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Speaker 1: They've knocked the door and rushed in or kicked it in,

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter. But they entered the place and they've terrorized

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Speaker 1: this family.

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Speaker 2: Think about it.

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Speaker 3: People coming in a ballet, labor spoiler, suits on and

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Speaker 3: sawn off shotguns.

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Speaker 1: They writ and sent divers in. They retrieved one hundred

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Speaker 1: and eight items. Now that's quite a lot of items,

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Speaker 1: but I think I think that in relation to the

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Speaker 1: total hall, it's not a lot of items. This is

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Speaker 1: where it gets cloudy. I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life

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Speaker 1: and Crimes. Our guest in the studio is Fabian. Fabian

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Speaker 1: has several names, but today he's using the name Fabian

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Speaker 1: Christian because that is his pen name. And he's here

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Speaker 1: because he has written what is a novel, and yet

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Speaker 1: it is something a little different from a novel. It

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Speaker 1: is a novel based loosely on true events, and that

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Speaker 1: is where Life and Crimes comes into this, Fabian, because

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Speaker 1: true events is where we live. And as a very

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Speaker 1: very old crime reporter, I can recall back in the

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Speaker 1: mid nineteen eighties most fascinating and interesting crime where a

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Speaker 1: bunch of armed and masked people raided a property, a

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Speaker 1: homestead property up in the air, a valley there at

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Speaker 1: Glen and made off with a fantastic treasure trove of

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Speaker 1: opals and gems and other valuables that sort of stuff,

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Speaker 1: collectibles essentially, which depending who you listen to, were worth

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Speaker 1: many millions or tens of millions, or a fantastic amount

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Speaker 1: of money, all of which was a bit hypothetical for

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Speaker 1: the crooks concerned because they weren't insurance, so the person

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Speaker 1: they robbed didn't get an insurance. And b it was

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Speaker 1: such a big heist of so many readily identifiable objects

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Speaker 1: that the crooks bit off more than naked chew and

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Speaker 1: it was sort of too hot to handle. But you

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Speaker 1: have written or produced a novel based, I believe on

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Speaker 1: a manuscript, an old, faded, tatted manuscript that fell into

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Speaker 1: your possession way back in the nineties. Yeah, true or false?

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Speaker 2: True around ninety five.

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Speaker 1: Tell us what happened.

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Speaker 2: It's actually in the author's note at the start.

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Speaker 3: But I was working actually at a Blockbuster as a

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Speaker 3: store manager at the time. I was playing music and

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Speaker 3: stuff down here in the nineties.

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Speaker 1: And down here being in Victoria.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, down in Melbourne.

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Speaker 3: You are from being in Victoria for long since sort

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Speaker 3: of grade too, so yeah, before that moved around a

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Speaker 3: bit because my father's in the army. But yeah, so

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Speaker 3: obviously in the store we'd get to know customers pretty well.

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Speaker 2: They're in every week.

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Speaker 3: And one particular customer was talking to me about, you know,

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Speaker 3: some of my writing endeavors, so screenplays and whatnot, and

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Speaker 3: just said, oh, I've got an old manuscript. Would you

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Speaker 3: be interested in having a look at it writing a screenplay?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 3: The guy who wrote it wants to see it on

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Speaker 3: the big screen. Said yeah, no, alblems, give us a

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Speaker 3: look at it. So, yeah, I ended up with it

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Speaker 3: in my hands.

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Speaker 1: This is where St Kilda.

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Speaker 2: No, this was actually in Mount Waverley.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you were the Quentin Tarantino of Mount Verly and

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Speaker 1: so you were the kid in the video. Still who's

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Speaker 1: thought I'm going to write one and go to Hollywood.

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Speaker 1: That's right, good on it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't quite work out that way, so that's right.

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Speaker 3: So I wrote a rough screenplay and then basically it

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Speaker 3: went into storage, both the manuscript and my screenplay for years.

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Speaker 2: Because we're talking about thirty years ago.

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Speaker 1: Now you don't look that old.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.

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Speaker 1: You must have been you must have been just a teenager.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was about twenty so yeah, but only five

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Speaker 3: years ago. My partner and now wife, Adriana.

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Speaker 1: Whom you did?

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Speaker 2: You did?

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Speaker 1: She?

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Speaker 3: I told her all about it, and she being a

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Speaker 3: lover of Australian novels and crime and all that sort

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Speaker 3: of stuff. So give us a look at the screenplay,

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Speaker 3: what have you gotten, and really encouraged me to actually

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Speaker 3: get about writing the story.

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Speaker 1: Right. Good.

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Speaker 3: So the story was written by the crook who ended

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Speaker 3: up in this heist that you just mentioned.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking here in the real world. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about a man called Leon O'gary correct, And this is

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Speaker 1: where our paths collide. He or a messenger from him,

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Speaker 1: someone known to him as turned up at your store

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Speaker 1: thirty years ago with this manuscript. Around that same time.

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Speaker 1: This is about the time, just after Gary got out

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Speaker 1: of jail for this particular crime. He was buzzing around

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Speaker 1: Melbourne talking to people like me, you know, crime reporters,

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Speaker 1: looking to promote himself. It was in the mid nineties,

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Speaker 1: actually early early to mid nineties. I was in the

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Speaker 1: news a bit with producing books and you know the

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Speaker 1: chop of books and so and so. Yeah, the crooks

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Speaker 1: would sort of all queue up saying I've got a

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Speaker 1: story too, you know, don't worry about drop of read.

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Speaker 1: Look at mate, mine's better. Your mine's better. And as

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Speaker 1: they all do. And he was certainly at the top

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Speaker 1: of a short list of people doing that. And I

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Speaker 1: can recall because it was quite an unusual name, Leon

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Speaker 1: Gary Gary. Yeah, it's an easy name to remember and

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Speaker 1: it sticks in the mind. So when you've produced duel book,

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Speaker 1: which you showed me at a literary festival recently, I

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Speaker 1: was instantly remembered that and was quite fascinated by it

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Speaker 1: and turned to the back to the robbery section where

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Speaker 1: they robbed the property had Yarra Glenn because that probably

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Speaker 1: is one of the largest robberies in Australian history in

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Speaker 1: a sense, if you estimate the value of the opals

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Speaker 1: and things it is, it's a very big one.

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Speaker 3: And to be so unknown he is fascinating. I think

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Speaker 3: that is because the newspapers at the time we're talking

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Speaker 3: about fifteen million, others were talking about thirty million yees

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Speaker 3: and in today's value, it's crazy.

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Speaker 1: Off the scale, a bit hypothetical in the sense that

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Speaker 1: that sort of stuff it makes, it establishes its value

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Speaker 1: at auction, and anything at auction is only what somebody

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Speaker 1: will pay for it, and what it might be worth

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Speaker 1: on the open market in the international market is rather

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Speaker 1: different from what you can get for it in Australia,

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Speaker 1: and especially get for it on a black market industry,

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Speaker 1: when you might get ten percent of its.

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Speaker 3: And the story actually says that when he finally gets

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Speaker 3: to that point with Frankie the Fence, as the character's known,

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Speaker 3: getting rid of it quickly meant it wasn't going to

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Speaker 3: get what it was really worth.

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Speaker 1: We are going to take our listeners back to the

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Speaker 1: start now and explain exactly what happened so they don't

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Speaker 1: get confused. So you can tell us what went on.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about Thursday night, twenty fourth of October nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty five. It's ten days out from the Melbourne Cup.

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Speaker 1: It's that time of year, it's late spring. The Yarravelli

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Speaker 1: be looking lovely, be all green and beautiful. The Lang

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Speaker 1: family have moved there, not many years earlier. I would

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Speaker 1: suggest I hadn't been there long, I don't think. And

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Speaker 1: this is a middle aged man, a man around sixty

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Speaker 1: sixty one called Bert Lang. I think he's Jeff Burt Lang.

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Speaker 1: His middle name was Burt. His much younger wife, Sandra,

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Speaker 1: was around forty. They had four children aged between two

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Speaker 1: and ten or ten or nearly eleven, and they were

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Speaker 1: living there, having moved there from Hawthorne. Mister Lang was

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Speaker 1: I don't know if he was a recluse, but he'd

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Speaker 1: made apparently a lot of money running a chain of

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Speaker 1: all night pharmacies around in Melbourne, and clearly was quite

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Speaker 1: a wealthy man. And he'd sold a big house in

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Speaker 1: Hawthorne for pretty big money, and he gone up there

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Speaker 1: and bought this property for what at the time was

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Speaker 1: regarded as a faverit of money. Eighty hectare property I think,

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Speaker 1: which is you know in the Aravellley's had a Rolls

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Speaker 1: Royce in the garage as well as a lot of

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Speaker 1: other stuff. Was clearly that sort of collector person that

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Speaker 1: would like having Rolls Royce. He loved beautiful things. They

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Speaker 1: are sitting at home on that Thursday night at ten thirty,

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Speaker 1: the kids are in bed, mister and missus Lang watching television.

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Speaker 1: What happened?

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Speaker 3: Well, Leon and his associates had crafted a plan and

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Speaker 3: according to that original manuscript which I kept the thread

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Speaker 3: going in, that screenplay had been a tip off from

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Speaker 3: someone who Leon had been living with and was part

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Speaker 3: of the group that eventually went to court about this, right,

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Speaker 3: and his version of events were quite different to what

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Speaker 3: the media said in that Lang was involved in some

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Speaker 3: nefarius stuff as well.

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Speaker 1: So who's saying this?

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Speaker 3: So the person, Yeah, his contact had said that he

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Speaker 3: was involved in some other dealings.

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Speaker 2: Which weren't totally kosher.

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Speaker 3: And that yes, he was a collector and had, you know,

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Speaker 3: potentially a lot of valuables.

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Speaker 1: So they're saying he's essentially a big, wealthy collector who's

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Speaker 1: a bit of a crook. That's what that was one

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Speaker 1: view of him, which may not be true, may not

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Speaker 1: be you're certainly a big collector with cash, but we

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Speaker 1: don't know for sure whether he's a crook or not.

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Speaker 1: So we'll allow that through to the keeper.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 3: So this is just what was claimed in this original manuscript.

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Speaker 3: Makes for a hell of a story because effectively, Leon

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Speaker 3: and his cohort went out there with the intent.

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Speaker 1: White knights almost yeah, yeah, they were squaring up from

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Speaker 1: the little guy. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, well, Leon was also on a bit of a

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Speaker 3: vendetta himself with you know, against the crooked cops and

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Speaker 3: some of the drug trade that was going on and

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Speaker 3: some killda So he kind of lined it up that

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Speaker 3: this was a bit of a you know, have your

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Speaker 3: cake and eat it too, so a chance to take

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Speaker 3: someone down who was up to no good and apparently

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Speaker 3: had a lot of collectible stuff that he could actually

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Speaker 3: make some money off.

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Speaker 1: Do you believe, as the police seemed to that gang,

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Speaker 1: the Locust Gang of no better phrase also known as

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Speaker 1: the collector gang of them, that they had pulled, you know,

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Speaker 1: a dozen other raids over the previous couple of years,

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Speaker 1: sixteen raids or something smaller. Do you believe that to

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Speaker 1: be true.

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Speaker 3: I believe it to be true. Yeah, certainly. According to

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Speaker 3: Leon's manuscript, his version, Yeah, they were very active and

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Speaker 3: very very good and the crooked cops actually, according to him,

201
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Speaker 3: were involved in it as well, so as in getting

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Speaker 3: a cut from some of his jobs. Now that shock you, well,

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Speaker 3: I think it was pretty well known. There was a

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Speaker 3: lot of corruption around in the eighties, and there was

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Speaker 3: a Royal commission in the early nineties. I think you'd

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Speaker 3: know probably better than me with vic Pole, but there

207
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Speaker 3: was definitely a bit of a clean out after that.

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Speaker 1: I think some Kilda and Praan notably, but also some

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Speaker 1: other places. Probably Collin would probably fit through it, probably

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Speaker 1: Footscray that there was a lot went on, but particularly

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Speaker 1: Sinkilled in those days. The least used to call it

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Speaker 1: the sin killed the police force. The joke was it

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Speaker 1: was its own municipality, you know, they ran things their

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Speaker 1: own way and it was a hotbed of corruption and

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Speaker 1: I think that spilled over into Pran and wins them and.

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Speaker 3: Well, a lot of this novel is centered on the

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Speaker 3: streets and killed her in the eighties, so it's kind

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Speaker 3: of got a nostalgia feel.

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Speaker 2: About it as well.

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Speaker 1: Totally, Yeah, because Sinkila did change a lot in that

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Speaker 1: forty years. It has a lot there.

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Speaker 3: So back to your question, they went there with intent

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Speaker 3: for sure, and they went in and they did the job.

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Speaker 1: So they've gone in at ten thirty at night. They've

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Speaker 1: knocked the door and rushed in or kicked it in,

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter. They entered the place and they've terrorized this family.

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Speaker 1: Mister Lang is sixty one. I think he was home

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Speaker 1: from hospital with it a haart thing, an angina or something.

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Speaker 1: It was just home on leave from the hospital. His

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Speaker 1: wife's forty. She's a youngish mother of four kids. Lang

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Speaker 1: must have had a bit of go about him. He

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Speaker 1: refused to open the safe, but his wife was terrified,

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Speaker 1: particularly because a couple of the crooks clearly knew the

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Speaker 1: names of the kids. I think one of the raiders

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Speaker 1: was a woman. They're all wearing the same sort of kiar,

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Speaker 1: but I think one of the raiders was a woman,

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Speaker 1: and she knew the names of the kids, which was

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Speaker 1: chilling to the mother, and said, you know, I'll go

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Speaker 1: up and get candy kay. I think her name was

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Speaker 1: the oldest girl, all little Opal, which I believe that

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Speaker 1: had a child called open. And so the crooks go

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Speaker 1: and drag the ten year old out of bed and

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Speaker 1: bring it down and say to the parents, if you

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Speaker 1: don't open the safe, we'll blow her brains out, and

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Speaker 1: we'll blow that all their brains out, one by one

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Speaker 1: in front of you until you open the safe. Now,

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Speaker 1: whether they would actually do that is another thing, but

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Speaker 1: they said it, and by saying it, they absolutely terrified

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Speaker 1: the mother and the girl, the effect of which ultimately

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Speaker 1: was that that little girl ended up having psychological issues

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Speaker 1: and treatment for years, and her mother, Sandra, died of

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Speaker 1: a heart attack months later. And it was described by

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Speaker 1: a coroner as dying of fright, because she died one

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Speaker 1: night a few months later when somebody knocked at the

255
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Speaker 1: door at night and she got such a fright she died. Now,

256
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Speaker 1: this is a terrible effect, terrible that's not white night.

257
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Speaker 1: These guys too much. That's what happened. Yeah, it destroyed

258
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Speaker 1: that family.

259
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Speaker 3: And there was definitely no mention of any children in

260
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Speaker 3: the account, the original account. There was definitely some correlation

261
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Speaker 3: because my wife and I did a lot of research,

262
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Speaker 3: or was best we could in the State Library going

263
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Speaker 3: through the old films, which was really laborious and hard work,

264
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Speaker 3: but we found some great articles about it, and that

265
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Speaker 3: was one of the first things that struck me. There

266
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Speaker 3: was no mention of children in the original account, aren't.

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Speaker 3: But there was a correlation with one of the members

268
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Speaker 3: going berserk, and actually in some of the articles, Leon

269
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:11,360
Speaker 3: actually put that forward that he actually tried to settle

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Speaker 3: things down because one of them had gone off his head.

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Speaker 2: So you know, this is all.

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Speaker 3: Different versions of events or different accounts, I suppose, But

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Speaker 3: as you said, the reality is missus Lang died later,

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Speaker 3: obviously suffering terrible stress as you would at home invasion.

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Speaker 3: Think about it people coming into Ballet Clavis, boiler suits

276
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Speaker 3: on and sawn off shotguns threatening to blow.

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Speaker 1: And the older child that was old enough to be

278
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Speaker 1: terribly frightened. It's probably ruined her life. I mean, I'm

279
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Speaker 1: not sure she's still live or what, but there's no

280
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Speaker 1: doubt that it would effect her forever. On any telling,

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Speaker 1: it's a self serving account by Leona Gary Gary wherever

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Speaker 1: we say it. So on the night to get back

283
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Speaker 1: to the action, they do open the safe, they do

284
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Speaker 1: clean it out. It must have been a very big

285
00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:04,880
Speaker 1: safe and there were saying a lot in it. Then

286
00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:07,480
Speaker 1: they go around and scour each of the rooms. Now

287
00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:11,240
Speaker 1: there's so many collectible things in this house. Our man

288
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Speaker 1: Jeff Lang had been buying stuff for years, clearly, and

289
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Speaker 1: they'd come prepared with two vans and thirty odd sports

290
00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 1: bags you know, Thomber those sausage bags that people used

291
00:15:22,920 --> 00:15:26,080
Speaker 1: to carry their footy gear or whatever, and they filled them.

292
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Speaker 1: They filled all these bags and filled two vans with stuff.

293
00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:33,320
Speaker 1: Now this is opals, this is diamonds. This is also

294
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:35,720
Speaker 1: ivory figurines, all sorts of.

295
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Speaker 3: Couple of solid gold statues which were the real thing. Yeah,

296
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Speaker 3: the real value, the real thing which.

297
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Speaker 1: You know, just on weight of gold worth money. Then

298
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Speaker 1: they vanish. First of all, they call landline days. Of

299
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Speaker 1: course they've cut the phones, pulled them out, and they've

300
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:55,800
Speaker 1: slashed all the tires of the cars there, and Jeff

301
00:15:55,880 --> 00:15:58,880
Speaker 1: Lang ends up driving one of those cars on the

302
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Speaker 1: flat tires to get help from neighbors. By this time

303
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:07,240
Speaker 1: all or some of the robbers have gathered at some

304
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:12,400
Speaker 1: venue in Eltham, which is not that far away, and

305
00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:15,560
Speaker 1: there they have done a quick divvy up of the

306
00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:19,320
Speaker 1: loot or something and worked out what they should keep,

307
00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:24,240
Speaker 1: what's saleable or what's not. And Gary, it would appear,

308
00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:27,840
Speaker 1: has thrown a bit of stuff in the era there

309
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Speaker 1: and then down at Fairfield. Whether he did it all

310
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Speaker 1: in one that night or not, I'm not sure, but

311
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Speaker 1: he certainly threw stuff in the era at two points,

312
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Speaker 1: and later when he was arrested about three weeks later,

313
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Speaker 1: he put it. He telled the police pretty well everything.

314
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Speaker 1: They went and sent divers and they retrieved one hundred

315
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Speaker 1: and eight items. Now that's quite a lot of items,

316
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Speaker 1: but I think I think that in relation to the

317
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Speaker 1: total hall, it's not a lot of items. That's This

318
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Speaker 1: is where it gets cloudy, is it one hundred and

319
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Speaker 1: eight out of a thousand, or one hundred and eight

320
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Speaker 1: out of two hundred and sixteen, or one eight out

321
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,200
Speaker 1: of one hundred and fifty. This is where it gets.

322
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Speaker 1: It gets tricky, and no one knows. Is no one

323
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Speaker 1: alive to tell us that.

324
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Speaker 3: Well, that's right because according to and this is what

325
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:22,200
Speaker 3: Bandital priests, the book actually relays Leon's version of events.

326
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Speaker 3: So his side of the story is that he did

327
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Speaker 3: mention that he'd thrown stuff in the arraw, but it

328
00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:29,920
Speaker 3: was as a decoy to get rid of crooks who

329
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:32,960
Speaker 3: were actually trying to catch him and torture him for it.

330
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Speaker 3: And then he goes on to claim that he actually

331
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Speaker 3: buried most of it down the coast, which I assume

332
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Speaker 3: would be down on Thaggy Away from where the family.

333
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Speaker 1: Hard to know, ye, well, hard to know whether it's

334
00:17:44,359 --> 00:17:47,520
Speaker 1: a true story or a throwoff. Absolutely just to make

335
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Speaker 1: himself look good.

336
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Speaker 3: And that was one of the reasons why, you know,

337
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:53,560
Speaker 3: when I eventually wrote the book, that I really tried

338
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Speaker 3: to find him. I hired a private investigator and other things,

339
00:17:57,080 --> 00:17:59,880
Speaker 3: because I was actually genuinely interested in hearing his side

340
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Speaker 3: the story.

341
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:03,280
Speaker 1: Yes, and looking back in Old Blood.

342
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:07,840
Speaker 3: And what happened to the rest of the treasure, like

343
00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:10,360
Speaker 3: what happened to it? I doubt he got his hands

344
00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:12,119
Speaker 3: on it because he was in Pentridge and the cops

345
00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:13,520
Speaker 3: ale knew about it and all the rest of it.

346
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Speaker 2: But what actually went on.

347
00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:18,080
Speaker 1: This is a very interesting question, and it's one of

348
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Speaker 1: the reasons I've been so keen to write anniversary piece,

349
00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 1: which I've done. But by the time this interview is seen,

350
00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:28,240
Speaker 1: that story will have been in the paper, the Herald's Son.

351
00:18:29,040 --> 00:18:32,040
Speaker 1: It is a fascinating question. Was there a hell of

352
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:35,320
Speaker 1: a lot more? Did some of it get sold offshore

353
00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:38,879
Speaker 1: through their usual fences and so on them? It is

354
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:42,520
Speaker 1: alleged that there were people in a syndicate who would

355
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,760
Speaker 1: send stuff to Europe via Asia that's great, and it

356
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:52,480
Speaker 1: would get sold over there. And there were stories disseminated

357
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:55,879
Speaker 1: by the police. In the days after the robbery, the

358
00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,960
Speaker 1: head of the arm robbery squad was briefing crime reporters

359
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:04,000
Speaker 1: and saying, look, earlier this year we tipped off Amsterdam police,

360
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:08,639
Speaker 1: the Dutch police about a Renois painting with a million dollars,

361
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 1: a lot of money. In those days. There was two

362
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:14,959
Speaker 1: houses in two Racive million dollars back then, which what's

363
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,680
Speaker 1: that now you know, might be forty fifty A lot

364
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:22,160
Speaker 1: of money tipped them off that there was a renmix

365
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:25,760
Speaker 1: coming in and the Dutch police arrested four men and

366
00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 1: retrieved the painting. And so clearly there was some sort

367
00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:33,320
Speaker 1: of network that the police knew about, and it would

368
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:36,639
Speaker 1: appear that this Locus gang stuff had some of it

369
00:19:36,760 --> 00:19:40,520
Speaker 1: had been sent off shore before. Now the question is

370
00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:43,679
Speaker 1: did that happen in this case at all, or was

371
00:19:43,840 --> 00:19:47,159
Speaker 1: the stuff you know, buried and sort of lost or

372
00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: buried and dug up by other crooks somehow because they

373
00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:55,640
Speaker 1: got the leon, or buried and dug up by police

374
00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:58,200
Speaker 1: who'd got the leon. Those are the questions.

375
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Speaker 3: That's where my mind goes. He's always been my gut

376
00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:04,600
Speaker 3: feel when with or without finding leon and verifying And

377
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:06,520
Speaker 3: you think I've got a really good thread for a

378
00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:09,560
Speaker 3: sequel just based on the what if what could have been?

379
00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:13,159
Speaker 1: Totally? Yeah, Yeah, it's a very interesting question. And you

380
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:18,040
Speaker 1: can see the potential for this story to make a

381
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 1: or version of to make a good streamer. Absolutely, you

382
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:28,040
Speaker 1: could elongate it and you can sort of can be episodic.

383
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:31,840
Speaker 1: It's a good action story with lots of a cast

384
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,520
Speaker 1: full of interesting heads, you know, the old crook, the

385
00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:39,600
Speaker 1: young crooked, the young, pregnant crooked, married couple, father and daughter.

386
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:43,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Bent Cops in the eighties. You know, it's

387
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:45,680
Speaker 3: just amazing, and it's actually written that way. So I

388
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:48,240
Speaker 3: broke it into four sort of Maine chunks. So the

389
00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 3: first part sort of his early life.

390
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:51,640
Speaker 2: And moving to Melbourne.

391
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:54,080
Speaker 3: Then the next part is kind of he gets mentored

392
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:57,439
Speaker 3: by another criminal. Then the Locus gang happens, and then

393
00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:01,000
Speaker 3: obviously he's got his crusade against some of the dealers

394
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:03,719
Speaker 3: and the Bent Cops that he legitimately goes after some

395
00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 3: of these people, and then of course it all spirals

396
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,280
Speaker 3: downwards as crime usually does, Andrew it does.

397
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 1: It ends badly for nearly everybody. Leon. Yeah, interesting character.

398
00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 1: I did speak to his former sister in law, well,

399
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:20,960
Speaker 1: I suppose it is his sister in law really she

400
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:23,840
Speaker 1: still is, And she said, look, he was a fantasist.

401
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 1: Really he always put the best spin on things that

402
00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 1: make himself look good or better or smarter, and which

403
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 1: makes you wonder about that. There's no doubt that his

404
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:36,399
Speaker 1: manuscript will be self serving. It'll cast himself in a

405
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,439
Speaker 1: better light than well, even the absence of the children

406
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:41,600
Speaker 1: from it. He doesn't want to write something where they're

407
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,760
Speaker 1: rubbing a house with four kids in it. Well, that

408
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 1: would look bad. Yeah, and you know, crooks in jail

409
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: will beat you for that, that's right, because they want

410
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:54,240
Speaker 1: to make themselves look better than the other guy.

411
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:57,359
Speaker 3: And it's interesting his comments while it was at court

412
00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,640
Speaker 3: that he had tried to settle the situation and and

413
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 3: you know had I think he said in one of

414
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 3: the articles that he'd actually grabbed one of the kids,

415
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 3: and you know, so so even even sort of well, you.

416
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:13,679
Speaker 1: Know, perhaps he mightn't, although mister Lang didn't seem to

417
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 1: think so he pointed out him and said he leapt

418
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 1: up while he was in the box and said, yeah's him.

419
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:24,480
Speaker 1: That's the man that killed my wife. You're a rat,

420
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:27,480
Speaker 1: that's right, a rat. It didn't sound as if he

421
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 1: thought he'd be kind of the kids for it. Anyway.

422
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,880
Speaker 3: That's what's fascinating though, because the story in the book.

423
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,640
Speaker 2: Leon's view of Lang is.

424
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 3: The opposite to what was actually put out in the

425
00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:40,400
Speaker 3: newspapers as well.

426
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: Sorry explain that.

427
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:46,160
Speaker 3: So his version of Lang, or known as the Doctor

428
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 3: the Pharmacist in the book is completely it's not the

429
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 3: poor family man that was terrorized with his absolute criminal

430
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 3: according to leon.

431
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 1: Or could all be versions of the truth.

432
00:22:58,440 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 2: It could be or somewhere in the middle.

433
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: Who Well, you know, crooks can have families all they

434
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,479
Speaker 1: do and love them and you know, yeah, yeah, So

435
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:09,960
Speaker 1: let's look at this. We've got a band that none

436
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 1: of us know anything about, really, and that is Jeff Flang.

437
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 1: Jeff Flang apparently owned a series of overnight all night pharmacies,

438
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: which is nothing wrong with that good idea. That's like,

439
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 1: you know, being first with Kentucky Fried Chicken, that's a thing,

440
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 1: you know. But the thing about all night pharmacies around

441
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 1: inner Melbourne in the eighties, they would be the perfect

442
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: place to trade in drugs in that sort of gray

443
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: area where where you know, drugs can sort of drift

444
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: out of the official channels into the unofficial channels, and

445
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: that gray area where there's doctors in places like St

446
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:55,920
Speaker 1: Kilda would prescribe opioids and junkies would be in there

447
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 1: getting lots of them, et cetera, et cetera. It would

448
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: be a great way to distribute illicit drugsies via under

449
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: the counter at such a place I mean in Sekila

450
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: was at hamburger shops where you could buy heroin in

451
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: the hamburger. Yeah, you tell, I'll have one hundred dollars

452
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: hamburgers and they go with a lot and that's what

453
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 1: you get in it was the heroin a lot. So

454
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 1: this would be an obvious thing to do, and it

455
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:25,880
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And there'd be no doubt

456
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: that the Bent coppers who then Rnson killed he would

457
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,680
Speaker 1: be in on it and taking a cut. Yeah, and

458
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 1: it might be a reason why the police acted were

459
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: so hot on the trail and because it's burnt their man.

460
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 3: Yes, and perhaps, And that was probably one of the

461
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 3: things that struck me the most is, you know, according

462
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 3: to Gary, the level of corruption and the Bent cops controlling,

463
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 3: Like obviously you'd be a lot more across it. But

464
00:24:57,400 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 3: as I was sort of reading it as a young

465
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 3: guy in my twenties, I was like, could this be right?

466
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 3: These guys are actually every bit as bad as well,

467
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 3: they're crooks as well totally.

468
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: Oh and indeed some of them were and Sint Kilda

469
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: was notorious and rightly so. And you know, to this

470
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: some ex police some will tell you about the things

471
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: that happened in Sinkilda and the way that Sint Kilda

472
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 1: police treated police from beyond Saint Kilda, they thought they

473
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:33,679
Speaker 1: were beyond approach. And one yesterday was telling me that

474
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: he was sitting in his I think he was in

475
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: one of the squads, crime squad. He was sitting in

476
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: a police car in Saint Kilda, riding up official stuff

477
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,680
Speaker 1: and they said knock on the door from a very

478
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: young female constable who says, what are you doing here?

479
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: And he says, excuse me, and she said what are

480
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: you doing here? You know, what are you down? What

481
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: are you down here? For an outpatch? And he was

482
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: there on squad business, whether we could have been homicide

483
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: squad or whatever it was. And he said, I'll talk

484
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: to you an divvan the minute. And when I finished

485
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: doing this and he was, let's say a sergeant and

486
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 1: she was, you know, let's say nothing much. And he

487
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: went and gave her a blister. He wrought at her

488
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: for doing this, and then he got blowback from her

489
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: senior offices, well, from a senior sergeant or an inspector

490
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: or somebody at Sint Kilda. They thought they were running

491
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: their own private five and to some extent they were, well.

492
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 2: I think that's right.

493
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 3: And the other thing about the end result of this

494
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 3: is and this what was in the paper lined up

495
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 3: with the original manuscript too, that Leon claimed that he

496
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 3: was captured and tortured to know the whereabouts of where

497
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 3: the loot was, and it's actually in the paper. A

498
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 3: couple of the detectives were questioned about it and said, yeah,

499
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 3: he made that allegation, but we never followed it up

500
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 3: because we didn't believe it round about.

501
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: Yeah.

502
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 3: So, but I find those correlations interesting because what was

503
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 3: in the newspaper is actually you know, what he'd spoken about.

504
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that that sort of stuff went on,

505
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:22,199
Speaker 1: and that even if Leon is a self centered, narcissistic, lying,

506
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: self justifying crook, that doesn't mean that the bent coppers

507
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: weren't the same thing. It's just a big snake pit

508
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: and the biggest snake gates the others. So as that

509
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: chopper read once said, so it's a very interesting tale

510
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: of a crime that notionally, if you add up the

511
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 1: potential prices of these stolen opals and gold things and jewels,

512
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: it could be the biggest done robberie ever in Australia.

513
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: You know, technically technically, had of course, had it been

514
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: in cash, it would would have been without doubt. But

515
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 1: this is what it's nine years after the great bookie

516
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: robbery in the city here at the Victorian Club or

517
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: Victoria Club, and it netted no one really knows, but

518
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: several minutes. It might have been three and it might

519
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: have been five. But whatever, it gets inflated too much.

520
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: But in cash, yeah, mostly color cash. And that was

521
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 1: a very big robbery. But this one, if it's all

522
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: true about how much of the stuff there was, it

523
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,719
Speaker 1: was bigger. So it's an astonishing thing it is.

524
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 3: And I think it's another reason why, as you said,

525
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 3: it'd be great, it'd be great for the story itself

526
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 3: even to get on the screen, because it really is

527
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 3: part of Australian or Melbourne crime history. It is because

528
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 3: something this size it just had never happened and wouldn't

529
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 3: happen again.

530
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: Wonderful story just uses a basis for some somebody like you,

531
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: this doctor or pharmacist or whoever it might be, the

532
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,959
Speaker 1: bent businessman type who's a sort of a shadowy figure

533
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: and a bit of a foot in both camps. That

534
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: is a very productive you know, the sort of characters

535
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: that we see in the British dramas, aren't they absolutely

536
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: the sort of not all white and not all black.

537
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's what you know, a lot of

538
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 3: us love about true crime and the Melbourne and Sinkilda

539
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 3: and King's Cross. Is it that it's got its own

540
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 3: character about it because it's Australian. I've got the European

541
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 3: obviously ancestry and very hard people like these people were

542
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 3: hard nuts and the cops as well, like it was

543
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 3: there was no mucking around.

544
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: No, it's of good stuff. So when did you start

545
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: doing the book? You worked on this way back in

546
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: the day when you were young, you put it away

547
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: and when your partner you've had another look at it

548
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: just a few years ago.

549
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, the old the screenplay cod that's right, it was

550
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 3: so well just before we started. So, but it was

551
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 3: about five years ago and and the book came out

552
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 3: a little while ago now, so it's been it's got

553
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 3: a distribution, so it's available sort of pretty easily if

554
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 3: you search for it online. Some of the good old

555
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 3: readings in Melbourne of stocked and supported it, which is

556
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 3: which is great. But yeah, so five years ago started

557
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 3: to work on it a couple of solid years of work,

558
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 3: and yeah, ended up with a good product.

559
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: It's called bandit or priest.

560
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 2: That's right, bandit or priest.

561
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: And my question to you is could it easily be

562
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: called bandit or bent cop?

563
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 2: Yeah?

564
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, well about it? Who took the money?

565
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 2: That's right?

566
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's I think that's the interesting thing banded

567
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 3: or priest. With a lot of these guys, like you said,

568
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 3: a lot of these crooks were you know, they had

569
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 3: some of them. Sounds weird to say, but they were

570
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 3: still good family people. And there was a kind of

571
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 3: a code of conduct with the crooks from those days

572
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 3: of them, some of them. Yeah, of course there were.

573
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 3: There were extremes as well, but you.

574
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: Know, no, no, there was, and they were hard a lot,

575
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: and some of them their good points, although preps not

576
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: quite as many as people like to think. I suspect

577
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: they always notice it with crooks. They always want to

578
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 1: look down on someone else. Well, you know, you might

579
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: think I'm bad, but I'll tell you what, I'm not bad.

580
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: I'm not a sex offender like that, but you know,

581
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,959
Speaker 1: because I'm better than that. So they all want to

582
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: point at somebody else when in fact, a lot of

583
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: them are rapists. A lot of them are. If you

584
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: go into their history history, it doesn't actually bear out

585
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: the way they talk. They talk a big talk, and

586
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: a lot of them have got very patchy records. In

587
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: every way, aberrant behavior is a behavior.

588
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, and to get on that side

589
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 3: of the law or that sort of underworld. You know,

590
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 3: there's there's some pretty shady behavior happening, isn't there.

591
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the yeah, the there is.

592
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 3: A you mentioned earlier about the Collector's Gang and the

593
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 3: Locust Gang and their history of the dozen or more

594
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 3: you know, big jobs that they did, and it certainly

595
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 3: is a thread throughout the book, so a cast of

596
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 3: different characters that he pulled into jobs along the way.

597
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 3: And as I said earlier too, that very much the

598
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 3: sin Kilda cops had their hands in his pocket, much

599
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 3: to his disgust. According to Leon that this was just

600
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 3: a constant theme. Either he paid them or he would

601
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 3: be put out.

602
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 2: Of business permanently.

603
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: So, oh, no doubt about it.

604
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

605
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 3: So the Locust Gang known as that because they went

606
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 3: in there and they cleaned absolutely everything.

607
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: Everything out, Yeah, like a plate of locus. It does

608
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: appear that while they were doing relatively low profile jobs,

609
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: even though they were big paintings or whatever, that they

610
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: weren't jobs that got big headlines because the people who

611
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: were robbed weren't particularly kean on headlines because it made

612
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: them look foolish. And also it means they could be

613
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: targeted again another time, but this time they'd overstepped the mark.

614
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: It was big, it was violent, and involved children, and

615
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: we think you and I think that probably the target

616
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: was someone who thought he had some sort of police

617
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: protection or tie up. So all of those things went

618
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: against the crooks in this instant.

619
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the fascinating part. As the story unfolds,

620
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 3: it is just a nightmare that just gets from bad

621
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 3: to worse to worse to worse for him, including the

622
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 3: recount of the torture that happened when he was caught

623
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 3: by this other.

624
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: Rival rhetoric last night. There's no doubt that would happen. Oh,

625
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: you know, if you've stolen lots and lots of millions

626
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,959
Speaker 1: of and they sent heavies after you, and they're certainly

627
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: going to give you a horrible bashing to try and

628
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: get it back.

629
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 3: I guess the other interesting thing earlier on in the book,

630
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 3: it recounts the story of a heist done at the

631
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 3: Melbourne Airport. So it's a little bit harder to find

632
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 3: information on that because it was done in the seventies.

633
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 3: But you know, he was eventually caught for that as

634
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 3: well and retold the story that he did seven years

635
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 3: hard time in Pentridge.

636
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: Over a heist at Melbourney.

637
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 3: That's correct, Yes, so that one, because I didn't have

638
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 3: any specific dates. As opposed to the second big job

639
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 3: at Yarra Glen, that one would have been like literally

640
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 3: for me, a needle in the haystack at the State

641
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 3: Library because you're literally searching via kind of dates with

642
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 3: those old reels.

643
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:43,959
Speaker 2: So but the.

644
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 3: Reality is, you know he did hard time for that

645
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 3: one as well, seven years and that was kind of

646
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 3: the early genesis of the Locust Gang itself, you know.

647
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:57,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Was that money being transported? Was it money

648
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: being moved from a crate full of money being transported

649
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,240
Speaker 1: from from Melbourne to somewhere? What was it?

650
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 3: According to him, it was coming into Melbourne from Singapore

651
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 3: and it was cashion and diamonds.

652
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: Cash and diamonds. Yeah, okay, and must have been inside information.

653
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 3: It was inside information. Again, he knew exactly where to go,

654
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 3: what day it was, what the flight number was. He was,

655
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,399
Speaker 3: he was very much tipped off about it, and yeah,

656
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 3: they were caught. One of his cohorts ended up talking

657
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 3: and they got onto it, and yeah, eventually he got

658
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:34,879
Speaker 3: put away.

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00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:37,760
Speaker 1: And the lesson here is if he gained to be crook,

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00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: never took.

661
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 3: Never talk, that's right, say nothing, and careful of who

662
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 3: you bring into these jobs.

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00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 1: Two people know a secret, it's not a secret. Yeah,

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00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: and on that note we shall end this episode. We

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00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: look forward to seeing the sequel to bandit or Presolutely

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00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: and we'll do it again. I thank you, Fabian Christian,

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00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: thanks for having real name. Shall remain a mystery. Thanks

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00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun

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00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 1: production for True crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton.

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00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot

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00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: com dot au, forward slash andrew rule one word. For

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00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts sold at news dot

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00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts sold.

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00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: And if you want further information about this episode, links

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00:36:49,360 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: are in the description. Five