0:00

Now this gang that couldn't shoot

0:02

straight, they did manage to

0:04

get in a car and

0:06

go straight to the airport

0:08

and then they got straight

0:10

on a plane to Dubai

0:12

and then they got straight

0:14

off that plane and they

0:16

vanished. They disappeared. He's a

0:18

good-looking rooster and he's a

0:20

kimonchero and he's a tough

0:22

guy but he's also the

0:24

suspect in two, not one,

0:26

two wrong victim homicides dating

0:28

back to 2017. I'm Andrew

0:30

Rule, this is Life and Crimes.

0:32

Today my colleague and I, Mark

0:35

Butler, are looking at an interesting

0:37

thing. We think it's interesting. Anyway,

0:39

it's the issue of bad people,

0:42

or allegedly bad people, who do

0:44

things, or allegedly do things, and

0:47

then scarper. They leave the country.

0:49

They get on a big jet

0:51

plane, these days, usually a jet

0:54

plane, and they fly to somewhere

0:56

where they can hide out. often

0:58

to a place without an extradition

1:01

treaty or with an extradition treaty

1:03

that is so slow so full

1:05

of red tape that they know

1:08

they can sort of dodge things

1:10

and often places where

1:12

the sufficient corruption especially

1:15

down at a low level that

1:17

they can duck and dive and

1:19

dodge the law for years if

1:21

not forever. And of course some

1:24

destinations are better than others and

1:26

some are better than others because

1:28

some of these people are dual

1:30

citizens and they are able to

1:32

go back to the country of

1:35

their birth or where their parents

1:37

are from countries where they speak

1:39

the language and where they have

1:41

some rights and often in

1:43

some places those rights include the

1:45

right not to be extradited back

1:48

to Australia. to face inconvenient charges

1:50

of murder or drug trafficking or

1:52

rape, serious things like that, the

1:54

sort of crimes that used to

1:57

get you hanged in the good

1:59

old earth. what people used

2:01

to call capital crimes. So

2:03

there's many of them. Sometimes

2:06

the authorities swing and miss.

2:08

That happened back in the

2:10

80s with the Keystone cops

2:12

pursuit of Robert Ozzy Bob

2:14

Trimboli who was on the

2:16

loose for six years after

2:18

he was tipped off to

2:20

get the hell out of

2:22

Sydney. He was tipped off

2:24

by a bent cop. In 1981

2:26

who said, now Bob, if you want to

2:28

give me some money, I can tell you

2:30

what to do. And Bob gave him some

2:33

money and he said, all you've got to

2:35

do when you exit the airport is

2:37

you just change your date of birth

2:39

slightly by one day, if you like,

2:42

on the exit documents. And nobody's going

2:44

to pick that up. You will go

2:46

through, your parcel will go through and

2:48

you will get out without being stopped.

2:51

And that's all it took back in

2:53

that era. for you to be

2:55

able to walk through customs, which

2:57

was very interesting because Bob left

2:59

town having been tipped off that

3:01

he was going to be arrested

3:03

on major charges, which I think

3:05

were not only big drug charges,

3:07

but murder conspiracy charges, and he

3:09

left town with his ever-loving girlfriend,

3:11

Anne Marie Presley, and I think

3:13

her daughter, they went to various

3:15

places, but they ended up in

3:17

Ireland, which was where they were.

3:19

And he was living under an

3:21

Irish name there. some years later

3:24

when the wicked Australian media found

3:26

out that he was there and

3:28

sent reporters over there. And one

3:30

reporter a fellow called Stephen Price.

3:32

Steve Price is well known to

3:34

many of our listeners. I can

3:36

recall him filing a story from

3:38

Ireland which had the introduction and

3:41

the headline, I slept in Robert

3:43

Trimboli's bed. And that was either

3:45

a high watermark or a low

3:47

watermark of... journalism, I'm not

3:49

sure which. The point was that

3:52

the journalists, the reporters, were a

3:54

little bit ahead of the police

3:56

and Trimbali and his girlfriend Amore

3:58

and the girl. We're able to

4:01

stay one step ahead of the

4:03

Australian police who were, let's say,

4:05

trying hard. The federal police, I

4:08

think, were genuinely trying to catch

4:10

him, but they just weren't very

4:12

good at it. And Trimboli and

4:14

his little entourage ended up leaving

4:17

Ireland and going to Spain. And

4:19

you would think that finding them

4:21

once you had the trail will

4:23

be a bit like, you know,

4:26

tracking an elephant through snow, but

4:28

no. The feds couldn't catch him

4:30

and in the end Robert Trimbowley

4:32

died of what he had was

4:35

terminal cancer at this stage. He

4:37

died of cancer in his own

4:39

bed in Spain in 1987, surrounded

4:41

I think by some of his loved

4:43

ones. They'd actually managed to go

4:45

there and be with him at

4:48

that time, which the police hadn't

4:50

managed to do. And this prompted

4:52

interesting coverage. One of the reporters

4:55

on the job in those days

4:57

was... This company, this newspaper, is

4:59

a wonderful foreign correspondent, Bruce Wilson.

5:01

And Bruce Wilson was terrific. He's

5:04

no longer with us, but he

5:06

was a great reporter and he

5:08

wrote a story which said, if

5:10

Robert Trimboli is the most wanted

5:13

man in the world, then the

5:15

second most wanted man can sleep

5:17

very soundly indeed. And I think

5:19

that... story had to be taken

5:21

down and sort of they had to

5:23

climb off it a bit because the

5:26

federal police got very upset and a

5:28

particular officer I think got a bit

5:30

upset about it but he did make

5:32

a fair point that they really hadn't

5:35

done a great job to catch Robert

5:37

Trimboli. Trimboli is one of many that

5:39

have got away and stayed away and

5:41

a few have been brought back. Another

5:44

one of course in recent times is

5:46

our old mate a modern Trimboli really

5:48

is our old friend Tony Mockbell who,

5:50

you know, some 20 odd years later

5:53

did a similar thing. He knew that

5:55

he had a lot of money. He

5:57

was very well versed in the ways

5:59

of police and investigators and prosecutors and

6:02

others and he got the tip

6:04

off probably from a lawyer

6:06

that they were looking for him or

6:08

they were going to charge him with

6:11

something and he vanished he vanished as

6:13

we all recall where's he gone he

6:15

didn't turn up to court whatever and

6:17

he was gone and no one knew

6:20

and there were all these wonderful theories

6:22

and wonderful rumors about where he gone

6:24

or where he hadn't gone the reality

6:27

was he actually gone up to Bonny

6:29

Doon. where there is a lot of

6:31

serenity and he stayed at Bonny Dern

6:33

in a little cabin where he was

6:36

visited by his girlfriend Danielle McGuire

6:38

who's an interesting person and they

6:40

spent some months I think up

6:42

there on and off and then

6:45

Tony Mockbell arranged for his associates

6:47

who were very good at these

6:49

things to buy an ocean going

6:51

yacht which they bought over on

6:53

the east coast of Australia. and

6:55

they had it towed or taken

6:58

by a truck all the way

7:00

to the west coast right across

7:02

the nullible and then they took

7:04

it to from Antle and Bell

7:06

and his family or somebody's family he

7:09

made sure he had a carload of

7:11

people and he had a guy driving

7:13

and you know a lady in the

7:15

front seat and he was in the

7:18

back seat pretending to be a mute

7:20

mentally deficient. middle-aged

7:23

man. It was a very good disguise.

7:25

So he could just sit in the

7:27

back seat and not talk or say

7:30

anything and they drove across the nullible

7:32

and they went to Fremantle and there

7:34

he had these Greek sailors on his

7:36

boat and the Greek sailors and a

7:39

carpenter modified the boat so they could

7:41

hide a man his size under a

7:43

certain table or whatever it was. without

7:45

the customs guys finding it. Then they

7:48

thought they might go to somewhere a

7:50

bit quieter so they sailed the boat,

7:52

the Greek crew that manned the boat.

7:54

They sailed it up to the north,

7:56

up to Karatha or something like that,

7:59

right up. the top and the

8:01

Kimberley and meanwhile Tony and

8:03

his mates drove up and

8:05

then he gets on the

8:07

boat at one of those

8:09

northern ports where there's very

8:11

sleepy sort of customs and

8:13

he was able to get

8:15

shut into the little locker

8:17

that he built. They sailed

8:19

out into the Indian Ocean

8:21

and after you know 48 hours or

8:24

something he could get out of

8:26

his little claustrophobic locker. and they

8:28

sailed right across the world to

8:30

the Suez Canal where it would

8:32

be a bit tricky for you

8:34

if you were not legit but

8:37

of course somehow he had enough

8:39

money to buy his way through

8:41

and he got to Greece and

8:43

that's where old mate Mockbell was

8:45

hiding in Athens not in plain

8:48

sight but sort of he I

8:50

think could speak Greek pretty well

8:52

he's of Lebanese extraction but

8:55

I think he knew plenty

8:57

of Greek and was comfortable

8:59

there. And indeed, his great

9:01

and good friend who was

9:03

pregnant, Daniel McGuire, was to

9:06

join him. Now the police back

9:08

here were very keen on following

9:10

her or having her followed overseas

9:12

because they thought, well, if you

9:15

let her go, that she'll lead

9:17

her to the man. And they

9:19

had interpollinated Italian police and had

9:22

all sorts of interesting people following

9:24

her. when she went to Rome.

9:26

And there she's in Rome and

9:28

lo and behold she's with another

9:30

woman with a female actor and

9:33

Australian actress and they were meeting

9:35

together in plain sight at a

9:38

good hotel in Rome I think

9:40

it was and they were being

9:42

watched which they probably realised was

9:45

the case. And Danielle is wearing

9:47

let's say a red distinctive red

9:50

coat. She goes into the bathroom.

9:52

and comes back and then the friend

9:54

goes into the bathroom and comes back

9:56

and what they actually did was change

9:59

coats so that When one comes

10:01

back wearing the coat, the watches

10:03

who are sitting 200 meters away

10:05

think it's Danielle, but it's not.

10:07

It's the actress. Meanwhile, the real

10:09

Danielle has gone out the back

10:11

door of the hotel and skipped

10:14

town and she's got across the

10:16

border into the rest of Europe

10:18

and she's ended up happily with

10:20

Tony for quite a while. And

10:23

so that is what has happened

10:25

with the strange case of Tony

10:28

Mockbell. Long story short. It's quite

10:30

possible that Tony Mockbell would not

10:32

have been caught except for one

10:35

thing. One of his former associates

10:37

or an associate of his group back

10:39

here in Australia, a man that

10:42

we will call the musician because

10:44

I think he was a musician,

10:46

he was closely associated with these

10:48

guys and he was sort of

10:50

trusted by them up to a

10:52

point, but he had a grievance.

10:54

His grievance was that one of

10:56

his own family members had... I

10:59

think either if he hadn't died

11:01

of a heroin overdose was

11:03

at least effectively a junkie

11:05

and this guy ended up

11:07

not happy with the mock

11:09

bell drug empire but he

11:11

was trusted by them and

11:13

what he did he had access

11:15

to a laptop he was talking

11:17

to one of the mock bell

11:20

lieutenants who was trusted with sending

11:22

money to various darker counts around

11:24

the world that Mockbell could access

11:26

and he had phone numbers and

11:29

stuff. It was all on one

11:31

laptop. And when this Mockbell Lieutenant,

11:33

when this Mockbell Heavy left the

11:36

room to go to the bathroom,

11:38

the musician grabbed a thumb drive,

11:40

jammed it into the computer and

11:42

downloaded all the material in it,

11:45

including bank. numbers, phone numbers on all

11:47

this stuff, puts it in his pocket.

11:49

When the guy comes back, you know,

11:52

90 seconds later, they just keep talking

11:54

and chatting about the soccer or whatever,

11:56

he goes out and he gives the

11:58

police this information. It was that

12:00

that that led the Melbourne police

12:03

to Tony Mockbell in

12:05

Greece, because straight away they said,

12:07

well he's the phone numbers, this

12:09

is the number he's using, we

12:11

can trace it to Athens etc.

12:13

And we all know how that

12:15

ended up. Tony's over there wearing

12:18

his very bad wig and he

12:20

gets grabbed by the Athens police

12:22

who are working on behalf of

12:24

the Australian police. It was a

12:26

great piece of detection, but all

12:29

of it. comes down to this insider

12:31

tipping the police off and

12:33

it would appear that had that

12:35

not happened they may not have

12:38

caught him. And the point of

12:40

saying that is that so many

12:42

people that have gone overseas have

12:44

not been grabbed. They've stayed around

12:47

for years. It's easy to

12:49

sort of crack jokes about

12:51

the Daniel McGuires and mock

12:53

bells, but there's nothing funny

12:55

about what happens in most

12:57

of these runaway criminal cases.

12:59

One of the worst of

13:01

a long list unfolded almost

13:03

a year ago when a woman,

13:05

who's also a mother of a

13:07

young child, vanished from her point

13:09

cook home, the one she shared

13:12

with her husband, and she'd been

13:14

married to for 12 years. Now

13:16

this woman had migrated as her

13:18

husband had from India when I

13:20

were young adults and I'm not

13:22

sure if they got married here

13:25

or over there but they'd come

13:27

out as young adults and I

13:29

think they'd both become Australian citizens.

13:31

The name that she used mostly

13:33

was Sweather, Sweather Matagani and

13:35

no one knew that she

13:38

had actually vanished on I

13:40

think on a Friday early in March,

13:42

2024. The first that the... police

13:45

or anyone knew that she'd vanished

13:47

was that they got a call

13:49

on Saturday morning, March the

13:51

9th, from India, where they got

13:53

a very brief tip off to

13:55

look for her. So police got

13:57

the tip off from India. They

13:59

found... Swetha Matagani's body in a

14:02

bin around noon on a Saturday

14:04

in a wheelie bin down past

14:06

you long. It turns out that

14:08

her husband, surprise surprise, surprise,

14:10

his name is Ashok Raj,

14:12

Vari Kepala, he apparently had

14:14

dumped it there before fleeing

14:16

to India the previous afternoon.

14:18

Now it would appear that

14:20

there's no other solution to

14:22

this because it was him

14:24

that tipped off the police

14:26

from India, it would appear.

14:29

It seems that a taxi

14:31

driver told the police a

14:33

few weeks later that the

14:35

twitchy husband and a

14:37

bewildered little boy had gone

14:39

to Melbourne Airport from Point

14:41

Cook by taxi in time

14:43

on the Friday afternoon for

14:45

an afternoon flight to India.

14:48

Now the husband's in-laws, that

14:50

is the dead woman's parents,

14:52

were woken up at 4am

14:54

local time over there. on

14:56

that Saturday morning in the

14:58

city of Hyderabad and they

15:00

heard the terrible news from

15:03

their son-in-law about their

15:05

daughter's death. They heard it directly

15:07

from the only person in the

15:09

world that knew about it which

15:11

was their son-in-law because he

15:14

told them that their daughter had

15:16

sadly died while he was trying

15:18

to silence her. while I having

15:21

an argument. Now this would suggest,

15:23

I imagine, that he's either smothered

15:25

her or strangled her, but regardless,

15:28

he told them the story that

15:30

she was dead, and he confirmed

15:32

that by tipping off the police

15:35

in Melbourne, who then went

15:37

and found the body, so

15:39

it all ties together. That

15:41

man then left his in-laws

15:43

and vanished. He left the

15:45

small boy, three-year-old boy, with

15:47

them, with the grandparents that

15:49

the child probably hardly knew,

15:51

but anyway, and he disappeared

15:53

into the vast sprawling city

15:55

of Hyderabad or another city

15:57

nearby called Chennai, I think,

15:59

and... various, I think there's

16:02

also Bangalore. Southern India has

16:04

something like 250 million

16:06

people and many big cities and

16:08

many small cities and many many

16:11

many many towns that's a very

16:13

thickly populated place. It is the

16:15

centre of the Indian IT industry

16:18

and this man, the husband in

16:20

this case Ashok Raj Vary Kupala

16:22

was a bit of an IT

16:25

expert and he was also bilingual.

16:27

Bad husband, he's an IT expert.

16:29

He worked in IT in Australia.

16:31

He was obviously pretty good at

16:34

it. They had the good house

16:36

in Point Cook. They had the

16:38

Mercedes-Benz station wagon. They had the

16:40

mini-cooper car. They were living the

16:43

good life. So he's clearly a

16:45

highly employable sort of guy. And

16:47

all he would have to do

16:49

in India probably is manipulate his

16:51

identity documents a bit so that

16:53

he was reasonably hard to track.

16:55

but he could probably still pick

16:57

up work over there. The reality

17:00

would appear to be and the

17:02

police do not confirm or

17:04

deny anything about extradition and

17:06

fair enough. The police aren't

17:08

in a position where they

17:10

can talk about who they're

17:12

going to extradite or how

17:14

or when and that's good

17:16

but it would appear that at best

17:18

it is a process that is

17:21

long and slow and a big

17:23

problem full of red tape. You've

17:25

got the red tape in Australia,

17:27

then you've got the world-famous

17:29

red tape in India, a

17:32

country that runs on red

17:34

tape apparently, and has a

17:36

very choked public service bureaucracy,

17:39

and everything is slow, and

17:41

quite possibly things are only

17:43

marginally efficient if the right

17:45

amount of bribes are paid, maybe.

17:48

And it would seem that it

17:50

will be a long slow process

17:52

to get that husband back to

17:55

Australia to face what would be,

17:57

I think, murder charges or manslaughter

17:59

charges. if ever, that is

18:01

if he ever, is brought back

18:04

at all. The smart money says

18:06

that he may never be because

18:08

we have other cases. We have

18:11

the notorious case of Panit, Panit,

18:13

Panit, Panit was the young Indian-born

18:15

guy that ran over someone here

18:18

in South Bank just across the

18:20

river from the CPD in Melbourne,

18:22

killed that person. tragic case now

18:25

some years ago. He was actually

18:27

charged with that. I think he

18:29

pleaded guilty and he got bail.

18:32

But he jumped bail. In 2009,

18:34

Panit Panit used a friend's passport

18:36

to get through the airport and

18:39

go to India, which beggars belief

18:41

that as recently as 2009, the

18:43

passports were sufficiently primitive that that

18:46

could happen. But apparently that was

18:48

the case. Having got to India,

18:50

Panit Panit has gone into smoke

18:53

and has never been hauled back

18:55

to Australia to serve out a

18:57

significant sentence for culpable driving or

19:00

whatever the charge is. And there's

19:02

various reasons for that. One might

19:04

be that he might get tipped

19:06

off by local authorities or something

19:09

if there's a move to get

19:11

him. I don't know. He might

19:13

have just been able to assume.

19:16

a slightly different name in a

19:18

country where there are millions of

19:20

people. And as one of my

19:23

colleagues pointed out to me, India

19:25

is a place where thousands of

19:27

people a year are killed or

19:30

severely injured on the roads with

19:32

traffic, cars, motorbox, bikes, the whole

19:34

catastrophe and it is not regarded

19:37

over there as a particularly serious

19:39

thing. particularly serious offense. They accept

19:41

it as a fact of life

19:44

that if you're out on the

19:46

roads you may well be run

19:48

over and killed. And so there

19:51

is not that commitment to finding

19:53

someone like him that there would

19:55

be here in Australia. So we

19:58

have cultural differences working against the

20:00

Australian authorities. Indian security sources have

20:02

told me that it's possible for

20:05

a resourceful fugitive in India to

20:07

get out of India one of

20:09

two obvious ways. They said you

20:11

could get a fishing boat or

20:14

a boat over to Sri Lanka

20:16

and then work your way around.

20:18

you'd have to get false documents

20:21

which are getable over there. Or

20:23

you could go to Nepal by

20:25

road, you could walk into Nepal

20:28

probably, again you could get false

20:30

documents made up, even a passport

20:32

made up, that would be sufficient

20:35

to get you out of India

20:37

into certain Southeast Asian countries. You

20:39

wouldn't be able to fly back

20:42

to Australia or to Western countries

20:44

because their border controls are more

20:46

sophisticated. but I was told by

20:49

this Indian security source that there

20:51

are some countries in Southeast Asia

20:53

where an Indian passenger on a

20:56

plane would be able to get

20:58

through fairly easily with forged documents.

21:00

That's another possibility for what could

21:03

happen to some of our most

21:05

wanted people. Hi, it's Gary Jublin

21:07

here. Do you want a real

21:10

and raw look inside the world

21:12

of crime? Well then check out

21:14

my podcast, I Catch Killers, where

21:16

I interview people from all sides

21:19

of the law. I draw my

21:21

firearm and I went into fight

21:23

mode. I wanted to find and

21:26

confront this government. I'm not getting

21:28

verbal demo. I shouldn't have trusted

21:30

you. See, I'm trying to open

21:33

my mind up to defense. I

21:35

know, it's just begging to be

21:37

said. Fair call. We have amazing

21:40

guests every week, search for eye

21:42

catch killers, wherever you get your

21:44

podcast. Now, we do have one

21:47

example of Australian police working very

21:49

hard to get back some runaways

21:51

who committed it. very bad crime

21:54

in Melbourne. This was the murder

21:56

by three Thai nationals of an

21:58

Ozzy guy called Luke Mitchell. Luke

22:01

Mitchell was, it was a notorious

22:03

case, he was a good Samaritan,

22:05

he was a chef, he's 29

22:08

years old, he was out, I

22:10

think with his sister-in-law and other

22:12

friends in Brunswick one night, around,

22:15

you know, between 9 and 10

22:17

o'clock at night or something, and

22:19

they saw a disturbance in the

22:22

street. in Sydney Road and was

22:24

outside a massage parlour and these

22:26

three Thai guys had been aggressively

22:28

harassing a woman. Now I suspect

22:31

it was all something to do

22:33

with a massage parlour and maybe

22:35

these were standover guys or something,

22:38

but the reality was that they

22:40

were hassling this woman and that

22:42

a bystander thought that was very

22:45

unpleasant and had stepped in to

22:47

try and protect the woman. and

22:49

then these three have turned on

22:52

the bystander and roughed him up,

22:54

Luke Mitchell, Good Bloke, Good Samaritan,

22:56

sees this happen and he goes

22:59

over to step in to prevent

23:01

these three guys from monstering the

23:03

bystander and he gets in a

23:06

fight with these guys and he's

23:08

throwing punches and I think probably

23:10

acquitted himself pretty well and then

23:13

he and his sister and friends

23:15

walked up the road not far.

23:17

to a 7-Eleven to buy some

23:20

cigarettes or whatever, coffee, whatever. Meanwhile

23:22

the three Thai guys have gone

23:24

off and got hold of knives

23:27

in a meat claver, which tells

23:29

you something that probably they were

23:31

going around equipped to stand over

23:33

people. And they have come hunting

23:36

for Luke Mitchell. They've come back,

23:38

armed. and they've attacked him. Three

23:40

men have attacked Luke Mitchell with

23:43

these weapons and they've stabbed him,

23:45

they've knocked him over, they've kicked

23:47

him. as well as stabbing him,

23:50

and he died of his wounds.

23:52

He died in front of, I

23:54

think, 14 witnesses. It was a

23:57

terrible crime for a good Samaritan

23:59

who was just trying to help

24:01

someone else. The police were fairly

24:04

quickly, fairly quickly able to identify

24:06

who these guys were from security

24:08

cameras and stuff, but by the

24:11

time they did that, these guys

24:13

had gone straight to the airport

24:15

and jumped on a plane back

24:18

to Bangkok. On the way... it

24:20

stopped in Hong Kong. Proof that

24:22

the police were fairly onto it

24:25

was that the police found out

24:27

they couldn't get them arrested in

24:29

Hong Kong, but they could get

24:32

them photographed and they got photographs

24:34

from the security people in Hong

24:36

Kong and it showed these three

24:39

guys, one of them had some

24:41

blood on him or something, or

24:43

some cuts or bruises or whatever,

24:45

and it was clearly these three.

24:48

And the police then went about

24:50

the official process for looking for

24:52

a needle in a needle in

24:55

a haystack. and they approached the

24:57

Thai authorities and said, well, these

24:59

three guys, they would have had

25:02

their names. We want them back

25:04

here for this murder. And eventually,

25:06

I think after three years of

25:09

towing and throwing and official stuff

25:11

and red tape, they identified them

25:13

and got them back. Now it

25:16

took ultimately six years and three

25:18

months, six years and three months

25:20

from the murder until those three

25:23

guys went to jail. in Melbourne.

25:25

Two of them got very big

25:27

sentences, I think 24 years, on

25:30

the top and the third guy

25:32

got well under 20 years because

25:34

he gave evidence against the other

25:37

two. That was a good result,

25:39

good dogged detective work by the

25:41

Victorian police. I think it was

25:44

Ron Idl's back in that day

25:46

that was handling that and he

25:48

and his team did a very

25:50

good job. Sometimes... The hunt is

25:53

doomed from the start. Years ago,

25:55

homicide investigators identified Chinese students as

25:57

suspects in a murder at Box

26:00

Hill, but these students were gone

26:02

by the time they confirmed who

26:04

they were. This is very intriguing.

26:07

These Chinese students, you wouldn't sort

26:09

of think of them as going

26:11

around murdering other people. You would

26:14

wonder whether perhaps they were operatives

26:16

of the Chinese government. You would

26:18

suspect that, would you not? And

26:21

by the time the police worked

26:23

out. who they were or who

26:25

they allegedly were, they were gone

26:28

back in China. And as one

26:30

policeman said, once that happened you

26:32

can kiss a goodbye, you'll just

26:35

never find them. And that's what

26:37

happened. They were never found, never

26:39

seen again, and the murder remained

26:42

unsolved. Probably even more disturbing in

26:44

some ways because it's more public

26:46

and therefore more dangerous to most

26:49

of us walking around was... The

26:51

escape of the shooters who sprayed

26:53

Sam the Punisher Abdul Rahim. So

26:56

this is back in 2022. This

26:58

is the case where he's gone

27:00

to his cousin's funeral at Faulkner

27:02

Cemetery. He's driving out in a

27:05

very slow convoy behind the hearse

27:07

or whatever. And up comes a

27:09

stolen Mazda, I think it was,

27:12

SUV. And they spray his Mercedes

27:14

wagon, his G wagon, his G

27:16

wagon, with... a massive amount of

27:19

lead fired from a machine pistol

27:21

I think and it broke the

27:23

windows of his car and it

27:26

sprayed him across his chest. I'll

27:28

never forget that news photo of

27:30

his chest later published where his

27:33

chest had been stitched with three

27:35

or four bullets and it hadn't

27:37

killed him. It was an amazing

27:40

thing. Those lunatics then... drove off,

27:42

they actually hit a fire hydrant

27:44

nearby outside of service station. One

27:47

of the lunatics, they were only

27:49

young guys, has run over and

27:51

dived into a skip full of

27:54

cardboard boxes hidden under the cardboard

27:56

boxes for... all of about five

27:58

seconds and then come out of

28:01

the skip deciding it wasn't a

28:03

good idea. While he was doing

28:05

this, the jumper that he had

28:07

artfully put over his head so

28:10

no one could see who he

28:12

was came off his face. So

28:14

the security footage that was at

28:17

the service station showed his face.

28:19

So that wasn't great. Meanwhile his

28:21

mates run away doing much the

28:24

same sort of thing. Now this

28:26

gang that couldn't shoot straight, they

28:28

did manage to get... in a

28:31

car and go straight to the

28:33

airport and then they got straight

28:35

on a plane to Dubai and

28:38

then they got straight off that

28:40

plane and they vanished. They disappeared.

28:42

Presumably they've been looked after over

28:45

there by some Middle Eastern crime

28:47

paymaster, the same one who may

28:49

well have been paying them to

28:52

shoot at Sam Abdul Rahim. The

28:55

same Sam Abdul Rahim who

28:57

of course just recently has

28:59

been shot dead at long

29:02

last after several attempts on

29:04

his life. The reality is

29:06

that although the police were

29:08

able to arrest some other

29:10

peripheral people here in Melbourne

29:13

who were somehow associated with

29:15

the bad guys, the two

29:17

shooters got on a plane,

29:19

got to Dubai and have

29:22

vanished. and the betting is

29:24

that they will never come

29:26

back and will never be

29:28

brought back. That is just

29:30

my tip. Who would know?

29:33

The police and the feds

29:35

and everybody else might be

29:37

working on getting them out

29:39

as we speak. It's hard

29:42

to know. Then there is

29:44

the good-looking dude Comanchero heavy

29:46

former male model. His name

29:48

is Hassan Tupale. Now he

29:50

hasn't been seen in Melbourne.

29:53

or in Australia since 2019,

29:55

because he took a sudden

29:57

flight overseas for the good

29:59

of his health. He left

30:02

behind here a string of

30:04

shooting victims. Most of them

30:06

are wrong victims, and very

30:08

interested police. Now, Tupal has

30:10

been having a good time

30:13

in the country of his

30:15

forebears in Turkey while arresting

30:17

arrest or an ambush back

30:19

here. I think he's managing

30:22

to do business from over

30:24

there remotely, as these guys

30:26

do. He's a good-looking rooster,

30:28

and he's a Comonchero, and

30:30

he's a tough guy. but

30:33

he's also the suspect in

30:35

two, not one, two wrong

30:37

victim homicides dating back to

30:39

2017. He's not good at

30:42

the assassination caper, he gets

30:44

the wrong people. The target

30:46

in one incident was the

30:48

late Muhammad Afghan Ali Keshtar,

30:51

who was marked to die

30:53

down at Nari Warren at

30:55

a house where he lived

30:57

then. The shooter, whoever it

30:59

was, botched the assignment and

31:02

shot... An innocent visitor, a

31:04

blow called Zabi Estyar. This

31:06

was a lucky break for

31:08

the intended victim, Afghan Ali,

31:11

but it wasn't a permanent

31:13

stay of execution because of

31:15

course Afghan Ali Keshyar was

31:17

shot dead in South Yara

31:19

sometime later. Our friend Hassan

31:22

Topal, meanwhile, was also involved

31:24

allegedly in shooting at several

31:26

banditos as they wrote their

31:28

motorbikes I think across the

31:31

multi-bridge and didn't manage to

31:33

bowl any of them over

31:35

but that created a lot

31:37

of problems and a lot

31:39

of fear and angst and

31:42

friction and ultimately he decided

31:44

he should leave Australia while

31:46

the going was good and

31:48

I suspect that he will

31:51

probably stay in Turkey or

31:53

some other countries over there

31:55

for a long, long time.

31:57

Any case in which the

31:59

suspects have not even been

32:02

charged or interviewed may extradition

32:04

even more difficult than in

32:06

the Panette Panique case. It's

32:08

really hard to do and

32:11

the police do the best

32:13

they can with what they've

32:15

got. But it's not easy.

32:17

But as they say time

32:19

is on their side. Time

32:22

wounds all heals. One Middle

32:24

Eastern organized crime figure and

32:26

former Australian businessman who fled

32:28

Australia to escape the police

32:31

heat. returned a decade later

32:33

without any struggle at all

32:35

because he was in a

32:37

coffin. So a man left

32:39

Australia to get away from

32:42

the police and after a

32:44

decade he came home in

32:46

a coffin and he received

32:48

an extraordinarily lavish funeral because

32:51

in fact he was a

32:53

very big drug trafficker and

32:55

they always have big funerals.

32:59

Thanks for listening. Life

33:01

and Crimes is a

33:04

Sunday Herald Sun production

33:06

for True Crime Australia.

33:08

Our producer is Johnty

33:11

Burton. For my columns

33:13

features and more go

33:15

to heraldson.com.a/Andrew Rule, one

33:18

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