WEBVTT - Benji: Part1 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:05.480 In the red corner. Ladies and gentlemen, we have Benji Venomon. 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:11.360 Benji had shown a liking for guns and gunplay and 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.400 showed that he was extremely willing to shoot people, and 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.520 his reputation proceeded him. The police could also see from 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.799 his footage that at the end of the proceedings that 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.759 little Venomen had reached up and kissed Gatto on a 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:31.600 cheek like Hollywood gangster style. I'm Andrew Rule is his 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:36.440 life and crimes. It's been a season of twentieth anniversaries 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:40.440 because over the last eighteen months two years, we've had 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.520 so many anniversaries of the events that we now call 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.120 the Underworld War or the Gangland War, or even the 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.279 under Belly War. And coming up this week it's the 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:58.520 twentieth anniversary of one of the biggest events of the 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.840 Underworld War, and that is the shooting of Benji Venomon 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.679 Andrew Venemon in a Carlton restaurant on the twenty third 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.840 of March two thousand and four. Now, the twenty third 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.840 of March two thousand and four was a Tuesday, a 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:24.280 fairly drowsy autumn afternoon in Melbourne, and it turns out, 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.959 according to my colleague Mark Butler, who knows a lot 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.920 of things about police related matters. It turns out that 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.160 on that day the Purana Task Force, which of course 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.720 was a specialist task force assembled to cope with the 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.240 Underworld War. The task Force had been busy all morning 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.000 doing what it usually did, which was a surveillance of crooks, 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.000 going through the product of surveillance. So they would have 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.960 urdles of bugs on telephones, they'd have bugs on cars, 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.160 they'd be doing all that sort of stuff. They'd also 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.200 have specialist surveillance police following people, and they'd spent a 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.960 lot of time going through that product and analyzing it, 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:06.480 looking for patterns and connections and all the rest of it. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.800 And of course, ultimately that amount of resources is what 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.799 solved the Underworld War and got a lot of people 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.440 behind bars. But at this stage in early two thousand 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.160 and four, they had a string of unsolved murders behind them. 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.880 They'd had six in two thousand and three alone, and 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.800 it went all the way back in a particular chain 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.280 of events to the death, the violent death of Mark 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.959 Moran outside his home in Abbefeldi back in mid two 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.040 thousand and two. So the police were like the boy 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.359 with the barrow. They had the job in front of them. 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.320 On that afternoon, they were having a meeting at the 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.959 Purana headquarters, and the meeting was really to swap ideas, 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.799 swap a bit of underworld, a gossip and rumor, and 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:58.560 basically compare notes on what they were achieving and how. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.000 And during the meeting, as happens when we have meetings anywhere, 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.440 they bunk it down and talk to each other, and 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.679 they tended to ignore phone calls because phone calls get 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.640 in the way of meetings. But at some point, shortly 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.440 after two thirty that day to thirty pm, the phone 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.640 in the inspector's office goes. It's a desk phone, and 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.960 it rings. They ignore it because they're busy. Whoever's calling 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.280 the phone doesn't give up. That person rings again and again, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.800 and the phone is starting to drive them mad. So 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.920 of course, a senior person looks across at a junior 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.480 member of the task force. The junior member jumps up, 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.320 walks into the boss's office, closes the door, picks up 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.960 the phone, says hello, and as the other guys are 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.320 watching him, they watch his body language and he stiffens 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.200 up and looks very serious, and I think what's happened. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.720 And when he comes out of the office, he waves 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.280 his hands, even though he's quite junior, this guy, this detective, 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.120 waves his hands to sort of command the rest of 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:02.040 the group to silence, and says, Benji Venamon's been shot 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.680 in Carlton, in a restaurant in Carlton. And the immediate 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.200 reaction of most of those present was, well, that'll be bullshit, 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.560 that'll be wrong. And they said, oh, yeah, who shot him? 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.920 He said, mec Gatto, And there was a silence for 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.520 a few seconds, and somebody called out, well, you better 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.159 not be bullshitting. If this is a joke, it's not 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.000 a good joke. And it turns out he wasn't. Mick 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:32.360 Gatto had, in fact shot Benji Venamon in very interesting 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:38.240 circumstances in a very small storage area you could call 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.279 it a room, but was more of a little corridor 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:46.560 at the rear of La Porgella Italian restaurant, which is 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.880 at the corner of Wrathdown and Faraday Streets in Carlton. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.719 And that was a landmark death in the Underworld War. 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.400 It was allegedly at least an attempted hit by Venomon 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.040 on gas. But if that were the case little Benji Venemon. 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:09.120 They're very prolific. Australia's busiest hit man had the tables 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:13.440 turned on him by a much larger and much stronger man. 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.400 What we all know is that Mick Gado was subsequently 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.080 charged with murder and he was acquitted, and that is 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.080 something we'll go into as we explain this. The death 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.920 of Benji Venamon, which we'll look into, was right up 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:35.400 there in notoriety with the double shooting the previous winter 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.120 of Jason Moran and he's unlucky mate, Patty Barbara, and 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.760 of course everyone knows our listeners will know that Jason Moran, 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.719 who was a target with his entire family actually of 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.599 Carl Williams. He was silly enough to come back to 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.280 Melbourne when he should have stayed overseas out of the way, 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.719 and he stayed out of the way very successfully. Because 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.200 a lot of these career crooks are very good at 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.840 account of surveillance. They get good at it from when 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.400 they're teenagers. Essentially, they're taught how to do it by 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.240 those around them and they're very difficult to follow and 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.320 to track and all that. But the people looking to 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:21.159 kill him knew that Jason Moran would go to see 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.679 his kids and other children playing football at particular venue, 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:30.159 the cross Keys Park near the cross Keys Hotel in Essendon, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.520 and that is where they caught up with him after 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.160 the game. As everyone knows, he got his kids and 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.680 I think something like ten others. There was a huge 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.480 number of children all in this oz Kick footy team, 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.039 put them in the back of his van and he 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.120 and his mate Paddy Barbara, who just happened to be 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.400 there with him watching the kids footy, are sitting in 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:56.640 the front when a gunman armed with two weapons interestingly 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.480 shot them dead. And of course some of those kids 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.160 I think there were eleven in the back altogether were 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.719 spatted with blood, bone and brain matter. It was a 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:14.040 shocking crime to do in public in daylight, not only 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.360 in front of the public, but literally in a car 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.800 full of kids. A terrible crime. That was one of 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.640 the low lights or standouts of the Underworld War. But 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.200 the shooting of benji Venamon in a restaurant in Carlton 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.320 was the other one, not so shocking in its way, 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.480 and also there were not a lot of tear shed 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.840 for benji Venamon apart from his own loved ones. The 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.400 few people in his family and circle of friends. They 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:47.600 loved him dearly naturally, but he was a violent and 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.920 a erratic hit man. We're not sure how many people 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.920 he killed, but I read a statement recently by a 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.920 fellow criminal who knew him well, who said it seemed 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.280 that he had killed a lot of people. Maybe he 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.720 said a record, at least a record south of Queensland. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.800 There is a man in Queensland who is still alive 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.680 who is reputed to have killed more than thirty people. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.840 And I doubt that Benji, at the age of twenty eight, 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.480 managed to do that many. But had he not fallen 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.320 foul of mcgatto on that day, perhaps he would have 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.680 because he was keen on it, very willing, clearly a 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:34.200 sociopathic sort of guy who met his end probably because 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.800 he was so willing to kill people. And in the end, 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:41.320 those people that he considered his allies or colleagues or 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.280 friends were just as wary of him as anyone else, 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.120 because they realized that if the money was right, he'd 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.240 kill anyone. And that is a very dangerous reputation to have. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.520 So let's run through the two protagonists of this story. Now, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.360 we've got a great, big, strong, heavy weight metgatto now 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:04.000 he's a heavyweights heavyweight. He was a heavyweight boxer once 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.360 back in the day. Not an unbelievably good one, just 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.000 a solid journeyman when he share of fights around Victoria. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.200 But big, big, broad child of man. Even when he 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.400 was fit, he was I think nudging the one hundred 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.640 kilo mark probably or more probably, And by the time 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.400 we're talking two thousand and four, he was a man 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.120 that was probably walking around at something like one hundred 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.640 and thirty plus killers. He was a very big guy 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.679 and broad, and plenty of him. I'm not sure how 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.360 high mcghatto is. He wouldn't be two meters high, but 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:45.760 he'd be one one ninety odd probably big, big guy strong. 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.000 At that stage he was in his late forties. He'd 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.720 still spar in his home gym. He could throw a 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.280 big punch, he still had the you know, some of 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.720 the reflexes that you get from boxing. And a guy 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.680 that had essentially been able to make a living with 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.560 a version of stand up at tactics for most of 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.840 his adult life. So he's no pushover. In the red corner, 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.280 ladies and gentlemen, we have Benji Venomon Bengji Venamon had 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.560 been a flyweight kickboxer back in the mid nineties, so 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.679 ten years before he was shot dead. When he's eighteen, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.880 nineteen twenty, he's a kickboxer out of Sunshine. He's a 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.720 little Greek guy. I'm not sure if his Greek straight Greek, Cypriot, Greek, whatever, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.320 but his parents were i think reasonably devout Greek Orthodox 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:41.840 parents who had he and his siblings out there in Sunshine, Maine. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.320 And he probably was always a small guy, and like 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.800 a lot of small guys, he learned how to handle 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.280 himself and was pretty fierce, pretty hard at it, like 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.400 a blant And you know when he forty fifty two 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.599 and a half killos, Now this is flyweight, it was 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.280 a fly wait fighter fifty two and a half kilos. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:08.760 There are teenage jockeys, there are female jockeys, such as 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.560 the apprentice Celine Gordray, who had to starve herself for 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.160 two weeks to ride in the Newmarket handicap at fifty 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.920 two and a half kilos. That is how small Benji 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.520 Venamon was when he was fit fifty two and a 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.920 half and even after that, when he gave up boxing 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.079 and took up eating and shooting people. He might have made, 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.360 you know, fifty nine kilos. He was jockey size Jockey Waite. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:40.320 Now these are two very different men. There's no doubt 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.200 that Mick Gaddo, who is still out and about and 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.360 doing the best he can, that he would know most 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.400 movers and shakers in the Melbourne underworld and to some 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:56.880 extent the Australian underworld, but especially Melbourne, and especially some 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.920 pockets of Melbourne. And I would have said, you know, 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.679 the Inner West, the Inner North and central area around 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.079 Carlton and the inner suburbs was his patch. Mic Gatto 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.839 of course is famous, as you know, being one of 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.320 the main men in what is called the Carlton or 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.560 was called the Carlton Crew. By two thousand and four, 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:23.760 Alfons Gangatano was long dead, Mark Moran was dead and 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.400 Jason Marine was dead. So the ranks were starting to 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.480 thin a bit in the Carlton Crew and that would 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.280 have left Mick Ghadow as an even more dominating figure 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.280 in that group. Gatdo doing what he did, which was 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:43.680 to notionally broker peace settlements between warring parties. You know, 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.480 he would have builders on one side and unions and 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.280 workers on the other and he would negotiate industrial settlements 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:57.000 in talking marks. When developers would be having trouble getting 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.280 their buildings built on time and on budget, they would 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.160 pay Uncle Mick, you know, five thousand to have a 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.520 cup of coffee, and then another large amount of money 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.600 if he could settle something for them and thrash out 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.800 a compromise with unions or whatever it might be. So 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.240 he was a guy that knew a lot of people, 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.000 but ultimately some of the people he knew would have 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.679 to be the sort of people that were willing, as 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.360 they say in Underworld, willing to shoot people. And one 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.160 of those people that he knew on his rise from 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:38.320 the kickboxing ring was Benji Venemon, because Benji had moved 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:44.520 on from the kickboxing into bodyguarding, standover that sort of stuff, 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:49.080 pinching cars, the usual sort of criminal progress. But Benji 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.920 had shown a liking for guns and gunplay and showed 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.800 that he was extremely willing to shoot people, and his 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.360 reputation preceded him. And there is no doubt that people 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:05.920 like Mick Gatto not only knew of him, but knew 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.240 him because they made it their business to know people 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.360 like Benji Venemon for good reasons. One is that they'd 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.640 like to know if they saw him coming. And the 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.680 other is that sometimes they might be able to advise 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.640 someone to throw a bit of work Benji's way. This 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:27.120 is the way that underworld works. So you can rest 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.720 assured that Mick Gatto knew plenty about Benji, even if 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.880 he was later able to tell police that he hardly 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:38.360 ever met him, etc. Etc. But in the underworld, most 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:43.880 friendships are for sale. In the end, everyone's pretty well 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.040 out for themselves to look after themselves and their own family, 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:52.240 and perhaps they're very closest friends. Outside that circle, they're 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.320 pretty cold blooded and they take a coldly economic view 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:03.080 of other members of the underworld. Last month's friend, ally 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:08.560 colleague might become next year's enemy. And this happened with 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:14.080 ghadow Envenoment, and it happened pretty well. Back in mid 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.160 two thousand and two, there was a very ugly scene 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.000 at this same restaurant, l'a Purcella, the one in the 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:27.240 corner of Rathdownen Faraday. Clearly it was the restaurant where 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.840 business was done, and on this day in two thousand 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:35.160 and two, there was a meeting of around ten very 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.640 interesting figures underworld figures and among them was the Bulgarian 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:45.040 drug dealer, evil bad, violent, nasty, brutal man called Nick Radev. 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:51.200 Later ended up dead and he had an imported bodyguard. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.520 I bought a muscle a guy called Troy mccanty who 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:59.200 was from Perth. Troy mccanty was a member of the 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.320 Coffin Cheet, his motorcycle gang in Perth and regarded him 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:08.880 Perth as a very dangerous and capable stand over man 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.280 and all the rest of it. And for Nick Radev 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.760 to have him at this meeting probably meant something. What 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:21.280 happened was there was a disagreement between Radev and the 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:25.360 rising drug baron Tony Mockbell at this meeting in mid 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:29.400 two thousand and two. And what happened next was Troy 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.640 mccanty was slipped off the leash like a pitbull terrier 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:39.119 and he bashed Tony Mockbell after death. He really savagely 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.880 bashed him. And at this meeting, apart from Mick Gaddo 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.680 and others, there was a little Benji Venamon and Benji 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.880 Venamon I'm not sure if he was there at the 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.360 invitation of Mockbell. He may well have been their sort 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.800 of bodyguarding it's hard to say, but in the event, 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.560 he wasn't able to prevent mcanty from doing what he did, 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:04.240 but he took Mockbell straight to a doctor to they say, 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.280 a woman doctor that he knew, and she was able 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:11.000 to treat Mockbell and possibly haven't saved his life. He 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.119 might have been bleeding a lot or whatever. He was 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:18.800 in a bad way and Venamon was able to get 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.360 him to treatment on time and pretty well save him. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.160 Now that connection built a relationship between those two, between 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.960 Venomon and Mockbell, so that they were friendly after that. 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:34.960 And this was a friendship which became probably a thorn 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.879 in the side of people like Gatto who were in 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.280 the carl And crew, because Mockbell was friendly with the 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.480 non Carlton crew people. Mockbell was friendly with Carl Williams. 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.800 Carl Williams, of course, had started the whole Underworld War, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.359 the main bit of it as basically a vendetta of 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.119 revenge after the Moran Brothers had shot him in the 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.080 belly with a small pistol back in nineteen ninety nine. 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.760 And really the whole Underworld War was a war of 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:11.840 extermination paid for by Carl Williams, who sent various gunment 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.439 out to bowl over his enemies, and one of his 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:18.840 gunmen was Venomin. His favorite gunment was Venomin. The fact 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:23.679 that Venamon was increasingly friendly with mock Bell and hence 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:28.119 with Carl Williams, meant that Gatto and his friends in 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.720 the Carlton Crew would start to look at Venomin Askance 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:37.520 as a potential enemy. Now, notionally, he's a freelance gunman, 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.360 he's a gun for hire, but Gatto and those other 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:47.119 fairly wise fairly seasoned crooks would realize that he was 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.440 potentially dangerous to basically anyone if someone paid him. And 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:57.000 so there was an escalating sense of hostility and unease. 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.240 And this came to some sort of head in early 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:06.520 December two thousand and three, when Graham Kinneborough, alias the Munster, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.200 was shot dead outside his house towards midnight in Belmont 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:17.080 Avenue in kew Kinneborough was a grandfather, lived a quiet life. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.240 He was, as our listeners had been regarded as a 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:26.600 genius safecracker, a career criminal, smart guy, not necessarily a 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.480 violent man most of the time, probably had been once 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.280 but not any more two wise for that, and he 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.560 was shot dead in his own driveway by unknown assailants 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.080 in December two thousand and three, and although the assailants 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:45.120 at that point were unknown, later identified Kinnerborough's friends, including 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:50.280 Mick Gatto, who really liked Kinneborough. They saw it as 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.879 an act of war by Carl Williams and his crew, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.560 and they saw Venomon as being part of that crew. Now, 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.280 the the truth is that the police that were watching 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.440 Venamon and watching all the bad guys at this point, 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.760 within about a week or two, they knew from their 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:14.639 surveillance product, you know, car staff for telephone tapes, all 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.240 the rest of it, they knew that Venamon was nowhere 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.679 near Graham Kinniber's house and not Kinnebre was killed. So 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.639 the police actually knew pretty quickly that Venamon had not 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.679 pulled the trigger. However, even if Gatto had heard that 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.240 from a friendly police source, which he might have, he 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.639 knew very well that whoever paid somebody to pull the 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.720 trigger on his friend Kinneburgh was probably Carl Williams, and 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:46.280 therefore that Venomon presented a threat, an ongoing threat. Only 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.399 nine days after Kinnibur's shooting, they had a bit of 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.679 a council of war and they called this Council of 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.399 War in the Crown Casino. And the reason for that 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.560 is the casino is absolutely full of surveillance cameras, and 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:04.400 the warring parties knew that no sane person would take 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:08.160 a gun into Grand Casino or produce it because you'd 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.480 be seen and filmed and that'd be that. So it 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:15.000 was a safe space for all concern to meet and talk. Also, 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.359 the noise in the bars there would make it very 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.639 difficult or impossible for police or anyone else to record 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.840 what they were saying, because the cacophony of noise would 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.280 drown out things and they'd be able to talk into 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.919 each other's ears without anybody hearing it. It's quite a 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:38.240 secure place. Of course, there are these security cameras which 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.200 are filming them, and the police were very interested in 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.720 that meeting, and they could see Carl Williams talking fairly 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:50.000 guardedly with mcgaddow, and they could tell that it wasn't 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.480 overly friendly. The police could also see from this footage 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:58.760 that the end of the proceedings that little Venomin had 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:03.520 reached up and kissed Gatto on the cheek like Hollywood 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.280 gangster style. Bit hard when you're five foot six to 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:08.760 kiss a guy that's six foot five or something. But 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.520 he did because he'd send the films. And although he's 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:14.879 not a made man in the mafia, because he's a 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.840 Greek boy, he did it anyway, which shows you these guys, 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.359 you know, they watch too many movies. I suspect. The 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:26.880 police were able to get a lipbreader to play back 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.719 the security tapes on the cameras from the casino and 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.960 to see what was actually said, and they were very 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.880 interested in this. The lipbretting experts were able to tell 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:44.520 the police that Gatto told Williams Carl Williams, anything with you, 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.800 that's your problem. But if anything comes my way, then 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:52.240 I'll send somebody to you. I'll be careful with you. You 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.359 be careful with me. I believe you, You believe me. 0:22:55.840 --> 0:23:03.000 Now we're even. That's a warning clear that this was 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:08.440 although the language was reasonably careful, it was a warning. 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.840 And the warning, of course, although directed at Williams, who 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:16.479 was the paymaster, was also for Venomin, the guy that 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.080 Williams paid to knock off so many people. I don't 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.359 know what mcado would make have been kissed by a 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.800 crazy sawn off little Greek hitman, but he might have thought, 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.920 having been to mass all those years with his mum, 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:36.639 that it was a Judas kiss. In our next episode, 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:42.120 we will show how this relationship went south, very quickly 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:53.439 and very violently. Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:57.600 a Sunday Herald Sun production for true crime Australia. Our 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:01.880 producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:07.680 go to Heroldsun dot com dot au forward slash Andrew 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:13.800 rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:17.800 sold at news dot com dot au. That is all 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:22.600 one word news podcasts sold And if you want further 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:27.200 information about this episode, links are in the description