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Speaker 1: In the red corner. Ladies and gentlemen, we have Benji Venomon.

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Speaker 1: Benji had shown a liking for guns and gunplay and

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Speaker 1: showed that he was extremely willing to shoot people, and

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Speaker 1: his reputation proceeded him. The police could also see from

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Speaker 1: his footage that at the end of the proceedings that

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Speaker 1: little Venomen had reached up and kissed Gatto on a

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Speaker 1: cheek like Hollywood gangster style. I'm Andrew Rule is his

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Speaker 1: life and crimes. It's been a season of twentieth anniversaries

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Speaker 1: because over the last eighteen months two years, we've had

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Speaker 1: so many anniversaries of the events that we now call

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Speaker 1: the Underworld War or the Gangland War, or even the

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Speaker 1: under Belly War. And coming up this week it's the

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Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary of one of the biggest events of the

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Speaker 1: Underworld War, and that is the shooting of Benji Venomon

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Speaker 1: Andrew Venemon in a Carlton restaurant on the twenty third

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Speaker 1: of March two thousand and four. Now, the twenty third

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Speaker 1: of March two thousand and four was a Tuesday, a

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Speaker 1: fairly drowsy autumn afternoon in Melbourne, and it turns out,

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Speaker 1: according to my colleague Mark Butler, who knows a lot

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Speaker 1: of things about police related matters. It turns out that

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Speaker 1: on that day the Purana Task Force, which of course

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Speaker 1: was a specialist task force assembled to cope with the

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Speaker 1: Underworld War. The task Force had been busy all morning

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Speaker 1: doing what it usually did, which was a surveillance of crooks,

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Speaker 1: going through the product of surveillance. So they would have

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Speaker 1: urdles of bugs on telephones, they'd have bugs on cars,

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Speaker 1: they'd be doing all that sort of stuff. They'd also

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Speaker 1: have specialist surveillance police following people, and they'd spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time going through that product and analyzing it,

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Speaker 1: looking for patterns and connections and all the rest of it.

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Speaker 1: And of course, ultimately that amount of resources is what

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Speaker 1: solved the Underworld War and got a lot of people

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Speaker 1: behind bars. But at this stage in early two thousand

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Speaker 1: and four, they had a string of unsolved murders behind them.

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Speaker 1: They'd had six in two thousand and three alone, and

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Speaker 1: it went all the way back in a particular chain

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Speaker 1: of events to the death, the violent death of Mark

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Speaker 1: Moran outside his home in Abbefeldi back in mid two

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Speaker 1: thousand and two. So the police were like the boy

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Speaker 1: with the barrow. They had the job in front of them.

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Speaker 1: On that afternoon, they were having a meeting at the

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Speaker 1: Purana headquarters, and the meeting was really to swap ideas,

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Speaker 1: swap a bit of underworld, a gossip and rumor, and

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Speaker 1: basically compare notes on what they were achieving and how.

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Speaker 1: And during the meeting, as happens when we have meetings anywhere,

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Speaker 1: they bunk it down and talk to each other, and

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Speaker 1: they tended to ignore phone calls because phone calls get

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Speaker 1: in the way of meetings. But at some point, shortly

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Speaker 1: after two thirty that day to thirty pm, the phone

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Speaker 1: in the inspector's office goes. It's a desk phone, and

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Speaker 1: it rings. They ignore it because they're busy. Whoever's calling

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Speaker 1: the phone doesn't give up. That person rings again and again,

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Speaker 1: and the phone is starting to drive them mad. So

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Speaker 1: of course, a senior person looks across at a junior

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Speaker 1: member of the task force. The junior member jumps up,

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Speaker 1: walks into the boss's office, closes the door, picks up

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Speaker 1: the phone, says hello, and as the other guys are

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Speaker 1: watching him, they watch his body language and he stiffens

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Speaker 1: up and looks very serious, and I think what's happened.

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Speaker 1: And when he comes out of the office, he waves

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Speaker 1: his hands, even though he's quite junior, this guy, this detective,

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Speaker 1: waves his hands to sort of command the rest of

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Speaker 1: the group to silence, and says, Benji Venamon's been shot

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Speaker 1: in Carlton, in a restaurant in Carlton. And the immediate

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Speaker 1: reaction of most of those present was, well, that'll be bullshit,

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Speaker 1: that'll be wrong. And they said, oh, yeah, who shot him?

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Speaker 1: He said, mec Gatto, And there was a silence for

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Speaker 1: a few seconds, and somebody called out, well, you better

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Speaker 1: not be bullshitting. If this is a joke, it's not

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Speaker 1: a good joke. And it turns out he wasn't. Mick

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Speaker 1: Gatto had, in fact shot Benji Venamon in very interesting

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Speaker 1: circumstances in a very small storage area you could call

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Speaker 1: it a room, but was more of a little corridor

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Speaker 1: at the rear of La Porgella Italian restaurant, which is

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Speaker 1: at the corner of Wrathdown and Faraday Streets in Carlton.

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Speaker 1: And that was a landmark death in the Underworld War.

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Speaker 1: It was allegedly at least an attempted hit by Venomon

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Speaker 1: on gas. But if that were the case little Benji Venemon.

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Speaker 1: They're very prolific. Australia's busiest hit man had the tables

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Speaker 1: turned on him by a much larger and much stronger man.

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Speaker 1: What we all know is that Mick Gado was subsequently

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Speaker 1: charged with murder and he was acquitted, and that is

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Speaker 1: something we'll go into as we explain this. The death

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Speaker 1: of Benji Venamon, which we'll look into, was right up

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Speaker 1: there in notoriety with the double shooting the previous winter

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Speaker 1: of Jason Moran and he's unlucky mate, Patty Barbara, and

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Speaker 1: of course everyone knows our listeners will know that Jason Moran,

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Speaker 1: who was a target with his entire family actually of

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Speaker 1: Carl Williams. He was silly enough to come back to

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Speaker 1: Melbourne when he should have stayed overseas out of the way,

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Speaker 1: and he stayed out of the way very successfully. Because

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Speaker 1: a lot of these career crooks are very good at

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Speaker 1: account of surveillance. They get good at it from when

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Speaker 1: they're teenagers. Essentially, they're taught how to do it by

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Speaker 1: those around them and they're very difficult to follow and

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Speaker 1: to track and all that. But the people looking to

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Speaker 1: kill him knew that Jason Moran would go to see

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Speaker 1: his kids and other children playing football at particular venue,

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Speaker 1: the cross Keys Park near the cross Keys Hotel in Essendon,

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Speaker 1: and that is where they caught up with him after

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Speaker 1: the game. As everyone knows, he got his kids and

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Speaker 1: I think something like ten others. There was a huge

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Speaker 1: number of children all in this oz Kick footy team,

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Speaker 1: put them in the back of his van and he

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Speaker 1: and his mate Paddy Barbara, who just happened to be

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Speaker 1: there with him watching the kids footy, are sitting in

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Speaker 1: the front when a gunman armed with two weapons interestingly

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Speaker 1: shot them dead. And of course some of those kids

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Speaker 1: I think there were eleven in the back altogether were

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Speaker 1: spatted with blood, bone and brain matter. It was a

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Speaker 1: shocking crime to do in public in daylight, not only

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Speaker 1: in front of the public, but literally in a car

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Speaker 1: full of kids. A terrible crime. That was one of

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Speaker 1: the low lights or standouts of the Underworld War. But

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Speaker 1: the shooting of benji Venamon in a restaurant in Carlton

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Speaker 1: was the other one, not so shocking in its way,

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Speaker 1: and also there were not a lot of tear shed

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Speaker 1: for benji Venamon apart from his own loved ones. The

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Speaker 1: few people in his family and circle of friends. They

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Speaker 1: loved him dearly naturally, but he was a violent and

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Speaker 1: a erratic hit man. We're not sure how many people

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Speaker 1: he killed, but I read a statement recently by a

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Speaker 1: fellow criminal who knew him well, who said it seemed

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Speaker 1: that he had killed a lot of people. Maybe he

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Speaker 1: said a record, at least a record south of Queensland.

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Speaker 1: There is a man in Queensland who is still alive

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Speaker 1: who is reputed to have killed more than thirty people.

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Speaker 1: And I doubt that Benji, at the age of twenty eight,

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Speaker 1: managed to do that many. But had he not fallen

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Speaker 1: foul of mcgatto on that day, perhaps he would have

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Speaker 1: because he was keen on it, very willing, clearly a

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Speaker 1: sociopathic sort of guy who met his end probably because

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Speaker 1: he was so willing to kill people. And in the end,

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Speaker 1: those people that he considered his allies or colleagues or

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Speaker 1: friends were just as wary of him as anyone else,

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Speaker 1: because they realized that if the money was right, he'd

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Speaker 1: kill anyone. And that is a very dangerous reputation to have.

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Speaker 1: So let's run through the two protagonists of this story. Now,

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Speaker 1: we've got a great, big, strong, heavy weight metgatto now

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Speaker 1: he's a heavyweights heavyweight. He was a heavyweight boxer once

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Speaker 1: back in the day. Not an unbelievably good one, just

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Speaker 1: a solid journeyman when he share of fights around Victoria.

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Speaker 1: But big, big, broad child of man. Even when he

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Speaker 1: was fit, he was I think nudging the one hundred

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Speaker 1: kilo mark probably or more probably, And by the time

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Speaker 1: we're talking two thousand and four, he was a man

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Speaker 1: that was probably walking around at something like one hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirty plus killers. He was a very big guy

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Speaker 1: and broad, and plenty of him. I'm not sure how

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Speaker 1: high mcghatto is. He wouldn't be two meters high, but

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Speaker 1: he'd be one one ninety odd probably big, big guy strong.

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Speaker 1: At that stage he was in his late forties. He'd

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Speaker 1: still spar in his home gym. He could throw a

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Speaker 1: big punch, he still had the you know, some of

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Speaker 1: the reflexes that you get from boxing. And a guy

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Speaker 1: that had essentially been able to make a living with

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Speaker 1: a version of stand up at tactics for most of

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Speaker 1: his adult life. So he's no pushover. In the red corner,

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Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, we have Benji Venomon Bengji Venamon had

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Speaker 1: been a flyweight kickboxer back in the mid nineties, so

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Speaker 1: ten years before he was shot dead. When he's eighteen,

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, he's a kickboxer out of Sunshine. He's a

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Speaker 1: little Greek guy. I'm not sure if his Greek straight Greek, Cypriot, Greek, whatever,

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Speaker 1: but his parents were i think reasonably devout Greek Orthodox

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Speaker 1: parents who had he and his siblings out there in Sunshine, Maine.

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Speaker 1: And he probably was always a small guy, and like

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Speaker 1: a lot of small guys, he learned how to handle

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Speaker 1: himself and was pretty fierce, pretty hard at it, like

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Speaker 1: a blant And you know when he forty fifty two

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Speaker 1: and a half killos, Now this is flyweight, it was

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Speaker 1: a fly wait fighter fifty two and a half kilos.

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Speaker 1: There are teenage jockeys, there are female jockeys, such as

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Speaker 1: the apprentice Celine Gordray, who had to starve herself for

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Speaker 1: two weeks to ride in the Newmarket handicap at fifty

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Speaker 1: two and a half kilos. That is how small Benji

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Speaker 1: Venamon was when he was fit fifty two and a

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Speaker 1: half and even after that, when he gave up boxing

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Speaker 1: and took up eating and shooting people. He might have made,

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Speaker 1: you know, fifty nine kilos. He was jockey size Jockey Waite.

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Speaker 1: Now these are two very different men. There's no doubt

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Speaker 1: that Mick Gaddo, who is still out and about and

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Speaker 1: doing the best he can, that he would know most

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Speaker 1: movers and shakers in the Melbourne underworld and to some

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Speaker 1: extent the Australian underworld, but especially Melbourne, and especially some

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Speaker 1: pockets of Melbourne. And I would have said, you know,

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Speaker 1: the Inner West, the Inner North and central area around

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Speaker 1: Carlton and the inner suburbs was his patch. Mic Gatto

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Speaker 1: of course is famous, as you know, being one of

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Speaker 1: the main men in what is called the Carlton or

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Speaker 1: was called the Carlton Crew. By two thousand and four,

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Speaker 1: Alfons Gangatano was long dead, Mark Moran was dead and

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Speaker 1: Jason Marine was dead. So the ranks were starting to

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Speaker 1: thin a bit in the Carlton Crew and that would

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Speaker 1: have left Mick Ghadow as an even more dominating figure

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Speaker 1: in that group. Gatdo doing what he did, which was

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Speaker 1: to notionally broker peace settlements between warring parties. You know,

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Speaker 1: he would have builders on one side and unions and

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Speaker 1: workers on the other and he would negotiate industrial settlements

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Speaker 1: in talking marks. When developers would be having trouble getting

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Speaker 1: their buildings built on time and on budget, they would

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Speaker 1: pay Uncle Mick, you know, five thousand to have a

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Speaker 1: cup of coffee, and then another large amount of money

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Speaker 1: if he could settle something for them and thrash out

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Speaker 1: a compromise with unions or whatever it might be. So

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Speaker 1: he was a guy that knew a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: but ultimately some of the people he knew would have

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Speaker 1: to be the sort of people that were willing, as

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Speaker 1: they say in Underworld, willing to shoot people. And one

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Speaker 1: of those people that he knew on his rise from

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Speaker 1: the kickboxing ring was Benji Venemon, because Benji had moved

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Speaker 1: on from the kickboxing into bodyguarding, standover that sort of stuff,

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Speaker 1: pinching cars, the usual sort of criminal progress. But Benji

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Speaker 1: had shown a liking for guns and gunplay and showed

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Speaker 1: that he was extremely willing to shoot people, and his

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Speaker 1: reputation preceded him. And there is no doubt that people

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Speaker 1: like Mick Gatto not only knew of him, but knew

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Speaker 1: him because they made it their business to know people

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Speaker 1: like Benji Venemon for good reasons. One is that they'd

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Speaker 1: like to know if they saw him coming. And the

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Speaker 1: other is that sometimes they might be able to advise

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Speaker 1: someone to throw a bit of work Benji's way. This

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Speaker 1: is the way that underworld works. So you can rest

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Speaker 1: assured that Mick Gatto knew plenty about Benji, even if

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Speaker 1: he was later able to tell police that he hardly

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Speaker 1: ever met him, etc. Etc. But in the underworld, most

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Speaker 1: friendships are for sale. In the end, everyone's pretty well

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Speaker 1: out for themselves to look after themselves and their own family,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps they're very closest friends. Outside that circle, they're

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Speaker 1: pretty cold blooded and they take a coldly economic view

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Speaker 1: of other members of the underworld. Last month's friend, ally

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Speaker 1: colleague might become next year's enemy. And this happened with

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Speaker 1: ghadow Envenoment, and it happened pretty well. Back in mid

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Speaker 1: two thousand and two, there was a very ugly scene

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Speaker 1: at this same restaurant, l'a Purcella, the one in the

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Speaker 1: corner of Rathdownen Faraday. Clearly it was the restaurant where

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Speaker 1: business was done, and on this day in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and two, there was a meeting of around ten very

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Speaker 1: interesting figures underworld figures and among them was the Bulgarian

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Speaker 1: drug dealer, evil bad, violent, nasty, brutal man called Nick Radev.

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Speaker 1: Later ended up dead and he had an imported bodyguard.

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Speaker 1: I bought a muscle a guy called Troy mccanty who

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Speaker 1: was from Perth. Troy mccanty was a member of the

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Speaker 1: Coffin Cheet, his motorcycle gang in Perth and regarded him

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Speaker 1: Perth as a very dangerous and capable stand over man

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Speaker 1: and all the rest of it. And for Nick Radev

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Speaker 1: to have him at this meeting probably meant something. What

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Speaker 1: happened was there was a disagreement between Radev and the

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Speaker 1: rising drug baron Tony Mockbell at this meeting in mid

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Speaker 1: two thousand and two. And what happened next was Troy

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Speaker 1: mccanty was slipped off the leash like a pitbull terrier

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Speaker 1: and he bashed Tony Mockbell after death. He really savagely

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Speaker 1: bashed him. And at this meeting, apart from Mick Gaddo

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Speaker 1: and others, there was a little Benji Venamon and Benji

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Speaker 1: Venamon I'm not sure if he was there at the

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Speaker 1: invitation of Mockbell. He may well have been their sort

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Speaker 1: of bodyguarding it's hard to say, but in the event,

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Speaker 1: he wasn't able to prevent mcanty from doing what he did,

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Speaker 1: but he took Mockbell straight to a doctor to they say,

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Speaker 1: a woman doctor that he knew, and she was able

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Speaker 1: to treat Mockbell and possibly haven't saved his life. He

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Speaker 1: might have been bleeding a lot or whatever. He was

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Speaker 1: in a bad way and Venamon was able to get

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Speaker 1: him to treatment on time and pretty well save him.

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Speaker 1: Now that connection built a relationship between those two, between

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Speaker 1: Venomon and Mockbell, so that they were friendly after that.

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Speaker 1: And this was a friendship which became probably a thorn

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Speaker 1: in the side of people like Gatto who were in

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Speaker 1: the carl And crew, because Mockbell was friendly with the

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Speaker 1: non Carlton crew people. Mockbell was friendly with Carl Williams.

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Speaker 1: Carl Williams, of course, had started the whole Underworld War,

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Speaker 1: the main bit of it as basically a vendetta of

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Speaker 1: revenge after the Moran Brothers had shot him in the

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Speaker 1: belly with a small pistol back in nineteen ninety nine.

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Speaker 1: And really the whole Underworld War was a war of

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Speaker 1: extermination paid for by Carl Williams, who sent various gunment

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Speaker 1: out to bowl over his enemies, and one of his

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Speaker 1: gunmen was Venomin. His favorite gunment was Venomin. The fact

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Speaker 1: that Venamon was increasingly friendly with mock Bell and hence

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Speaker 1: with Carl Williams, meant that Gatto and his friends in

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Speaker 1: the Carlton Crew would start to look at Venomin Askance

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Speaker 1: as a potential enemy. Now, notionally, he's a freelance gunman,

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Speaker 1: he's a gun for hire, but Gatto and those other

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Speaker 1: fairly wise fairly seasoned crooks would realize that he was

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Speaker 1: potentially dangerous to basically anyone if someone paid him. And

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Speaker 1: so there was an escalating sense of hostility and unease.

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Speaker 1: And this came to some sort of head in early

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Speaker 1: December two thousand and three, when Graham Kinneborough, alias the Munster,

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Speaker 1: was shot dead outside his house towards midnight in Belmont

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Speaker 1: Avenue in kew Kinneborough was a grandfather, lived a quiet life.

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Speaker 1: He was, as our listeners had been regarded as a

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Speaker 1: genius safecracker, a career criminal, smart guy, not necessarily a

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Speaker 1: violent man most of the time, probably had been once

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Speaker 1: but not any more two wise for that, and he

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Speaker 1: was shot dead in his own driveway by unknown assailants

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Speaker 1: in December two thousand and three, and although the assailants

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Speaker 1: at that point were unknown, later identified Kinnerborough's friends, including

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Speaker 1: Mick Gatto, who really liked Kinneborough. They saw it as

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Speaker 1: an act of war by Carl Williams and his crew,

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Speaker 1: and they saw Venomon as being part of that crew. Now,

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Speaker 1: the the truth is that the police that were watching

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Speaker 1: Venamon and watching all the bad guys at this point,

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Speaker 1: within about a week or two, they knew from their

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Speaker 1: surveillance product, you know, car staff for telephone tapes, all

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Speaker 1: the rest of it, they knew that Venamon was nowhere

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Speaker 1: near Graham Kinniber's house and not Kinnebre was killed. So

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Speaker 1: the police actually knew pretty quickly that Venamon had not

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Speaker 1: pulled the trigger. However, even if Gatto had heard that

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Speaker 1: from a friendly police source, which he might have, he

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Speaker 1: knew very well that whoever paid somebody to pull the

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Speaker 1: trigger on his friend Kinneburgh was probably Carl Williams, and

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Speaker 1: therefore that Venomon presented a threat, an ongoing threat. Only

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Speaker 1: nine days after Kinnibur's shooting, they had a bit of

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Speaker 1: a council of war and they called this Council of

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Speaker 1: War in the Crown Casino. And the reason for that

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Speaker 1: is the casino is absolutely full of surveillance cameras, and

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Speaker 1: the warring parties knew that no sane person would take

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Speaker 1: a gun into Grand Casino or produce it because you'd

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Speaker 1: be seen and filmed and that'd be that. So it

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Speaker 1: was a safe space for all concern to meet and talk. Also,

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Speaker 1: the noise in the bars there would make it very

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Speaker 1: difficult or impossible for police or anyone else to record

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Speaker 1: what they were saying, because the cacophony of noise would

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Speaker 1: drown out things and they'd be able to talk into

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Speaker 1: each other's ears without anybody hearing it. It's quite a

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Speaker 1: secure place. Of course, there are these security cameras which

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Speaker 1: are filming them, and the police were very interested in

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Speaker 1: that meeting, and they could see Carl Williams talking fairly

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Speaker 1: guardedly with mcgaddow, and they could tell that it wasn't

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Speaker 1: overly friendly. The police could also see from this footage

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Speaker 1: that the end of the proceedings that little Venomin had

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Speaker 1: reached up and kissed Gatto on the cheek like Hollywood

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Speaker 1: gangster style. Bit hard when you're five foot six to

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Speaker 1: kiss a guy that's six foot five or something. But

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Speaker 1: he did because he'd send the films. And although he's

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Speaker 1: not a made man in the mafia, because he's a

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Speaker 1: Greek boy, he did it anyway, which shows you these guys,

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Speaker 1: you know, they watch too many movies. I suspect. The

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Speaker 1: police were able to get a lipbreader to play back

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Speaker 1: the security tapes on the cameras from the casino and

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Speaker 1: to see what was actually said, and they were very

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Speaker 1: interested in this. The lipbretting experts were able to tell

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Speaker 1: the police that Gatto told Williams Carl Williams, anything with you,

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Speaker 1: that's your problem. But if anything comes my way, then

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Speaker 1: I'll send somebody to you. I'll be careful with you. You

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Speaker 1: be careful with me. I believe you, You believe me.

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Speaker 1: Now we're even. That's a warning clear that this was

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Speaker 1: although the language was reasonably careful, it was a warning.

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Speaker 1: And the warning, of course, although directed at Williams, who

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Speaker 1: was the paymaster, was also for Venomin, the guy that

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Speaker 1: Williams paid to knock off so many people. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what mcado would make have been kissed by a

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Speaker 1: crazy sawn off little Greek hitman, but he might have thought,

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Speaker 1: having been to mass all those years with his mum,

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Speaker 1: that it was a Judas kiss. In our next episode,

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Speaker 1: we will show how this relationship went south, very quickly

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Speaker 1: and very violently. Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is

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Speaker 1: a Sunday Herald Sun production for true crime Australia. Our

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Speaker 1: producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more,

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00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 1: go to Heroldsun dot com dot au forward slash Andrew

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00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts

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00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: sold at news dot com dot au. That is all

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Speaker 1: one word news podcasts sold And if you want further

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Speaker 1: information about this episode, links are in the description