The Gangland War (28 page)

The maxim that money can't buy health or happiness applies especially to criminals. In the case of a Melbourne couple shot dead in 2003, the money they made through the lucrative vice industry couldn't buy them good taste.

Steve Gulyas and his partner, Duang ‘Tina' Nhonthachith, also known as ‘Bing', had all the trappings of wealth, but were destined not to live long enough to enjoy them.

As with so many of the Melbourne underworld murder victims, they knew they were in danger, but did not grasp they would almost certainly be betrayed by someone close to them.

Steve Gulyas didn't see it until the moment he was shot on the hobby farm he had bought with dirty money. He and Tina had
gone to their luxurious retreat near Sunbury for the weekend. He was lying on the couch, relaxed and secure, the remote control in his lap and a drink beside him when the killer placed the gun almost to his cheek and pressed the trigger.

Tina may have been able to get from her chair and run a few steps before she, too, was shot dead.

When the bodies were found on 20 October 2003, the television and the central heating were still on. Police believe the couple knew the killer and had invited him in.

They were security conscious. In their business they had to be. But the killer may have known that the couple's elaborate security systems would be flawed that weekend.

Electronic gates at the property were being installed but were not yet operational, and their guard dogs had been taken back to Melbourne earlier that day. The hit man was either incredibly lucky or, more likely, expertly briefed.

He would have known that vicious dogs, an iron fence and window shutters protected their home in Coburg. And that their ‘introduction agency', Partner Search Australia, was also protected by a security system, including cameras.

But at their 30-hectare hobby farm in Wildwood Road, they were vulnerable because the gates and fence that would make their weekender a mini-fortress had not yet been finished.

Istvan ‘Steve' Gulyas, 49, was born in Hungary, and Tina Nhonthachith, 47, in Thailand. Their bodies were found by an employee who went to the home after she became concerned for their safety. Police believe they had been dead at least 12 hours.

Partner Search Australia, in Sydney Road, Coburg, supposedly specialised in introductions to Russian and Asian women. But police say Gulyas had specialised in employing under-age Asian girls in the sex industry. Signs at the premises of Partner Search promote massage services — but it was unlikely the customers were looking for relief from bad backs.

It was well-known in the sex industry that Partner Search was an illegal brothel as well as an introduction service. Tina Nhonthachith became a director of the business just two months before her murder.

The Partner Search sex workers were kept in a weatherboard house across the road from the office. Conditions were basic. Introductions were offered as face-to-face meetings in the business offices or a more relaxed approach at cocktail parties held in the business's in-house, licensed function room.

Gulyas had an extensive business history and a questionable reputation, with company links in Sydney and Queensland. He was once known as ‘The Birdman' until he sold a pet-bird business, also based in Coburg. He also owned a successful truck business with his son.

Some of his former customers believed themselves to be the victims of an arranged marriage scam and one complained that he had lost more than $10,000 after his ‘bride' disappeared.

One customer looking for a wife was introduced to a woman he suspected was a prostitute. He said later, when he asked for his $5000 back, ‘They just laughed. It was a total rip-off.'

No-one has been able to find one case where Partner Search helped anyone establish a meaningful relationship. When immigration officials raided the business in June 2000 they detained three Thai women who worked at the agency.

Tina Nhonthachith was a businesswoman in her own right and had her own fashion line, ‘Tina's Trends'. But she and Gulyas ran the introduction agency for several years. Both often returned home: Gulyas to Hungary and Nhonthachith, whose three adult children live in Australia, to Thailand.

The house where the couple died is 500 metres from the road. It is well-hidden and surrounded by hills. The couple kept to themselves, and their neighbours liked it that way. ‘They are not the type of people you would want to associate with,' one said.

Gulyas bought the Sunbury property about two years before his death, which proved he had plenty of money. He filled the house with his collection of stuffed animals, proving he had no taste.

In Melbourne, Gulyas had confided to neighbours he felt he was being watched. He was concerned about the Russian Mafia. His fears were well-founded.

On the weekend of the murders, the couple had planned some hard work on the Saturday to be followed by a relaxing Sunday. On Friday, Gulyas had picked up a stuffed polar bear from a Thomastown taxidermist to go with his lion and bison. On Saturday, a neighbour saw Gulyas shifting earth on a bobcat — the small machine, not the large cat.

There was a barbecue on Sunday and a mechanic who worked for Gulyas picked up a bottle of his boss's favourite Hungarian Golden Pear liqueur at Dan Murphy's in Ascot Vale.

The mechanic stayed for lunch with business associates, but agreed to take the couple's dogs to Coburg that night. He knew the dogs usually snarled and growled at motorists from the back of his ute, and did not want them acting up on the Tullamarine Freeway in Monday's traffic, so drove them to Coburg on Sunday afternoon. With the dogs gone and the gates not yet erected, the killer had open access.

If the dogs had stayed, there might have been no killing at all. Or a triple murder.

There was another man at the barbecue: a business associate who owed Gulyas around $500,000. He told detectives he had left the property but returned later that night, supposedly to have some papers signed.

The businessman was said to have ripped off banks for around $3 million and was found to have moved nearly $5 million through the casino.

He told police he had nothing to do with the murder. He has since moved overseas. But before he did, he bought the dead couple's Sunbury farm at auction for around $600,000 and sold it a few months later for about $1.1 million. A profit of $500,000 — the exact amount he owed Gulyas. Meaning, in effect, he was a total of a million dollars up on the deal.

Sometimes in the underworld it is more dangerous to be owed money than to be in debt.

Art imitates life … the paid actors are the ones in the bottom picture.

Mark Moran: shot near his home in mid-2000.

Callan Mulvey as Moran.

Graham ‘The Munster' Kinniburgh dresses down at Alphonse Gangitano's inquest.

Veteran Gerard Kennedy as ‘The Munster'.

Graham Kinniburgh's funeral in leafy Kew … Mick Gatto (back, right) is one of the pallbearers