Speaker 1: If the difference between good crooks and bad thugs is
Speaker 1: inside information and shrewd preparation, then the mystery man in
Speaker 1: the high viz vest is one of the best in
Speaker 1: the badness business. Trimboli was somehow able to stay ahead
Speaker 1: of Australian authorities. Who's clumsy and cackhanded pursuit of the
Speaker 1: country's most wanted man raised eyebrows. If not questions by
Speaker 1: Andrew Rules, is life in crimes today? We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about something that my colleague Mark Butler threw up.
Speaker 1: He said, it seems to him, after many years of
Speaker 1: writing about crime, that inside information is something that links
Speaker 1: together a lot of big crimes and successful crimes. Crooks
Speaker 1: that know how to get it and to use it
Speaker 1: are way ahead of the rest. And to illustrate that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell a story of a jewel heist
Speaker 1: and then some other stories. The man who got away
Speaker 1: with the jewelry heist of the decade wanted to be invisible,
Speaker 1: so naturally he wore a bright orange high visibility vest
Speaker 1: and one of the standard blue paper masks that were
Speaker 1: still common after the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Too easy.
Speaker 1: It was December fourth, twenty twenty three, and even at
Speaker 1: three in the morning, a calm and confident guy in
Speaker 1: high viz and a mask didn't set off any alarm
Speaker 1: bells in the main loading bay of Chadstone Shopping Center. Chaddy,
Speaker 1: of course, is the biggest shopping center in the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaker 1: The reality of supplying five hundred and fifty stores and
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand square meters of floor space on a
Speaker 1: site bigger than most dairy farms means that behind the
Speaker 1: glossy shop fronts, there's usually some activity in the basement
Speaker 1: of the building. So if you wander in there in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night wearing high visit a COVID mask,
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to set off any bells. The
Speaker 1: intriguing thing about this particular thief was not that he
Speaker 1: infiltrated the loading bay on the lower ground level, but
Speaker 1: that he clearly knew his way around obscure corridors that
Speaker 1: led him upstairs to the back door of Kennedy. Now,
Speaker 1: Kennedy is nothing to do with the late American president.
Speaker 1: Kennedy is the name of a luxury goods boutique that
Speaker 1: specializes in elite jewelry and Swiss watches. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit sort of like our local version of Tiffany. Maybe.
Speaker 1: At the front, the Kennedy store is imposing, well lit
Speaker 1: and secure. It has all the glittering stone, metal and
Speaker 1: plate glass that gets people in to buy jewelry watches
Speaker 1: by appointment for close to six figures, in other words,
Speaker 1: the price of a good new car. We're talking watches
Speaker 1: worth between fifty and ninety thousand dollars, many of them.
Speaker 1: But it was the back door of the store that
Speaker 1: this thief knew how to navigate. In less than four minutes,
Speaker 1: according to security cameras, our man had got into the store,
Speaker 1: grabbed thirty high end watches worth about two million dollars retail,
Speaker 1: and bolted the hall. Included eight rare Rolexes and several
Speaker 1: very valuable Frank Mueller timepieces.
Speaker 2: At the time, this is only two.
Speaker 1: Years ago, Rollexes were so scarce there was a buyer
Speaker 1: waiting list, so our high vizman, no doubt could score
Speaker 1: a premium for them on the black market, either here
Speaker 1: or overseas, or a little bit of both. Now, success
Speaker 1: breeds imitation. Six months later, almost of the day in
Speaker 1: late May twenty twenty four, four thieves used the same
Speaker 1: loading bay to break into the same shop all over
Speaker 1: again into Kennedy. So the chadgten. External security had obviously
Speaker 1: not improved much, but inside the store, new procedures ensured
Speaker 1: that the most expensive stock was now locked away in
Speaker 1: heavy safes overnight. The result was that these second wave
Speaker 1: thieves got away with far less. Interestingly, nobody has been
Speaker 1: charged with either crime, so in two years the police
Speaker 1: have not laid a glove on either the first highly
Speaker 1: successful thief or the bunch of four. Now for high
Speaker 1: profile entrepreneur James Kennedy, who owns the business, and his
Speaker 1: glamorous wife, Jamie Bell Kennedy, the defts were a stepback
Speaker 1: in what had been a meteoric rise after Kennedy Junior
Speaker 1: revolutionized the business that his father Louis had started in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies. For the first time in a decade,
Speaker 1: the Kennedy couple learned that it's not true that any
Speaker 1: publicity is good publicity. As some observers pointed out, the
Speaker 1: first Chasten heist followed Jamie Bell's eye catching display of
Speaker 1: wealth on social media, modeling designer clothes and accessories. One
Speaker 1: Gossip columnist noted, many have said former waitress Jamie Bell's
Speaker 1: decision to flash her cash may have prompted the robbery.
Speaker 1: An insider said of the same young woman, She's had
Speaker 1: a bit of a scare. It's made her think twice about.
Speaker 2: What she posts.
Speaker 1: So this is, of course the flip side of social media,
Speaker 1: that it can attract the wrong sort of attention. Even
Speaker 1: the brashest influences can learn from a bruising experience like
Speaker 1: that something that cunning crooks and prudent millionaires know very well,
Speaker 1: and that is this inside information is as crucial to
Speaker 1: career criminals as it is to stock market sharks and
Speaker 1: professional punters.
Speaker 2: As in horse punters.
Speaker 1: Police investigating the first Kennedy raid had little doubt that
Speaker 1: someone with inside help was responsible, whether they were using
Speaker 1: firsthand knowledge or were well briefed by a secret source.
Speaker 1: The thief was able to reach Kennedy's back door fast
Speaker 1: and knew exactly how to get through it and which
Speaker 1: watches to grab. If the difference between good crooks and
Speaker 1: bad thugs is inside information and shrewd preparation, then the
Speaker 1: mystery man in the high viz vest is one of
Speaker 1: the best in the badness business that his identity is
Speaker 1: still unknown own more than two years later, indicates the
Speaker 1: skill and discipline of the sharp minds on the dark side.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that the Kennedy Watch thief is connected
Speaker 1: with what we crime reporters have dubbed the Gym Gang.
Speaker 1: When we say the Gym Gang, we mean the Gymnasium Gang,
Speaker 1: a group of longtime martial artists and boxes known to
Speaker 1: have pulled a series of heists in the quarter century
Speaker 1: after they debuted with a big Victorian Railway's payroll stick
Speaker 1: up from a train at Ascott Vale back in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two. They've been with us a while, these guys
Speaker 1: in that one and each of their other heists over
Speaker 1: about twenty four years. The gang members were as patient
Speaker 1: and well prepared as commandos on a mission, often posing
Speaker 1: as harmless workers by using clothes, props, and disguises.
Speaker 2: Above all, this.
Speaker 1: Gang prized inside information, the difference between coup professionals and
Speaker 1: those who spend their lives in jail. The Kennedy raids
Speaker 1: happened some years after the Gym Gang's string of elite jobs,
Speaker 1: which were executed over twenty four years, But a thought
Speaker 1: that might niggle detectives wondering about good crooks with local
Speaker 1: knowledge of Chadstone. Is this one of the Jim Gang
Speaker 1: kingpins has always lived in the area, which makes him
Speaker 1: favorite for two unsolved robberies at the shopping center in
Speaker 1: one hectic period nearly thirty years earlier, thirty years before
Speaker 1: this Kennedy Watch theft, there were two robberies at Chadston.
Speaker 1: In February ninety four. There was an armored van robbery
Speaker 1: of one hundred and seven thousand dollars plus the security
Speaker 1: guard's pistols. It was followed just three months later by
Speaker 1: an eighty thousand dollar robbery in eight people were coolly
Speaker 1: shot in the legs for daring to disobey orders not
Speaker 1: to resist or not to follow the robber. Investigators back
Speaker 1: then soon wondered if one or both of the nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four Chadston robberies were in fact practice runs to
Speaker 1: pull together cash and guns ready for a really big heist.
Speaker 1: The audacious two point three million dollar fake road crew
Speaker 1: robbery of an armor guard cash fan near the freeway
Speaker 1: entrance at the Cremorn end of Richmond just weeks after
Speaker 1: the second Chadston robbery. So what we've got here is
Speaker 1: too smaller robberies with guns of money at Chadsten shopping Center,
Speaker 1: followed within weeks by this great big one, which we've
Speaker 1: often talked about on the podcast. The Gym Gang were
Speaker 1: and are hardened armed robbers capable of extreme violence, but
Speaker 1: investigators believe they were also happy to use sleight of
Speaker 1: hand and specialized in cultivating insiders to set.
Speaker 2: Up large scale heists.
Speaker 1: One example of that was at Perth Airport in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, when one hundred thousand dollars cash was
Speaker 1: inexplicably dropped from an airport trolley somewhere between the cargo
Speaker 1: shed and an aeroplane. And at Sunshine Plaza in Melbourne's
Speaker 1: West in two thousand and six, more than one million
Speaker 1: dollars was smoothly lifted from an armored van when a
Speaker 1: guard just happened to leave the vehicle unguarded long enough
Speaker 1: for a thief dressed in armor guard uniform to grab
Speaker 1: the loot. In a notorious nineteen ninety four fake road
Speaker 1: gang heist at Richmond we just mentioned, an armored van
Speaker 1: was opened by a robber miraculously supplied with the right key,
Speaker 1: a plot device worthy of Hollywood and sort of Ocean's
Speaker 1: eleven stuff. Then there was the fire one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars robbery at Meyer's City Store in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: Every one of these crimes demanded nerve and timing, but
Speaker 1: each depended totally on inside information, just like the biggest
Speaker 1: heists and hits in Australian crime history. A big reference
Speaker 1: point for the power of inside information is the great
Speaker 1: bookie robbery at the Victorian Club in Melbourne in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six. As most listeners will know, the very well
Speaker 1: rehearsed robbery crew had pulled together several layers of inside knowledge.
Speaker 1: One was that the first bookmaker's settling day after three
Speaker 1: Easter race meetings would be a bumper amount of cash,
Speaker 1: far more than at any other settling up that year.
Speaker 1: Second was the fact there was a forgotten and unused
Speaker 1: side door to the settling room, linking it to an
Speaker 1: unused air landing in the building next door. A marvelous
Speaker 1: piece of inside knowledge, this door that was painted over
Speaker 1: was still there and could be accessed if you knew
Speaker 1: where to do it. Third was that a bent senior policeman,
Speaker 1: the late Eric Jenetsky, it is said, could ensure that
Speaker 1: crime squad detectives who usually turned up for settling day
Speaker 1: acting as unofficial armed security for the bookies, were diverted
Speaker 1: at the last minute. They were sent on a wild
Speaker 1: goose chase down to Frankston or somewhere, leaving big bags
Speaker 1: of cash delivered by armored car virtually unguarded once it
Speaker 1: was taken into the settling room in the Victorian Club.
Speaker 1: So all these three factors were at play. They were
Speaker 1: all inside information and that is what made the bookie
Speaker 1: robbery the perfect crime. But it didn't protect the robbers
Speaker 1: from underworld reprisals or from each other. When the ring
Speaker 1: leader Ray Chuck also known as Raymond Patrick Bennett, appeared
Speaker 1: in Melbourne Magistrates Court on minor chargers in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: his enemies knew he would be.
Speaker 2: Escorted upstairs to a particular courtroom.
Speaker 1: And they also knew that if he went to jail
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to get him.
Speaker 2: He'd be quite secure in jail.
Speaker 1: They knew their last chance was when he appeared Melbourne
Speaker 1: Magistrates Court for the foreseeable future, and so they knew
Speaker 1: he'd be escorted upstairs, and so that's where his bearded
Speaker 1: assassin waited, disguised as a lawyer. After shooting Chuck, the
Speaker 1: hitman escaped down a labyrinth of backstairs to a hidden
Speaker 1: car park where someone had earlier loosened and bent a
Speaker 1: sheet of corrugated iron to allow him to slip into
Speaker 1: the r MIT car park next door and escape by
Speaker 1: car to the airport so he could fly to Perth
Speaker 1: with his brother. In other words, the robber who had
Speaker 1: exploited inside information to stage the bookie robbery was in
Speaker 1: turn executed by enemies with inside information. Raychuck lived by
Speaker 1: the sword and died by the sword. The shooter, although
Speaker 1: widely suspected, was never charged over the brazen courtroom hit.
Speaker 1: His name was Brian Kane, and exactly three years later,
Speaker 1: perhaps not a coincidence, he was ambushed by two masked
Speaker 1: men in the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: The hit team obviously had good information. When drug baron
Speaker 1: Tony Mockbell was flying high in the late nineties, he
Speaker 1: cultivated people who could provide information from pizza deliverers to
Speaker 1: friendly police and of course certain lawyers. No names, no
Speaker 1: pack drill, but Nicola Goobo comes to mind. It was
Speaker 1: a lawyer who warned him in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: he would soon be charged with murder, a tip that
Speaker 1: let him stage his audacious escape on a yacht to
Speaker 1: hide in Greece. I don't believe it was actually Nicolagobo
Speaker 1: that tipped him off, it was another lawyer. Mockbell might
Speaker 1: have remained a free spending fugitive for years if one
Speaker 1: of his gangs insiders, a man known as the Musician,
Speaker 1: had not switched sides and handed skeptical detectives a USB
Speaker 1: stick full of secret telephone numbers and bank details revealing
Speaker 1: Mockbell's Athens hideaway. So the drug baron who escaped using
Speaker 1: inside information was caught the same way. The Mockbell equivalent
Speaker 1: of a previous generation, Robert Ossie Bob Trimboli, was also
Speaker 1: tipped off by a corrupt cop to flee the country
Speaker 1: in early nineteen eighty one to avoid being forced to
Speaker 1: testify at a looming royal commission.
Speaker 2: He went to Ireland via the United.
Speaker 1: States, and although he was briefly jailed in Ireland later
Speaker 1: after living there peacefully under a false name, Trimboli was
Speaker 1: somehow able to stay ahead of Australian authorities, whose clumsy
Speaker 1: and cackhander pursuit of the country's most wanted man raised
Speaker 1: eyebrows if not questions turned out that illness did what
Speaker 1: the world's police could not. The man who'd got the
Speaker 1: mail from bent police, customs officers and jockeys for years
Speaker 1: could stay ahead of the Pozzi, but he could not
Speaker 1: escape from a much deadlier enemy cancer. When Trimboli died
Speaker 1: in Spain in nineteen eighty seven, with his long term
Speaker 1: lover Anne Marie Preslent at his bedside, legendary News Corp
Speaker 1: correspondent Bruce Wilson wrote words to the effect of if
Speaker 1: Robert trimbaally was our most wanted man, the second most
Speaker 1: wanted can sleep very soundly. Indeed, Wilson might also have
Speaker 1: made a crack about tracking elephants through snow, something that
Speaker 1: upset the Federal police, as I recall. But history is
Speaker 1: on Bruce Wilson's side, of course. The truth is there's
Speaker 1: nothing quite as useful to a crook as inside information.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for
Speaker 1: True Crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns,
Speaker 1: features and more, go to Haroldson dot com dot AU
Speaker 1: forward slash, andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go
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Speaker 1: That is all one word news podcast's sold. And if
Speaker 1: you want further information about this episode, links are in
Speaker 1: the description.