and it was totally
Speaker 2: new to me, like I'd never ever done it. From
Speaker 2: the time I was a teenager, I was living, as
Speaker 2: we would say, free, doing whatever I want, whatever I want,
Speaker 2: whenever I wanted. And it didn't work out too well.
Speaker 2: You know, there was some resistance along the way, and
Speaker 2: I had to learn the hard way. But anyway, so
Speaker 2: I just pushed through. And little did I know that
Speaker 2: I had so much baggage from that old life. It
Speaker 2: was just I was suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing and one day,
Speaker 2: it just exploded. It just exploded. One morning. I woke
Speaker 2: up in tears, didn't know what was happening. Within fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes of that, you know, I tried to hang myself
Speaker 2: out the back under the bogola, and yeah, it was
Speaker 2: just it all happened really quick and actually was not successful.
Speaker 2: I hit the ground. I'm sitting on my bum and
Speaker 2: I'm looking around and at that time, leaving that old
Speaker 2: life behind and the trying this new life. I can
Speaker 2: remember leading up to that morning in my head and
Speaker 2: I couldn't say anything. I couldn't talk to anybody about
Speaker 2: the way I felt. But in my head, I kept thinking,
Speaker 2: I can't do this, and I'll be honest exactly what
Speaker 2: was going through me. I can't do this straighthead shit.
Speaker 2: That's what every day, three or four times a day,
Speaker 2: it dawned on me. I can't do this straight ahead shit.
Speaker 2: But then I just keep pushing through, and I decided
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hurt anybody. I'm going to sell drugs.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try and be a good guy. And
Speaker 2: I was trying and just consumeing. Obviously, I feel like
Speaker 2: we suppressed, we suppressed, we suppressed the emotions are always
Speaker 2: going to come to the surface, and when they do,
Speaker 2: they explode. We have no control over them. And you know,
Speaker 2: we verbally or physically hurt someone around us. Even worse
Speaker 2: than that, we verbally or physically hurt our loved ones.
Speaker 1: So can I just at that particular point in time,
Speaker 1: just getting the sense of your mindset and your emotional stability.
Speaker 1: At that point you're trying to live the straight life,
Speaker 1: You've still got inclination being drawn back to the life
Speaker 1: that you knew because it's an easier life for you,
Speaker 1: or it's a life that you knew. You're struggling with
Speaker 1: the straight life, and that was the type of emotions
Speaker 1: you're going through, because the straight life can be hard
Speaker 1: to like doing the right thing and I love.
Speaker 2: It, people now I love it. I wouldn't going back
Speaker 2: to that old life. I get anxiety just thinking about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the transition from that old life to where I
Speaker 2: am today, there was this bit in the middle that was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was really really hard, and people that have never
Speaker 2: lived an active criminal career path whatever you want to
Speaker 2: call it, probably wouldn't understand. But if I was to
Speaker 2: say to someone that was a civilian listen. We're going
Speaker 2: to run around in cars that aren't registered in our name.
Speaker 2: We're going to have houses that aren't registered around our name.
Speaker 2: We're going to carry guns, we're going to push drugs.
Speaker 2: If another team comes our way, we're gonna have to
Speaker 2: go to war with them at any stage. If we
Speaker 2: slip up the police can get us, we could do years. Also,
Speaker 2: if another team gets a leg up on us, we
Speaker 2: might be dead. This is what we're going to do,
Speaker 2: and this is how we live. It's easy money, it's
Speaker 2: fast money. We're going to live in the fast lane.
Speaker 2: We live day to day, and this is what we're
Speaker 2: going to have an anxiety attack, Well, it was exactly
Speaker 2: the same for me when you said you're going to
Speaker 2: get up at seven in the morning, you're gonna be
Speaker 2: in bed by ten thirty. You're going to main thing
Speaker 2: is probably gonna worry about it, taking the bins out
Speaker 2: and make sure the lawn's mode. You know, like all
Speaker 2: that is just consumed me. It seems like it doesn't.
Speaker 2: When I even hear myself say it doesn't seem stressful.
Speaker 2: I suppose it to be like a rock star lifestyle.
Speaker 2: And then someone's told now you're just going to live
Speaker 2: and everyday life you're gonna have to make sure the
Speaker 2: bills are paid to be like well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, it's a different type of pressure.
Speaker 1: But the gangster life soul that you describe be high anxiety, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you enjoy it the highs, but the lowers can be
Speaker 1: at any moment, it's all people like my ex mates
Speaker 1: could be kicking the door in and that's see you
Speaker 1: for the next twenty years exactly. So. But the time
Speaker 1: that you got that lower, that sort of the mindset
Speaker 1: you're in where you got that low that you actually
Speaker 1: call the cops on yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I fell down on me bum and I
Speaker 2: was looking around and at that time, I can remember
Speaker 2: feeling really hopeless. I thought what was going through my
Speaker 2: head was you can't even take yourself out, you know,
Speaker 2: like it was just because there was obviously ego. Ego
Speaker 2: was you know, I was trying to suppress that. But
Speaker 2: where something special We can do this, don't you know
Speaker 2: who I am? You know all that mentality, And you
Speaker 2: know that's how I always thought I sat on a
Speaker 2: throne in my area. You know, it wasn't the joke
Speaker 2: on me because it was you know, real downtime, and
Speaker 2: so I'm sitting on my bum, I'm looking at my thought.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't even take yourself out. You know.
Speaker 2: I felt worthless. I really did. Couldn't even succeed at
Speaker 2: that let alone, you know, live a nine to five,
Speaker 2: and so I from being really emotional. I got up
Speaker 2: that morning, within like fifteen twenty minutes of being up,
Speaker 2: crying tears of streaming. Anxiety has gone through the roof.
Speaker 2: So I can't do this. I'm tapping out. Tried what
Speaker 2: I tried didn't work, and then sat on my bum,
Speaker 2: felt really down and worthless. From there it went to
Speaker 2: anger and I went you think I'm a goose like
Speaker 2: you know, That's why I started that mentality. You think
Speaker 2: I'm a dickhead, and and I thought, I'll show everybody
Speaker 2: in my mentality at that stage, tunnel vision was well
Speaker 2: all end up on the front page, shot by police.
Speaker 2: That's the easiest way out, and it's all finished like
Speaker 2: a gangster, you know. That was my mentality at that time.
Speaker 2: And I've gone out for bang. It's my last laugh,
Speaker 2: my last crack of the whip, my last rah, you know.
Speaker 1: And people will be talking talking about you're going you
Speaker 1: went out guns blaze.
Speaker 2: That was my mentality. So I thought, yep, and I
Speaker 2: grabbed the police. You grab the phone. I rang the
Speaker 2: local police station and I said, it's right, you know,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm living this address. I'm a SVO. Was
Speaker 2: a serious file and offender. I said, you want to
Speaker 2: get here, I'm going to I'm going to hurt someone.
Speaker 2: There was no one in the house. It was just me.
Speaker 2: This has gone the work, kids have gone school, and yeah,
Speaker 2: and the lady on the phone, so who was a
Speaker 2: lady obviously on the desk the police stop, she and
Speaker 2: excuse me. I said, you fucking heard what I said.
Speaker 2: So I'm only saying it once and hang up the phone.
Speaker 2: So give him a dress, my name all that, and thought,
Speaker 2: now I'm gonna win. They come ou. I'm gonna grab
Speaker 2: a knife, I'm gonna run out the front ba back.
Speaker 2: So in that time, I'm pacing around and trying to
Speaker 2: you know, And I can remember it was almost like
Speaker 2: sitting off. I could see myself like going through the motions,
Speaker 2: and I can remember, like, you know, thinking, well, what
Speaker 2: are you doing? Like this is huge, Like you backed
Speaker 2: yourself into a corner. This is going to be a
Speaker 2: really bad day, but the emotions are taken over. Like
Speaker 2: the ball was rolling, there was no stopping me. But
Speaker 2: I can remember thinking, what what are you doing? But
Speaker 2: had already done. What was going to happen right now? Yeah,
Speaker 2: when they get here, I'll run out the front and
Speaker 2: that's it, and the roll. Within a couple of minutes
Speaker 2: of hopping off the phone and geeing myself up and
Speaker 2: waiting to, you know, for them to be out the front,
Speaker 2: I heard the roller door on the garage, go up
Speaker 2: to the house, had a look, and it was my
Speaker 2: girlfriend and she's come in. Obviously I've backed a knife,
Speaker 2: and she's like, are you okay? I'm so, I'm fine.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't tell her how I was feeling leading
Speaker 2: up to any of this, you know, it was my
Speaker 2: own dirty little secret, what was going on in my head.
Speaker 2: And she's like, what's the matter. I said, nothing the matter,
Speaker 2: nothing the matter. So I just can't. I've had enough.
Speaker 2: I just can't do this. She's like, what are you
Speaker 2: talking about? Like you're a right, Like you don't seem right,
Speaker 2: and so she sort of followed me around for the
Speaker 2: next few minutes, probably about five minutes or so, and
Speaker 2: talked to me. I said, I can't just leave me alone.
Speaker 2: I'll be all right, you know. And I remember thinking
Speaker 2: my head, I'm in shit now because this has gone
Speaker 2: from suicide by cop to a hostage situation. You're digging, oh,
Speaker 2: I thought, you know. And next minute I've heard a
Speaker 2: bit of ruckus out the front and I've peeled the
Speaker 2: curtains back, had a look and it's obviously police everywhere,
Speaker 2: tactical gear, you know, the right van in the driveway.
Speaker 2: And I started coaching me and go right, evacuate all
Speaker 2: the stuff, hands up, all the usual, and I said, well,
Speaker 2: I turned around. I said, well that's it now. I said,
Speaker 2: there's nothing I can do. She goes and when she looked,
Speaker 2: she had a look. She's like, what have you done?
Speaker 2: The first thing she said because she knew my old life,
Speaker 2: but she you know, she knew what I've been up to,
Speaker 2: but she never seen that side of me. And what
Speaker 2: have you done? Now?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: What have you gone and done? And she looked probably
Speaker 2: looked like to her massive the community because she's not Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I called him on myself. She said,
Speaker 2: what do you mean you called him on yourself? And
Speaker 2: I said, I can't do this. I said, I'm going
Speaker 2: out the front and they can. They can do me
Speaker 2: on the spot. I'm done. And then she saw that
Speaker 2: went why she got what was happening. Yeah, she dropped
Speaker 2: to her knees and she grabbed my hands and she said,
Speaker 2: I love you. Start crying. She said, you can't do this,
Speaker 2: you know, she said, I can't have you hurt yourself.
Speaker 2: I can't see you hurt. I love you, blah blah.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously that was my I was. Now
Speaker 2: I look back on it, that whole morning was cry
Speaker 2: for help. I just didn't know how to ask for help.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know what was happening. You know, my
Speaker 2: emotions had exploded. And and when she said that to me,
Speaker 2: it give me a reason to get out, give me
Speaker 2: an avenue. Now I don't Now I've got an excuse
Speaker 2: not to do what I was going to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see where you're coming from, be of.
Speaker 2: Love conquering evil, you know, a bit of light conquering dark.
Speaker 2: And and so I've said, all right, I'm going to
Speaker 2: just go out and surrender through the knife, open the
Speaker 2: front door. Obviously, they get on the ground as the
Speaker 2: usual tax of operations. As you know, down there. We
Speaker 2: call the mesogeez. They a cable tied me, you know,
Speaker 2: three me on the front line, cleared the house obviously
Speaker 2: here and go through and got to clear each bedroom.
Speaker 2: It goes quiet, and it's like get down, get down, please, police, police,
Speaker 2: And then it goes quiet again. Get down, polase, please please.
Speaker 2: They're clearing the house, making sure there's no one else
Speaker 2: in there, and then they hand me over to dectives.
Speaker 2: Once they've cleared the house. The detective they hand me
Speaker 2: over to I'd known him for twenty years and he'd
Speaker 2: broken my balls like it was cat and mouse. You know,
Speaker 2: I was an active criminal in the area. He knew
Speaker 2: me since I was a street kid on a pushbike
Speaker 2: that grew up into it, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: as we'd say from my area shot caller, you know.
Speaker 2: And as I got older, you know, I was more good,
Speaker 2: better at what I did. It was harder for him
Speaker 2: to catch me. And it was really become a clap mouse.
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna get caught, you know, slacking, and and
Speaker 2: he said to me, you know, and I remember there
Speaker 2: been times he kicked my ass, you know, he'd they'd
Speaker 2: even be honest, they'd even rob me. You know, like,
Speaker 2: all right, we can't get you, we've got nothing. But
Speaker 2: you think this ten grand we found your car, we're
Speaker 2: going to stitch up for that. We'll just pocket it,
Speaker 2: you know, and all the usual and so like you know,
Speaker 2: let's you fight fire with fire, don't you. And and anyway,
Speaker 2: he put me to the side and he said to me,
Speaker 2: he goes to you know, his off side, as he said,
Speaker 2: put his handcuffs in the front. And he gets because
Speaker 2: they have to take cables off, cable ties off and
Speaker 2: put the handcuffs. He goes, put some handcuffs on, put
Speaker 2: him in the front, put him, put his handcuffs in
Speaker 2: the front and loosen them up. And I was just
Speaker 2: like this never hurt him usually that tired as possible,
Speaker 2: passed to the back of my head. And and then
Speaker 2: he's done that. And then he said to my girlfriend,
Speaker 2: grab him a cigarette. And so I know something there's
Speaker 2: a shift here. He's never spoke to me like this.
Speaker 2: Something's going on. It's been a big morning. And he
Speaker 2: pulls me to the side of hand cuffs in the front,
Speaker 2: you know, they loosened up. I'm having a cigarette. And
Speaker 2: he pulls me aside and he's just one on one,
Speaker 2: it's just me and him. He goes, Listen, we're going
Speaker 2: to drop the bad guy and good guy act today.
Speaker 2: He goes, Gary, you're not right in the head. He goes,
Speaker 2: I've known you since you were a kid. Who goes,
Speaker 2: you're not. He goes, you're not. Okay, so fucking fine,
Speaker 2: you know, because no, you're not. He goes, how do
Speaker 2: you feel about me not taking you to prison today?
Speaker 2: And we take you to hospital? And yeah, man, I
Speaker 2: mean it hit me like a ton of bricks. When
Speaker 2: the enemy, you know, shows compassion, it just lands different.
Speaker 2: Like we were literally we hated each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine the relationship with the head.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And when he showed and let's be honest, it
Speaker 2: felt like he was showing me a bit of love.
Speaker 2: He cared, and so that that rocked me. And I said,
Speaker 2: well okay. Then he goes, because I think you need
Speaker 2: to be checked out. And and then he finished it
Speaker 2: with he goes. He goes, I've seen some ship in
Speaker 2: my time. He goes, I can only imagine what you've seen.
Speaker 2: He goes, I've spoke to someone. He goes, I take
Speaker 2: a pill in the morning. Yeah, he goes, how about
Speaker 2: we go get your head checked out? And I said,
Speaker 2: all right, let's do that. Then it was the first
Speaker 2: time I'd accepted help. You know. Well, a long story,
Speaker 2: short funny bit is I end up they put me
Speaker 2: in an ambulance, take me to hospital, do the Mental Health
Speaker 2: Act and all this stuff, and I'm in the back
Speaker 2: and I've got to like, you know, one pick, you know,
Speaker 2: just fresh outed academy escorting me, and I've said to
Speaker 2: them it was a guy and of girl. And I've
Speaker 2: said to them, so, what what was your line of defense?
Speaker 2: What did you just have lined up for me? And
Speaker 2: they said, oh, you're in trouble, Gary. I said, what
Speaker 2: was the prog? How were you going to run it?
Speaker 2: And they said, well, no one wants to speak to
Speaker 2: you apart from special Operations, so the only ones to
Speaker 2: communicate with you negotiate with you. And then from there
Speaker 2: there was going to they were going to send the
Speaker 2: dogs in first, and if you got past the die,
Speaker 2: then they were going to send non lethal round so
Speaker 2: obviously being background rubber bullets. And then after that the
Speaker 2: third line was lethal's And then I sort of chuckled
Speaker 2: to myself because there was no way I was getting
Speaker 2: what I wanted. I would have got bitten by.
Speaker 1: The first dog and scrabb they're scary, those dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was streamed like a bitch, so it wasn't
Speaker 2: even happening going down the way I thought it was,
Speaker 2: you know, well.
Speaker 1: A couple of things, and I just wanted to bring
Speaker 1: that out early in the in the podcast. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is how low it can go, and there's highs
Speaker 1: and lowers and we'll talk our way through. But I
Speaker 1: think it's also good and it shows humanity. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you draw on that down the track that here's
Speaker 1: your arch ende me the cop that's been chasing you
Speaker 1: for twenty years in that cat and mouse game and saying, hey, mate,
Speaker 1: you need help. This is not the time to kick you.
Speaker 1: This is the time to help you.
Speaker 2: And I suppose you know, you probably like hear hearing
Speaker 2: me say this, And you know, I can see this
Speaker 2: now that I've got a lot of growth. You know,
Speaker 2: we're all humans, Yeah, you know, even a criminal or
Speaker 2: a guy with the badge. At the end of the day,
Speaker 2: we're all. No one's born bad. Yeah, you know, no
Speaker 2: one's born bad. It's just our experiences in life to
Speaker 2: mold us. Into who we are, you know, and that
Speaker 2: was in a time where I was in a bad
Speaker 2: place and he could see that.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I know the life got worse for
Speaker 1: you after that. It wasn't the sort of the watershed moment,
Speaker 1: the terms everything round, yeah, exactly, in the same regards.
Speaker 1: It could have gone a lot worse. If they turned
Speaker 1: up there and went hard at you and put the
Speaker 1: boot in and all that, you would have come out
Speaker 1: more angry and okay, well maybe you become a worse person.
Speaker 2: It was a it was a very ironic, you know,
Speaker 2: moment in my life. I mean the synchronicities, you know,
Speaker 2: like I could have went either way, and you know,
Speaker 2: when the enemy showed compassion, it yeah, just landed. And
Speaker 2: I suppose you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't go as
Speaker 2: far as thanking him for where I am today because
Speaker 2: I've had to put in the hard work. But it
Speaker 2: was definitely it was a big point in my life
Speaker 2: because it could have went either way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it is a seed in your brain
Speaker 1: and you think, okay, well I've seen that before someone's
Speaker 1: actually done it. For Let's let's talk about your your upbringing.
Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up on Melton, yep, which is compared
Speaker 1: to what saw the suburbs are we.
Speaker 2: Looking in the lower so it's out the western suburbs,
Speaker 2: it's out the west of the city in Melbourne, and
Speaker 2: it's it's lower housing. So you know, you want a
Speaker 2: cheapest house out the west, you'll go out towards Meltin.
Speaker 2: You'll go the lowest prices on housing, which therefore bring
Speaker 2: the rif raff. You know, you got a lot of
Speaker 2: single mothers. You know, drug abuse, you know, domestic violence,
Speaker 2: all the things, and so yeah, it is a nice
Speaker 2: little community. You know, there's good things happening in every community,
Speaker 2: but there's also you know the undertone and in Melton,
Speaker 2: if you want to get in trouble, there's definitely plenty
Speaker 2: of spaces to get in trouble. And so yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean that's where it all started. Mum's a really good person.
Speaker 2: Mums worked. So mum was a nurse. She worked for
Speaker 2: forty years with terminally ill kids, so you know, like
Speaker 2: the Which Foundation, well at the Royal Children's Hospital, you know,
Speaker 2: cistic vibrosis are the keemo all those sort of kids.
Speaker 2: They usually don't see her over the day of a teenager.
Speaker 1: About a tough gig living hospital.
Speaker 2: You know, Mum I can remember coming home and she'd
Speaker 2: look after kids for years on end. She's today passed away.
Speaker 2: You know, that's that was her job. So she's a
Speaker 2: good member of the community. But if I can, you know,
Speaker 2: take mum's flowers away for any reason, and I don't
Speaker 2: blame her, but maybe she had a bad choicing.
Speaker 1: Men.
Speaker 2: You know, our dads weren't good role models. When you
Speaker 2: say our dads, three boys, different fathers, yep, different dads.
Speaker 2: You know we're big gap apart. Mum tried three times
Speaker 2: to get it right, so we're all seven years apart.
Speaker 2: So Mum tried with me, I'm the oldest. Seven years later,
Speaker 2: she tried again for another man. Seven years they tried
Speaker 2: again for another man. I'd only see my mom ever
Speaker 2: with those three men. You know. It wasn't like she
Speaker 2: had guys coming in out.
Speaker 1: Of the house.
Speaker 2: But yeah, she just her dad's didn't show up the
Speaker 2: way they should have. And at a young age, I
Speaker 2: didn't know that, you know, you need the village to
Speaker 2: raid your family.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand that it was just a kid. I'd
Speaker 2: seen one worker ass off and you know, twenty bucks
Speaker 2: was ten bucks for ham sand, which is for schooling.
Speaker 2: The other ten bucks was petrol. And then we're broke again.
Speaker 2: So you know, I didn't understand that. You know, you
Speaker 2: need you know, a family needs sport.
Speaker 1: Did you have any role models, like whether your.
Speaker 2: Father or my dad was my best mate? So he wasn't.
Speaker 2: He wasn't like dad never told me what to do,
Speaker 2: never yelled at me, never smacked me. He never told
Speaker 2: me what I could and couldn't do. He'd just say, listen,
Speaker 2: you've got to work out life for yourself. My dad
Speaker 2: was an alcoholic, Okay, so he was a good man.
Speaker 2: But you know I didn't I suppose I didn't get
Speaker 2: to see what a child needs from their far.
Speaker 1: Just a segue there about the father raising kids and
Speaker 1: all that. I say it to the people, and I
Speaker 1: like to think this is how I learned. I learned
Speaker 1: from my father. Your kids don't want their best mate
Speaker 1: to be their parent, They want to fucking parents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I see a lot of people make the mistake.
Speaker 1: And yeah, sometimes when when my son was growing up
Speaker 1: and my daughter, I was jealous of the relationships other
Speaker 1: parents seem to have with their kids because they were
Speaker 1: their best mates. But I think the thing that a
Speaker 1: child needs most is a parent, a bit of set
Speaker 1: set the parameters, set the boundaries, and keep people pointed
Speaker 1: in the right direction ndred percent.
Speaker 2: And I understand when my dad was coming from because
Speaker 2: I'd heard him say there's method to his madness. He
Speaker 2: liked to micromanage, so in his head, you know, he
Speaker 2: was like, if I'm his best mate, I'll find out
Speaker 2: what's not finding out and logic there, yeah, and like okay,
Speaker 2: And there was times he used that into his you know,
Speaker 2: he played that into his hand. I remember once he
Speaker 2: you know, we had an episode and and and some
Speaker 2: shit went down. Anyway, I had a bunch of guns
Speaker 2: at my house first thing in the morning. And that
Speaker 2: shouldn't be like that. They should be gone before daylight,
Speaker 2: you know, in case we get a visit. And but
Speaker 2: it's just happened that there was a bag of guns there,
Speaker 2: and Dad come over and being my best mate, said,
Speaker 2: oh shit, you know, he what I got. You know,
Speaker 2: I caught a couple of pistols, and he was like,
Speaker 2: oh Jesus, beit of trouble if you get caught with them.
Speaker 2: I watched him sort of scratching his head over the
Speaker 2: next twenty minutes having to think about it, and he goes,
Speaker 2: how about he caught because Dad was a drinker, he
Speaker 2: didn't drive, so he didn't have a license, so he
Speaker 2: caught the train up. He goes, how about he I
Speaker 2: was waiting for a mate to come pick him up,
Speaker 2: he couldn't make it till lunch time, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And he goes, how about I grab them. He goes,
Speaker 2: I'll just be another civilian on the train, backpack, you know.
Speaker 2: He goes, I'll take him my house. He goes, and
Speaker 2: when you need them, you come and get them. And
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, sweet dad, you know, so like he
Speaker 2: palmed him off to him, and he shipped him over
Speaker 2: to the other side of the city and they were
Speaker 2: safe there, and they sticked him there for a few months.
Speaker 2: But and I suppose that's Dad's way of protecting trying,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, probably not probably not as as yeah,
Speaker 2: as clean cut as you would expect he was. He was.
Speaker 1: That was all love. No one no one gets it,
Speaker 1: no one gets it perfect. So yeah, it's we try
Speaker 1: all different ways. But I just make the observation that
Speaker 1: I think it's him that kids want that they want
Speaker 1: that restriction, so they want those things. So you don't
Speaker 1: know at the time. You hate the parent at the time,
Speaker 1: but that's probably the way to get what attracted you
Speaker 1: the life of life of crime, Like, was it people
Speaker 1: you're hanging around with or people you looked up to?
Speaker 2: And at what age did you get you know, mid nineties,
Speaker 2: I was like fifteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, So in the
Speaker 2: mid nineties, you know, the whole hip hop thing was big. Yeah, cars,
Speaker 2: listen to the Two Pac and Biggie and you Snoop
Speaker 2: Dog and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So you're going to be a gangster. Oh that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool.
Speaker 2: It's appealing. It was the girls and the drugs and
Speaker 2: the gangs, and so there was that, and then obviously
Speaker 2: the movies I was watching, you know, all the movie
Speaker 2: scar Face and all the stuff as the tangent did
Speaker 2: I mean I was a little I was a high
Speaker 2: stimulant little kid. So I can remember being as young
Speaker 2: as five six years old and kids jumping puddles and
Speaker 2: climbing trees, and I get pretty bored with it, right yeah,
Speaker 2: And so I grab a bottle and smash it on
Speaker 2: a drain, get a little buzz you know, it's as
Speaker 2: bad as bad as it got. But then you know
Speaker 2: my environment, you know, Mum working her us off and
Speaker 2: you know, you know, not having a role model in
Speaker 2: the home, not having money in the home. When I
Speaker 2: stepped out into the streets, you know, as a teenager,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest. You know, the kids with the nikes
Speaker 2: and the gold chains and the lowered vehicles, you know,
Speaker 2: they looked appealing.
Speaker 1: They were the ones you're looking up to that looked
Speaker 1: really cool.
Speaker 2: It looked like, you know, I can remember being in
Speaker 2: high school and the teacher's going, so what do you
Speaker 2: want to be when you grow up? And I'd say, miss,
Speaker 2: I'm going to run my area. What does your career choice?
Speaker 1: You know, And they look at it and like you're
Speaker 1: talking and just I think our listeners understand, but run
Speaker 1: your area. It wasn't sort of you don't want to
Speaker 1: be the local mayor. You want to be the local
Speaker 1: gangster running the corners and there in the streets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was cool.
Speaker 1: So okay, where did you start stepping in the crime? When?
Speaker 1: When did you cost the line?
Speaker 2: You know, before I had hear on me balls, I
Speaker 2: was robbing stuff. Yeah, I was getting out there and ceilings.
Speaker 2: Started off, yeah, fleecing cars and stealing cars, and then
Speaker 2: it went onto you know, backyard sheds. Then it went
Speaker 2: onto houses and then went onto shops.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: You know, by about fifteen sixteen, we were doing smashing grabs,
Speaker 2: and then that moved on to roof jobs. So we
Speaker 2: were shimmering down coming to the roof into the storeroom
Speaker 2: so we wouldn't set off alarms, shimming everything back up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was That was me teenage years through high school.
Speaker 2: And then I went to juvie. How was that experience
Speaker 2: for I slid through the cracks. I actually got to
Speaker 2: see someone in there that I'd known from another area.
Speaker 2: We'd done some things together. It was a cousin, so
Speaker 2: a friend of mine's cousin, and he was pretty a
Speaker 2: bit of a heavy hit her in the juv scene.
Speaker 2: So as soon as I didn't recognize him when he
Speaker 2: first spotted me because he put on so much weight
Speaker 2: as people do in prison, and he goes, remember me,
Speaker 2: we go in some shitty and he goes on Rara's cousin.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, here you going, bro, you know,
Speaker 2: because you're sweet in here, and they pretty much ran me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so like I was just pulled under his wing,
Speaker 2: which I was only a little guy. I've always been short.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, so yeah that was handy, give me time,
Speaker 2: pretty easy to be honest. You know, always cigarettes and
Speaker 2: you know, hanging around with the cool kids, and you know,
Speaker 2: at the cool table. There's like always like in jail,
Speaker 2: this hierarchy. So I lucked out there in a sense.
Speaker 2: I had no trouble come my way because of people
Speaker 2: I knew. And then yeah, I got out of Juvie
Speaker 2: and and I had the mentality is I'm okay, I'm
Speaker 2: over Robin. Straight away I was like, I'm over robbing shit,
Speaker 2: Like this is this is shit? Because yeah, every second
Speaker 2: weekend the police are catching us were stolen goods. Like
Speaker 2: we thought we were organized, but you know, we're a
Speaker 2: bunch of kids on pushbikes stealing cars, you know, Robin,
Speaker 2: anything that wasn't tied down. And yeah, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do now? And so I
Speaker 2: approached the old kids, and I remember them approaching me
Speaker 2: pretty much at the same time. It was like a
Speaker 2: no brainer. They were the old guys are twenty one,
Speaker 2: twenty two three.
Speaker 1: How were you?
Speaker 2: I would have been fifteen going on to sixteen. Yeah
Speaker 2: about that, yeah around there, maybe even just turned sixteen
Speaker 2: and said listen, I want to start pushing weight. You know.
Speaker 2: They said, not a problem. So then the tick bill
Speaker 2: comes in. They give you a bunch of staff and
Speaker 2: they put you on the bill and you to sell that,
Speaker 2: take you a little bit off the top and take
Speaker 2: them back their money. And that's how it started. What
Speaker 2: drugs were you That was weed and that time it
Speaker 2: was acid, ecstasy, speed. There was no ice or heroin around.
Speaker 2: The Mountain police did a really good job at keeping
Speaker 2: heroin out of our town, so you had to go
Speaker 2: to the next town's down, which was Sunshine Foots, Grace
Speaker 2: and Auburns and yeah, because there was you couldn't score
Speaker 2: heroin in Moultain. It was like that for years on end.
Speaker 2: So the police really were adamant on not letting any
Speaker 2: people set up shop with heroin in Mountain. Ice hadn't
Speaker 2: made it on the scene. We're probably a bit of
Speaker 2: a lower end of community to be on the coke.
Speaker 2: So it was more of the party stuff. It's the
Speaker 2: weekend prescriptions as we call them, you know, the acid, ecstasy,
Speaker 2: bit of weed and some speed. Yeah, so you've seen
Speaker 2: was big then. The techno scene was big in the
Speaker 2: mid nineties. Yeah, so it was.
Speaker 1: I had the market there. Looking back and you and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it as we progress through your life
Speaker 1: and you became addicted to drugs and you hit hit
Speaker 1: the bottom as a junkie, you know the dangers. I'm
Speaker 1: not asking you now how you feel about selling the drugs.
Speaker 1: I just want to get a sense of did you
Speaker 1: care at that stage? Did you like.
Speaker 2: Honest you know, what is the life of crime or
Speaker 2: the streets or gangs or you know, drugs or whatever
Speaker 2: you want to talk talk about on that level? You know,
Speaker 2: just crime and criminals in general. It's powered by greed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all about money, you know. You know in Sydney's
Speaker 2: you've got knocks happening all over the joint. You know,
Speaker 2: those guys dirty on a dollar. Yeah, they're no one
Speaker 2: special and they're just getting paid to do someone else's
Speaker 2: dirty work.
Speaker 1: So you're you're not at the time thinking I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing this. You you're just held by greed and
Speaker 1: intoxicated by power to would that be part of it?
Speaker 2: Because it is power? Yeah, hundred I can see it.
Speaker 2: I can see how it is now and that's exactly
Speaker 2: what it was driven.
Speaker 1: By me, and just we'll let people know that. Where
Speaker 1: you're talking about b I'm asking you what were the
Speaker 1: good points about it from your point of view? But
Speaker 1: you're looking back now and knowing that it's a putrid
Speaker 1: world the world, but you don't want to be.
Speaker 2: In feel fear. But I had to go through trials
Speaker 2: and tribulations, you know, like I had to go ups
Speaker 2: and downs to realize that. Yeah, and I definitely have
Speaker 2: a whole different view on that life now I look
Speaker 2: through a totally different lens. You generally doesn't interest me
Speaker 2: enough feel sorry for anybody that it does.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why I think people would have been there
Speaker 1: and speaking out. It's an important message to get out.
Speaker 1: It's not glorifying crime. You want to find out what
Speaker 1: crime is, Like this is this is what crime is.
Speaker 1: You're five minutes of fame and happiness is Yeah.
Speaker 2: Can I add too? Yeah, I hadn't seen no one work,
Speaker 2: you know, and the rewards from from going to work
Speaker 2: every day, you know, of the week. So that played
Speaker 2: a big part. Now I know what I know. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm a young kid. Why would I go get a
Speaker 2: job when mum was broke. It made no sense to me,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, she worked her ass off
Speaker 2: for what we had. You know, we had a house
Speaker 2: roof over her head, and we had shoes on her feet,
Speaker 2: and there was dinner on the table. But you know,
Speaker 2: the other kids with a nice motorbike actually the fresh shoes.
Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't understand that it was because
Speaker 2: both parents were going to work. You know, we just
Speaker 2: had Mum had three boys. One wage. It's not enough
Speaker 2: and and so like, yeah, I know what molded me.
Speaker 2: It was if we had to have money in the home,
Speaker 2: it might have been a whole Maybe I would be
Speaker 2: dope box for a living. Maybe I would have did
Speaker 2: combat sports for a living. Maybe I would have went
Speaker 2: to the military. I know it would have been something
Speaker 2: that was high paced. You know, it definitely would need
Speaker 2: a little adrenaline dump. But you know, being a drug
Speaker 2: dealer and an active gang member in my community made
Speaker 2: plenty of sense.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot and I've heard a lot of
Speaker 1: people say that that they and see another pathway out
Speaker 1: and the role models and that. Do you think anyone
Speaker 1: could have made the difference. If there's one person that
Speaker 1: could have made the difference at any stages in your
Speaker 1: life as you're progressing in the that world.
Speaker 2: Good question, you know what, I'll be honest, I actually
Speaker 2: don't think there was anybody. And the reason being I
Speaker 2: believe where I am today is his fate. I believe,
Speaker 2: you know, I had to go through all that in life.
Speaker 2: That was what I had to go through to set
Speaker 2: me up to where I am today. You know, we're
Speaker 2: doing big things in the community. Man, we are helping
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of people on a very high level.
Speaker 2: This is this is on a world level, Like we
Speaker 2: are leading the way in our space in the world,
Speaker 2: not just in Australia. And so like I think I
Speaker 2: needed to get the tools to set me up to
Speaker 2: where I am today, and that was all part of it.
Speaker 2: You know, my journey was part of it, and it
Speaker 2: was dark. It was very dark. There was some dark days.
Speaker 2: Would I change it, No, not because I'm proud of it,
Speaker 2: because it built me into the man I am today.
Speaker 1: I can understand that sometimes life is about about the journey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been an easier journey if you took
Speaker 1: a different path.
Speaker 2: Yea, it wouldn't be sittne here now, I don't think you.
Speaker 1: Might have been sitting here. I might have been sitting there.
Speaker 1: Who knows well as a confusing place I reckon ten
Speaker 1: years ago, neither of us would have thought would be
Speaker 1: sitting here like this, not you. I'd be talking and
Speaker 1: you'd be going no comment, yeah, or just staring back
Speaker 1: at me. That would walk out and fuck you, and
Speaker 1: you'd be mothering under under it. Yeah, but anyway, it's
Speaker 1: not nice things to say about you. I'm sure. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we would have been a different, different environment. And
Speaker 1: you're free to leave at any time you want. Is
Speaker 1: another thing that would that Yeah, okay, the crimes that
Speaker 1: started to escalate your career started to escalate you. I'd
Speaker 1: describe you, you achieve your goal from school, you were
Speaker 1: starting to run your area and things done.
Speaker 2: At the age of about eighteen, I stopped taking drugs,
Speaker 2: which was a key component into you know, stepping into
Speaker 2: a leadership role. Sounds funny when you're a kid in
Speaker 2: the streets running a market, you know, But like I
Speaker 2: watched everybody else and they were, you know, getting high
Speaker 2: off their own supply, and I thought, how do I
Speaker 2: be better? And yeah, so I knocked everything on the
Speaker 2: head I mean as a kid, you know, Goblin Echy's
Speaker 2: and it's not a speed and smoking bongs and all
Speaker 2: the stuff. About the age of it would have been
Speaker 2: around eighteen or nineteen. I said, enough's enough, so I
Speaker 2: quit taking everything so I could be more serious at
Speaker 2: what I did.
Speaker 1: May evaded to further your life of crime.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then obviously then everything gets serious real quick
Speaker 2: because now I get to profit on everything, you know,
Speaker 2: instead of you know, I'm putting a little bit of side.
Speaker 2: And then ended up getting high off that, and and yeah,
Speaker 2: and then so you know the competition. You know, they're
Speaker 2: going out on the weekends and getting high and I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm going to work business and you're literally yeah and yeah.
Speaker 2: So I know it was about it was about mid twenties.
Speaker 2: Caught a case.
Speaker 1: When I called the case of investigation was coming after.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, got on to me. It was a bit
Speaker 2: of cat and mouse. Prior to that, you know, I
Speaker 2: always lived by the rule never leave anything at home
Speaker 2: under the roof, you know, so never talk on phones.
Speaker 2: Got caught with phone intercepts. It's ironic, but I wasn't
Speaker 2: one to talk on phones, but ended up getting cornered
Speaker 2: through the phone, and yeah, so never, you know, always
Speaker 2: in the car, made sure there was a tissue box
Speaker 2: in the car, and always touched the gear. The bags
Speaker 2: of gear with the tissues never left fingerprints. And DNA
Speaker 2: wasn't that big back then. Was starting to come in
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands and yeah, so it would
Speaker 2: have been about two thousand and five. I caught a pinch.
Speaker 2: So I was supplying a bouncer from a couple of
Speaker 2: towns away. He was supplying the clubs. They moved to undercover.
Speaker 2: So the police officers sent in as undercovers two girls
Speaker 2: and sent him into the club scene to clean up
Speaker 2: the drugs that we get hovering around the drugs around
Speaker 2: the club scene, and they watched him do a transaction
Speaker 2: out the front of one of the clubs into a car,
Speaker 2: so they locked in on him, Yeah, and narried. Over
Speaker 2: the next six or seven weeks, they narrowed me down
Speaker 2: as his supplier. You know. Like I said, I didn't
Speaker 2: talk on the phone, but he used to ring me
Speaker 2: and say, oh, I've run out, can you come and
Speaker 2: see me. I'd usually load him up to get him
Speaker 2: through the weekend. He'd bring me on a satur Day afternoon.
Speaker 2: He said, fuck, big night last night, can you come
Speaker 2: and see me? So I'd head up there and load
Speaker 2: him up for the next couple of nights, and yeah,
Speaker 2: there's valence. And you know, they were wearing wires and
Speaker 2: they had the phone calls and they were buying off him.
Speaker 2: So over the I think six or seven week period,
Speaker 2: they bought seven thousand green bits of issues. They bought
Speaker 2: a killoff speed and two pounds of drink.
Speaker 1: Well that's a fair bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they narrowed me down is his supplier.
Speaker 2: And back then we got done with between dates. Remember
Speaker 2: the between gates. They'd say, they go, all right, so
Speaker 2: you know August, Yeah, in eight weeks, you've sold this amount.
Speaker 2: We're going to break it up and call it one
Speaker 2: hundred pills every whatever it is, you know. And at
Speaker 2: that time we didn't know about between dates. It was
Speaker 2: very early and no one really set a precedence for it,
Speaker 2: and so we thought it sounded good. But you know,
Speaker 2: it sounded better that you know, got to break it down,
Speaker 2: better than one large commercial quantity the MR. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: all the politics that goes on in court and I
Speaker 2: ended up taking a plea. I was gone. You know,
Speaker 2: there was no jury in the land that was going
Speaker 2: to find me not guilty, and so ended up taking
Speaker 2: a plea. I got a five with a three right,
Speaker 2: five on top with the three on the bottom. I
Speaker 2: ended up doing all right twelve months later on appeal
Speaker 2: not six off the top, six off the bottom, which
Speaker 2: was good.
Speaker 1: Okay, how was your prison time? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you know I was like they say, man, it
Speaker 2: was my apprenticeship was over. Now, you know that in
Speaker 2: that life, you're always trying to prove something to yourself
Speaker 2: and others, you know, And when I got to prison,
Speaker 2: there was now, now's the big test, you know, as
Speaker 2: the real test. Am I What I thought?
Speaker 1: I was?
Speaker 2: You know, am I? You know? Am I going to
Speaker 2: make it through this and then come out the other side.
Speaker 2: And to be honest, you know, when I got pinched,
Speaker 2: I was driving around hundred thousand dollars BMW's and Mercedes.
Speaker 2: I had hair salon, you know, Gainesville furniture, all the stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, thump and gold chains, all the stuff that
Speaker 2: comes with that life. And so when I hit the yards,
Speaker 2: you know, I realized that I could talk to talk.
Speaker 2: You know. It was you know, I'm cutting laps with
Speaker 2: bank robbers. You know importers, hit men, big drug dealers,
Speaker 2: gang leaders, and I can hold my own. I know
Speaker 2: how to speak to weight and how to speak guns.
Speaker 2: You know. I was actually a little heavy hitter from
Speaker 2: my area, you know, so, and that was a boost
Speaker 2: to my ego. I was like, yeah, and you know
Speaker 2: I was in the know. So you know, there's a
Speaker 2: hierarchy there. Obviously wasn't, you know, the biggest guy in
Speaker 2: the yard, that's for sure, but definitely far from the
Speaker 2: littlest either as well. You know, so you know, people's
Speaker 2: their stature is on their crime and how much they
Speaker 2: earn outside, and you know who they know, and you
Speaker 2: know what they're capable of, and so you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I fell into a position where I thought,
Speaker 2: you know, fucking I'm not bad at what I do,
Speaker 2: so I'll be honest, scary, That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: So it didn't slow you down at all.
Speaker 2: You thought, Okay, I was planning on making moves as
Speaker 2: soon as I got out. Okay, Yeah, there was no
Speaker 2: backward stat because now I and you get more connects
Speaker 2: in prison. No, I just want to pick Ice is
Speaker 2: starting to make its way on the scene. There's big
Speaker 2: money in that, you know, all the stuff. And when
Speaker 2: I got out, man, I picked up that day straight
Speaker 2: back into it, right, Yeah, there wasn't it sounds crazy,
Speaker 2: don't it? Well, but I got out at what twenty eight?
Speaker 2: I got out at twenty eight? Yeah, twenty eight sounds crazy.
Speaker 2: But some people look at the jail time all that's
Speaker 2: a price you pay.
Speaker 1: And when it's occupational hazard, and when you're talking about
Speaker 1: the gold chains, the expensive cars, the hairdressing salon and
Speaker 1: all that you were.
Speaker 2: And strippers and I and all the things.
Speaker 1: You're living off the grid too, weren't you, Like, you're not.
Speaker 2: There's no bank account, you're not paying. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: it's cash and yeah, easy coming out at the good times. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that all seems seems fun. Yeah, you know, parking
Speaker 2: your car valet at the casino and going in and
Speaker 2: dropping a few thousand dollars on the tables. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: kid from the area from you know, I felt like
Speaker 2: this is this is it? Man, look at me. Go,
Speaker 2: wasn't the joke on me? Because it all comes down.
Speaker 1: Crash, Well, it comes down a big time on you.
Speaker 1: So you're out. You hit the streets again. You've got
Speaker 1: a couple of the cases that are coming after you,
Speaker 1: and I'm assuming this is when you've got out again.
Speaker 2: Kidnappings, yeah, kidnappings, Yeah, alleged kidnappings.
Speaker 1: Okay, well you were quited at court on it. But
Speaker 1: when you're involved in the drug world, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of kidnappings that go on that the reporter aren't reported,
Speaker 1: and all sorts of ships that go down. And you're
Speaker 1: even suspected of a murder that.
Speaker 2: That's a technical one. Yeah, that's yeah, it's never interviewed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I'll clarify that because I don't want
Speaker 1: to sell you out on that. It was a person
Speaker 1: that you're associated. We've died in the fire, and the
Speaker 1: police looked at.
Speaker 2: It, young Blake, he's only eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: Looked at it and stepped up.
Speaker 2: Was definitely a suspect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, suspect because they weren't sure whether it was a
Speaker 1: murder or a misadventure. But I think the current a
Speaker 1: real the fire as an accident.
Speaker 2: I mean they got my phone, my phone pinned far
Speaker 2: far away from the incident, and yeah, like they obviously
Speaker 2: did their homework. I mean someone's died. I'm sure they
Speaker 2: give it all the resources they.
Speaker 1: Had and look I think the way that we'll deal
Speaker 1: with this or talk about this. There was charges that
Speaker 1: you were or charged, but you be at court. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's other things you've done that you haven't been charged.
Speaker 2: So ironically you say that so to cut you off.
Speaker 2: But you know, when I sat in front of the courts,
Speaker 2: and you know, there was things brought up that I
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with. And then I always found
Speaker 2: in this and you know, I quitted on the kidnappings,
Speaker 2: and I was looking at a very long time if
Speaker 2: I was found guilty. You know, I never once winged
Speaker 2: about the position I was in. And I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: because what about all the stuff I got away with.
Speaker 2: I'll probably fifty years to be honest, you know. And
Speaker 2: and so I took it on my chin, you know,
Speaker 2: I copped it. And at that stage when I was
Speaker 2: sitting in the courts, you know, looking at down the
Speaker 2: barrel at a very long time. You know, I lost
Speaker 2: two mates, you know, due to that, one from drug addiction.
Speaker 2: He indeed, another one committed suicide before we got the
Speaker 2: word in.
Speaker 1: For a little of the pressure coming on with the trial.
Speaker 2: He killed himself in the cells. Yeah, man, it was
Speaker 2: a hard, hard time, and I really that's where I
Speaker 2: sat and thought, and you know, in a split second,
Speaker 2: it was a light bulb moment. I thought, what a
Speaker 2: fucking shit career choice. You know, I'm in my mid thirties,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm looking at the rest of my
Speaker 2: life in prison. You know, if I got them lucky
Speaker 2: to get out of from fifty if not sixty, And
Speaker 2: I thought, fucking man, what have I gone and done? Like,
Speaker 2: there was no amount of like we talked about before,
Speaker 2: the chains, the cars, the girls, all the shit that
Speaker 2: comes with it, there was no amount of that that
Speaker 2: was going to outweigh me doing fifteen to twenty five
Speaker 2: years in prison. Like it's just that, no matter who
Speaker 2: you are, when you get a whack like that, it's shit.
Speaker 2: Your life's just gone to shit, you know. And so
Speaker 2: like I was sitting there thinking fuck, and and I
Speaker 2: was found innocent. Now I'm not stupid enough, you know,
Speaker 2: to go back to that life after that. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was the three with the five, the three years on
Speaker 2: the bottom with five on the top. That wasn't enough
Speaker 2: to deter me. But looking at fifteen to twenty five,
Speaker 2: I was done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do your calculations. Fuck, I'm going to be fifty
Speaker 1: when I get out or yeah. So in sequence of events,
Speaker 1: when did you start using drugs? Was this?
Speaker 2: Was that pretty much after the attempted suicide put the
Speaker 2: death by cop?
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is before your last four in the
Speaker 1: world of crime. Was at the point where you had
Speaker 1: the charges for the kidnappings? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So yeah, but did you do I haven't made an
Speaker 2: illegal doll an illegal dollar since that trial.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, you were in prison at the time. They
Speaker 1: would have been ba refused.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I was reminded for eight months, end up
Speaker 2: getting bail, fought my cases from outside, and then when
Speaker 2: trial come I got done on it. There was a
Speaker 2: bunch of different cases, a bunch of kidnappings, and then
Speaker 2: there was also a fight. We went to someone's house
Speaker 2: looking for another gang member and he jumped the back fence.
Speaker 2: His parents come out the front and his parents end
Speaker 2: up getting it. So, yeah, his dad ended up getting
Speaker 2: been and then they were civilians.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you feel about that the person?
Speaker 2: How I feel now or.
Speaker 1: How I felt that, How you feel now?
Speaker 2: I think how I feel now? Yeah, civilians don't deserve that, mate.
Speaker 2: You know that we've got to keep it in the
Speaker 2: streets when we were about them streets. It should have
Speaker 2: been kept in the streets. My mentality back then was
Speaker 2: if we can't get you, we'll get your family. Now
Speaker 2: I think that and now that happened to my mother,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Well, like that's that's your
Speaker 2: worst nightmare, you know. Yeah, man, that's definitely I did.
Speaker 2: There's definitely some shame and guilt for that. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Well, there should be where we talk talk karma. That
Speaker 1: might be how it kicked in with you because you
Speaker 1: went from a period of time where you're the you're
Speaker 1: the man, you got the gold bling, you've got the women,
Speaker 1: you've got the money, you've gone in the prison, but
Speaker 1: you've started using and then you became you slipped down
Speaker 1: the pecking order because you became the abviict and that
Speaker 1: didn't go well for you. Did it?
Speaker 2: No, no at all.
Speaker 1: So some of the stuff there because yeah.
Speaker 2: I ended up doing that little bit time. I got
Speaker 2: thirty three months and I ended up pulling my parole.
Speaker 2: I said, bang the parole. I just went straight release.
Speaker 2: So I did. I got twenty on the bottom, twenty
Speaker 2: months on the bottom with thirteen months on top, and
Speaker 2: I ended up doing the whole thirty three, but I
Speaker 2: got the eight months fromand as well, and anyway, so
Speaker 2: I did twenty five or whatever it was. Twenty five
Speaker 2: months got out. That was that stage in life where
Speaker 2: now I'm free, I've left a life of crime behind.
Speaker 2: I'm over it. I'm got to start doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: And that's when that morning I woke up had the
Speaker 2: episode with the sogs, and then you know, they went
Speaker 2: I sat and did some work with me mental you know,
Speaker 2: the mental health system did their work. They identified the problem.
Speaker 2: There was no solution. The solution was going to be medication.
Speaker 2: I was medicated from a young age, you know, from
Speaker 2: being a troubled kid. You know, they're from medication. I
Speaker 2: wasn't a fan of it. I never liked to feel
Speaker 2: not myself. That was the option. It was like, let's
Speaker 2: get you on the meds and they just want to
Speaker 2: numb me. You know, at that stage, they don't want
Speaker 2: to they don't want to heal me. They're not to
Speaker 2: fix me or for me to find my true self.
Speaker 2: They're just going to suppress everything with medication. So I
Speaker 2: went to the streets. And the ironic thing is that
Speaker 2: maybe I should have took their meds. It would have
Speaker 2: been maybe a a lot of version, maybe not. But
Speaker 2: so I went back to the streets and all I
Speaker 2: could do was really, you know, self medicate. And I
Speaker 2: can remember thinking, you know, I've got no reason not
Speaker 2: to get high anymore. I had no drive. I'd retire
Speaker 2: it from that life, and so I started to consume drugs.
Speaker 1: There's an irony there isn't there. You've gone from the
Speaker 1: drug dealer to the drug addict.
Speaker 2: And I'd become a really like Gary when I see
Speaker 2: drug addict. You know, I wasn't going out and storting
Speaker 2: bags of coke and going to the clubs. I was
Speaker 2: literally unwashed, you know, starving. I've been wearing the same
Speaker 2: shoes for two years, you know. And I was any
Speaker 2: drug I get my hands on. I was consuming. I
Speaker 2: had an nice habit, a heroin habit, GHB, weed, alcohol,
Speaker 2: description pills, anything I could get my hands on, really,
Speaker 2: and it was the lowest, darkest time in my life.
Speaker 2: But as we've talked about it at the stark karma
Speaker 2: got me at best. And you know what, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: age it for the world because it was the death
Speaker 2: of my ego. It was a massive shot to my ego.
Speaker 2: You know, I was sitting in trap houses. You know,
Speaker 2: they'd have a couple of couches in them and TV
Speaker 2: on the wall, she little bed in the bedroom, and
Speaker 2: I was sitting in these houses and just consuming drugs
Speaker 2: over and over and over again, surrounding myself with people
Speaker 2: that you know, I would have I didn't even I
Speaker 2: never had contact with these people because the people that
Speaker 2: are running my drugs for me, you know, would have
Speaker 2: to pass it three times down for it to catch
Speaker 2: these you know, people that are buying one little speck
Speaker 2: of gear to get them through the day. And so
Speaker 2: like our next minute'm rubbing shoulders with these people, you know.
Speaker 1: And the way and look, everyone's got the story and
Speaker 1: there's a reason there.
Speaker 2: So I deserved it. But yeah, yeah, well yeah, I
Speaker 2: think that's why I started off with karma. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: comes around because I believe in karma too, that yeah,
Speaker 2: it can come back to back, come back to But
Speaker 2: I suppose, and you know, we've all heard the term
Speaker 2: the low life junkies and the bottom dwellers, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I say that with the rest and I had no
Speaker 2: compassion for them. Yeah I do now.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm clarifying here, I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people, people that you wouldn't expect for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: can find themselves there. But the you that was, you know,
Speaker 1: the alpha gangster in the area is now hanging out
Speaker 1: with the people that are getting fed with the bread
Speaker 1: crumbs and are just addicted.
Speaker 2: That one of them with all the.
Speaker 1: Horrors that come with addiction and living a life like that.
Speaker 2: And then you had, you know, my old that old life.
Speaker 2: I used to have a lot of enemies from the
Speaker 2: from the old life of being an active gang member
Speaker 2: and a drug dealer. You know. You know, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people we stood on their toes because they
Speaker 2: were in our area and they didn't do as they
Speaker 2: were told. That's that was the mentality. Guess what they
Speaker 2: come back to haunt me, didn't they? You know, the
Speaker 2: art of war is kick an enemy where they're down,
Speaker 2: you know, attack them at it there weakest. Well I
Speaker 2: was at my weakest, so you know, two shape for them,
Speaker 2: well played, you know, but multiple drive bys on locations
Speaker 2: I was staying at, you know, stabbed. It was just
Speaker 2: it was relentless, you know, and all I had was
Speaker 2: my own two feet. I didn't have no boys anymore.
Speaker 2: I had nothing offerendody.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the stabbing. What happened there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to fight, and yeah I got hit
Speaker 2: with with a steak knife. They actually left the steak
Speaker 2: knife in my ribs, so when I look, I had
Speaker 2: no T shirt on, so when I look down, all
Speaker 2: I could see was the handle sticking under my ribs. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: this was this is the life I was living, you know.
Speaker 2: That's where I got to you know, I was getting
Speaker 2: stabbed up by people that that once upon a time
Speaker 2: probably would have respected. You know, my word had weight.
Speaker 2: They had no weight anymore, you know, and it was
Speaker 2: time to get me back, payback, retribution for things that
Speaker 2: you're done to them. Of course, Yeah, of course it was. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what it was all about. It was all about them,
Speaker 2: getting them getting hold of me and square enough and
Speaker 2: the perfect time was why I was thinking high on drugs.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a dollar to my name, had no respect,
Speaker 2: no power, I had no friends, didn't even have a
Speaker 2: car to get in you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think this is a lesson for everyone too,
Speaker 1: because when you're flying high with your running your criminal,
Speaker 1: criminal group, everyone wants to be your friend. They can
Speaker 1: get on if they hang out with you and yeah,
Speaker 1: you're the meaning to be seen with and all that.
Speaker 1: How quickly they abandon you when things are not going well.
Speaker 1: So it's a wake up in life, isn't it? Who
Speaker 1: your friends are. You've got plenty of friends when life's
Speaker 1: going good for you.
Speaker 2: But that life is, man, it's a treacherous life, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's it's two people in that life. They call
Speaker 2: your brothers, you know, all the rest of it. But
Speaker 2: when you know your brother will put one in the
Speaker 2: back of your head for the right price, you know,
Speaker 2: like it happens over and over again. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you make you spent your whole life with back to
Speaker 2: back and next minute they turn on you in the
Speaker 2: police station.
Speaker 1: Well you know, it's just this is what that life is.
Speaker 2: Or lay up with your girl, you know, like it
Speaker 2: just happens over and over again, because it's a dog
Speaker 2: eat dog world, you know. So there's there's no amongst thieves.
Speaker 1: Well there's the code that people say they live by,
Speaker 1: but I can say, looking from a police point of view,
Speaker 1: the amount of people that were supposedly staunched that weren't
Speaker 1: because it was self serving to what they needed.
Speaker 2: You're out for yourself.
Speaker 1: Well that's what that's what it comes down to. But
Speaker 1: it's an I. But your learners life goes through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if they haven't worked it out yet, they will, Yeah,
Speaker 2: well they will, you know.
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, I had people in the police were
Speaker 1: rock solid with me, and you could have heard echoes
Speaker 1: when the police came after me.
Speaker 2: That I was saying, you really see who your true
Speaker 2: friends are when she hits the fandom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the ones that stand up means so much.
Speaker 1: They're friends for life. The others that just disappear because
Speaker 1: it doesn't benefit them by being associated. But well, look,
Speaker 1: we've taken into a dark place for the first first
Speaker 1: part of the podcast, but I can assure people that
Speaker 1: when we get back, there is a there is light
Speaker 1: at the end the end of the tunnel. I appreciate
Speaker 1: how open and hoymous you've been and the stuff that
Speaker 1: you're doing now is having an impact and just the
Speaker 1: way that we haven't even got your turn in your
Speaker 1: life around. But I want you to tell us how
Speaker 1: you turned your life around, because yeah, you've let's just
Speaker 1: look at your situation. Done time in jail, addicted to
Speaker 1: addicted to drugs, big time. You got no, you've got
Speaker 1: no history as far as society is concerned. You've never
Speaker 1: had a license, no bank accounts. Yeah so yeah at
Speaker 1: a low point. That's pretty low. But we're going to
Speaker 1: talk in part to how you turn your life around,
Speaker 1: so I encourage people to listen to that. So this
Speaker 1: is a good This is the bit I like to
Speaker 1: talk about.
Speaker 2: You know, this is my true passion.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well I can see it just on your face
Speaker 1: that you're lighting up there the other ship that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about. Yeah, yeah, did that. Did that. But
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the good stuff after so
Speaker 1: they'll be back in pup to Cheese.