WEBVTT - Our man on the inside 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.240 If the difference between good crooks and bad thugs is 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:09.200 inside information and shrewd preparation, then the mystery man in 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.400 the high viz vest is one of the best in 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:18.439 the badness business. Trimboli was somehow able to stay ahead 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:24.760 of Australian authorities. Who's clumsy and cackhanded pursuit of the 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:30.200 country's most wanted man raised eyebrows. If not questions by 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.320 Andrew Rules, is life in crimes today? We're going to 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.640 talk about something that my colleague Mark Butler threw up. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.360 He said, it seems to him, after many years of 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.200 writing about crime, that inside information is something that links 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:51.520 together a lot of big crimes and successful crimes. Crooks 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.120 that know how to get it and to use it 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.920 are way ahead of the rest. And to illustrate that, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.120 I'm going to tell a story of a jewel heist 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.000 and then some other stories. The man who got away 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.120 with the jewelry heist of the decade wanted to be invisible, 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.400 so naturally he wore a bright orange high visibility vest 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.840 and one of the standard blue paper masks that were 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.240 still common after the pandemic. 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:22.240 Too easy. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.840 It was December fourth, twenty twenty three, and even at 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.240 three in the morning, a calm and confident guy in 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.880 high viz and a mask didn't set off any alarm 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:40.440 bells in the main loading bay of Chadstone Shopping Center. Chaddy, 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.240 of course, is the biggest shopping center in the Southern Hemisphere. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.560 The reality of supplying five hundred and fifty stores and 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:52.640 two hundred thousand square meters of floor space on a 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.440 site bigger than most dairy farms means that behind the 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:01.560 glossy shop fronts, there's usually some activity in the basement 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.560 of the building. So if you wander in there in 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.800 the middle of the night wearing high visit a COVID mask, 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.959 you're probably not going to set off any bells. The 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.080 intriguing thing about this particular thief was not that he 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.919 infiltrated the loading bay on the lower ground level, but 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.400 that he clearly knew his way around obscure corridors that 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:29.000 led him upstairs to the back door of Kennedy. Now, 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.320 Kennedy is nothing to do with the late American president. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.960 Kennedy is the name of a luxury goods boutique that 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:42.760 specializes in elite jewelry and Swiss watches. It's a little 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.639 bit sort of like our local version of Tiffany. Maybe. 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.920 At the front, the Kennedy store is imposing, well lit 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.000 and secure. It has all the glittering stone, metal and 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.799 plate glass that gets people in to buy jewelry watches 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:06.760 by appointment for close to six figures, in other words, 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.160 the price of a good new car. We're talking watches 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.600 worth between fifty and ninety thousand dollars, many of them. 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.200 But it was the back door of the store that 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:23.079 this thief knew how to navigate. In less than four minutes, 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.360 according to security cameras, our man had got into the store, 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:32.160 grabbed thirty high end watches worth about two million dollars retail, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:37.480 and bolted the hall. Included eight rare Rolexes and several 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.280 very valuable Frank Mueller timepieces. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.040 At the time, this is only two. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.800 Years ago, Rollexes were so scarce there was a buyer 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:53.560 waiting list, so our high vizman, no doubt could score 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.680 a premium for them on the black market, either here 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.400 or overseas, or a little bit of both. Now, success 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.800 breeds imitation. Six months later, almost of the day in 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.240 late May twenty twenty four, four thieves used the same 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.280 loading bay to break into the same shop all over 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.960 again into Kennedy. So the chadgten. External security had obviously 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:22.760 not improved much, but inside the store, new procedures ensured 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.960 that the most expensive stock was now locked away in 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:31.000 heavy safes overnight. The result was that these second wave 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.400 thieves got away with far less. Interestingly, nobody has been 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.920 charged with either crime, so in two years the police 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.040 have not laid a glove on either the first highly 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:50.680 successful thief or the bunch of four. Now for high 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:55.800 profile entrepreneur James Kennedy, who owns the business, and his 0:04:56.000 --> 0:05:01.400 glamorous wife, Jamie Bell Kennedy, the defts were a stepback 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.200 in what had been a meteoric rise after Kennedy Junior 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.000 revolutionized the business that his father Louis had started in 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.520 the late nineteen seventies. For the first time in a decade, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.160 the Kennedy couple learned that it's not true that any 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:22.919 publicity is good publicity. As some observers pointed out, the 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.080 first Chasten heist followed Jamie Bell's eye catching display of 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:32.960 wealth on social media, modeling designer clothes and accessories. One 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:38.719 Gossip columnist noted, many have said former waitress Jamie Bell's 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.479 decision to flash her cash may have prompted the robbery. 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.680 An insider said of the same young woman, She's had 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.200 a bit of a scare. It's made her think twice about. 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:51.960 What she posts. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.200 So this is, of course the flip side of social media, 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.279 that it can attract the wrong sort of attention. Even 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.120 the brashest influences can learn from a bruising experience like 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:08.480 that something that cunning crooks and prudent millionaires know very well, 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.640 and that is this inside information is as crucial to 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.919 career criminals as it is to stock market sharks and 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:17.040 professional punters. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.159 As in horse punters. 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:24.080 Police investigating the first Kennedy raid had little doubt that 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:29.919 someone with inside help was responsible, whether they were using 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.720 firsthand knowledge or were well briefed by a secret source. 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.160 The thief was able to reach Kennedy's back door fast 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.839 and knew exactly how to get through it and which 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.240 watches to grab. If the difference between good crooks and 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:51.480 bad thugs is inside information and shrewd preparation, then the 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.320 mystery man in the high viz vest is one of 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:59.400 the best in the badness business that his identity is 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.960 still unknown own more than two years later, indicates the 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:08.280 skill and discipline of the sharp minds on the dark side. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.760 There's no evidence that the Kennedy Watch thief is connected 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.600 with what we crime reporters have dubbed the Gym Gang. 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.800 When we say the Gym Gang, we mean the Gymnasium Gang, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.840 a group of longtime martial artists and boxes known to 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.400 have pulled a series of heists in the quarter century 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:33.200 after they debuted with a big Victorian Railway's payroll stick 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.720 up from a train at Ascott Vale back in nineteen 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.280 eighty two. They've been with us a while, these guys 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.920 in that one and each of their other heists over 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:47.040 about twenty four years. The gang members were as patient 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.920 and well prepared as commandos on a mission, often posing 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:57.240 as harmless workers by using clothes, props, and disguises. 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.120 Above all, this. 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:04.800 Gang prized inside information, the difference between coup professionals and 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.400 those who spend their lives in jail. The Kennedy raids 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:13.080 happened some years after the Gym Gang's string of elite jobs, 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:17.920 which were executed over twenty four years, But a thought 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.360 that might niggle detectives wondering about good crooks with local 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.800 knowledge of Chadstone. Is this one of the Jim Gang 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:32.160 kingpins has always lived in the area, which makes him 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.800 favorite for two unsolved robberies at the shopping center in 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:41.720 one hectic period nearly thirty years earlier, thirty years before 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:46.080 this Kennedy Watch theft, there were two robberies at Chadston. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.200 In February ninety four. There was an armored van robbery 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.000 of one hundred and seven thousand dollars plus the security 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.559 guard's pistols. It was followed just three months later by 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.520 an eighty thousand dollar robbery in eight people were coolly 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.240 shot in the legs for daring to disobey orders not 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.880 to resist or not to follow the robber. Investigators back 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.400 then soon wondered if one or both of the nineteen 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.840 ninety four Chadston robberies were in fact practice runs to 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:22.880 pull together cash and guns ready for a really big heist. 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.600 The audacious two point three million dollar fake road crew 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.920 robbery of an armor guard cash fan near the freeway 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.880 entrance at the Cremorn end of Richmond just weeks after 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.920 the second Chadston robbery. So what we've got here is 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:44.480 too smaller robberies with guns of money at Chadsten shopping Center, 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.280 followed within weeks by this great big one, which we've 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:52.000 often talked about on the podcast. The Gym Gang were 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.160 and are hardened armed robbers capable of extreme violence, but 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.080 investigators believe they were also happy to use sleight of 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:06.360 hand and specialized in cultivating insiders to set. 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.320 Up large scale heists. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.040 One example of that was at Perth Airport in two 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.400 thousand and five, when one hundred thousand dollars cash was 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:19.600 inexplicably dropped from an airport trolley somewhere between the cargo 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.559 shed and an aeroplane. And at Sunshine Plaza in Melbourne's 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.280 West in two thousand and six, more than one million 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.480 dollars was smoothly lifted from an armored van when a 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.120 guard just happened to leave the vehicle unguarded long enough 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.520 for a thief dressed in armor guard uniform to grab 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.840 the loot. In a notorious nineteen ninety four fake road 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.040 gang heist at Richmond we just mentioned, an armored van 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.240 was opened by a robber miraculously supplied with the right key, 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.320 a plot device worthy of Hollywood and sort of Ocean's 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.760 eleven stuff. Then there was the fire one hundred thousand 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.560 dollars robbery at Meyer's City Store in nineteen ninety three. 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.800 Every one of these crimes demanded nerve and timing, but 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:14.920 each depended totally on inside information, just like the biggest 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:20.680 heists and hits in Australian crime history. A big reference 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.560 point for the power of inside information is the great 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.720 bookie robbery at the Victorian Club in Melbourne in nineteen 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.800 seventy six. As most listeners will know, the very well 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:35.880 rehearsed robbery crew had pulled together several layers of inside knowledge. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.480 One was that the first bookmaker's settling day after three 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.880 Easter race meetings would be a bumper amount of cash, 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.560 far more than at any other settling up that year. 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:54.840 Second was the fact there was a forgotten and unused 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.920 side door to the settling room, linking it to an 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.559 unused air landing in the building next door. A marvelous 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.520 piece of inside knowledge, this door that was painted over 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.080 was still there and could be accessed if you knew 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:16.640 where to do it. Third was that a bent senior policeman, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.480 the late Eric Jenetsky, it is said, could ensure that 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.160 crime squad detectives who usually turned up for settling day 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:30.679 acting as unofficial armed security for the bookies, were diverted 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.400 at the last minute. They were sent on a wild 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.120 goose chase down to Frankston or somewhere, leaving big bags 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:43.600 of cash delivered by armored car virtually unguarded once it 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.640 was taken into the settling room in the Victorian Club. 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.520 So all these three factors were at play. They were 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:57.840 all inside information and that is what made the bookie 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.840 robbery the perfect crime. But it didn't protect the robbers 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.520 from underworld reprisals or from each other. When the ring 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.720 leader Ray Chuck also known as Raymond Patrick Bennett, appeared 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.400 in Melbourne Magistrates Court on minor chargers in nineteen seventy nine, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:16.800 his enemies knew he would be. 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.720 Escorted upstairs to a particular courtroom. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.320 And they also knew that if he went to jail 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:23.880 they wouldn't be able to get him. 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:25.880 He'd be quite secure in jail. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.400 They knew their last chance was when he appeared Melbourne 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.880 Magistrates Court for the foreseeable future, and so they knew 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.840 he'd be escorted upstairs, and so that's where his bearded 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:44.319 assassin waited, disguised as a lawyer. After shooting Chuck, the 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.480 hitman escaped down a labyrinth of backstairs to a hidden 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.520 car park where someone had earlier loosened and bent a 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.440 sheet of corrugated iron to allow him to slip into 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.400 the r MIT car park next door and escape by 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.840 car to the airport so he could fly to Perth 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:07.880 with his brother. In other words, the robber who had 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.640 exploited inside information to stage the bookie robbery was in 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:19.840 turn executed by enemies with inside information. Raychuck lived by 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:24.160 the sword and died by the sword. The shooter, although 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.800 widely suspected, was never charged over the brazen courtroom hit. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.720 His name was Brian Kane, and exactly three years later, 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.480 perhaps not a coincidence, he was ambushed by two masked 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.120 men in the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick in nineteen eighty two. 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:47.200 The hit team obviously had good information. When drug baron 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.240 Tony Mockbell was flying high in the late nineties, he 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.280 cultivated people who could provide information from pizza deliverers to 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:59.200 friendly police and of course certain lawyers. No names, no 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.040 pack drill, but Nicola Goobo comes to mind. It was 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.880 a lawyer who warned him in two thousand and six, 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.880 he would soon be charged with murder, a tip that 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.240 let him stage his audacious escape on a yacht to 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.480 hide in Greece. I don't believe it was actually Nicolagobo 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.280 that tipped him off, it was another lawyer. Mockbell might 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:27.520 have remained a free spending fugitive for years if one 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:32.000 of his gangs insiders, a man known as the Musician, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:38.560 had not switched sides and handed skeptical detectives a USB 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:43.680 stick full of secret telephone numbers and bank details revealing 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:50.200 Mockbell's Athens hideaway. So the drug baron who escaped using 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:56.240 inside information was caught the same way. The Mockbell equivalent 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:02.080 of a previous generation, Robert Ossie Bob Trimboli, was also 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.680 tipped off by a corrupt cop to flee the country 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.120 in early nineteen eighty one to avoid being forced to 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.640 testify at a looming royal commission. 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.359 He went to Ireland via the United. 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.560 States, and although he was briefly jailed in Ireland later 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.680 after living there peacefully under a false name, Trimboli was 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:31.120 somehow able to stay ahead of Australian authorities, whose clumsy 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:36.760 and cackhander pursuit of the country's most wanted man raised 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:41.960 eyebrows if not questions turned out that illness did what 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:46.960 the world's police could not. The man who'd got the 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:52.080 mail from bent police, customs officers and jockeys for years 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.720 could stay ahead of the Pozzi, but he could not 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:01.760 escape from a much deadlier enemy cancer. When Trimboli died 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.080 in Spain in nineteen eighty seven, with his long term 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:10.440 lover Anne Marie Preslent at his bedside, legendary News Corp 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:16.000 correspondent Bruce Wilson wrote words to the effect of if 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.840 Robert trimbaally was our most wanted man, the second most 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.959 wanted can sleep very soundly. Indeed, Wilson might also have 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.919 made a crack about tracking elephants through snow, something that 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:34.080 upset the Federal police, as I recall. But history is 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:39.200 on Bruce Wilson's side, of course. The truth is there's 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:45.719 nothing quite as useful to a crook as inside information. 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:50.240 Thanks for listening. 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.639 Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:59.080 True Crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.520 features and more, go to Haroldson dot com dot AU 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:09.320 forward slash, andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:14.160 to news Podcasts sold at news dot com dot au. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:19.920 That is all one word news podcast's sold. And if 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.400 you want further information about this episode, links are in 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:25.359 the description.