The Gangland War (34 page)

Gatto said in evidence, ‘Well, I remember just one occasion, that he asked me if I could get guns for him, revolvers and, you know, I said I'd ask, but I mean I had no intention of doing that, to be honest, because it's a no-win situation. And the other occasion I can't really remember, but he was forever getting himself into trouble at nightclubs and what have you, and I was always sort of getting involved, sort of patching things up.'

But Veniamin was more than just a camp follower. He was already a killer. Police now believe he killed seven men in just four years. He killed friends, enemies and strangers for a price. He was Australia's most dangerous hit man, but he would never have the chance to retire in anonymity. He would be shot dead, aged just 28.

THE Melbourne fruit and vegetable market has always been connected to a resilient strain of organised crime. The cash economy and Australia-wide transport network has sometimes been used for gambling, drug and protection rackets.

From the market murders of 1963–64 through to the cannabis boom of the 1970s and 1980s there has been money to be made on the side.

By the 1990s, tensions were again building with massive kickbacks by major retail outlets, bribery and battles to control the lucrative black economy.

Alfonso Muratore was steeped in the tradition. His father, Vince, was a senior member of the so-called Italian organized crime group, The Honored Society, and was shot dead outside his Hampton home in 1964.

Alfonso would later marry into the powerful Benvenuto family. His brother-in-law was Frank Benvenuto, the son of Liborio Benvenuto, the former Godfather of the mafia-like crime group the Honoured Society, who died of natural causes in 1988. Frank and his brother, Vince, became powerful figures at the market.

But Alfonso tried to rock the family boat. He left his wife for his mistress and at a secret meeting told the giant Coles-Myer group of a kickback scheme.

This was not a move to strengthen family bonds and on 4 August 1992, he was shot dead as he was about to hop into his car in Hampton in a virtual repeat of the ambush killing of his father 28 years earlier.

Frank Benvenuto was one of the main suspects for ordering Alfonso's death.

At different times Frank employed two Melbourne gunmen with him at the market. One at the time was notorious, the other hardly known.

Accused police killer and armed robber Victor George Peirce was well known as a vicious gunman but Andrew Veniamin was yet to build his reputation. It didn't take long.

Frank Benvenuto was shot dead outside his Beaumaris home on 8 May 2000.

Police say Veniamin was the killer but it wasn't his first paid hit. In May 1999 another Italian fruit and vegetable identity, Joe Quadara, was shot outside a Toorak supermarket. Investigators are convinced Benji did it.

They also say he was the gunman who killed his former friends and criminal associates — Dino Dibra, shot dead near his West Sunshine home on 14 October 2000, and Paul Kallipolitis, whose body was found in his West Sunshine home on 25 October 2002. Veniamin was the hot suspect in the murder of standover man Nik Radev, shot dead on 15 April 2003. And he was part of the torture team that grabbed and killed Mark Mallia in August 2003. And police say he shot Victor Peirce in May 2002.

The dates, and the nationalities of the victims, suggest that Benji worked for more than one crime syndicate. The first two victims were clearly connected to Italian organised crime while many of the later ones were enemies of Carl Williams.

It now appears that Veniamin killed for a price — not a cause — and he was not too fussed who paid the bills.

In November 2002, Veniamin's allegiances to the Carlton Crew began to drift. He swapped camps, moving to become Williams' high-profile bodyguard and close friend.

The story goes that Tony Mokbel was bashed in Lygon Street by a Perth bikie during what was supposed to be a meeting set up by Carlton Crew heavy Mario Condello. It is said that when violence broke out, Gatto did nothing to protect Mokbel. It wasn't his fight.

Veniamin drove the badly-injured Mokbel to hospital and, indignant at what had happened, changed sides. That is one version. There are others. But, for whatever reason, Veniamin became the constant companion of Carl Williams.

Weeks after the Radev shooting, police established the Purana Taskforce. The taskforce called for all intelligence holdings on suspects such as Veniamin and was stunned to find how little was known about the vicious killer. Assistant Commissioner (crime) Simon Overland would later use Veniamin as an example of how police had failed to monitor organised crime in Victoria.

In the last year of his life he seemed to think he was above the law. A suburban detective once drove past him in an unmarked car. Veniamin gave chase and confronted the policeman in a petrol station demanding to know if he was being followed. Veniamin, well-built but not much bigger than a jockey, seemed comfortable trying to intimidate the detective. In just a few months he managed to acquire more than 40 speeding and parking fines.

Police approached Veniamin in 2003 with a message to ‘pull up' — warning him his activities meant he was now also a potential victim. It was no idle statement, as at that point at least five shooters in Melbourne's gangland war had already been murdered. When detectives told him he was likely to die violently, Benji didn't seem fazed. He told them he knew the risks and had already told his parents that if he was killed they should honour the underworld code of silence and refuse to co-operate with police. He wrote to one of the authors suggesting publicity at such a delicate time could ‘endanger my life'.

Having changed camps, Benji appeared blindly loyal to Williams, who was committed to kill all his perceived enemies. But there were certain perks in becoming a family friend and constant bodyguard to the new breed gangster. He was invited to share a family holiday with Williams, staying in a five-star resort in Queensland. It was a case of the boy from Sunshine spending up big in the Sunshine state. Never the master of measuring risks, he took to dog paddling in the surf, even though he could hardly swim. By late 2003 he had moved into a city penthouse and drove a borrowed $200,000 car said to belong to a bus line owner. And he was still registered to pick up the dole.

But even Williams, who claimed Benji was his best friend, had begun to distance himself because he feared the little killer could turn on him. When he had failed to deliver Jason Moran for an ambush, Williams began to wonder if Veniamin might have been recruited back to the Carlton Crew.

Eventually Williams stopped meeting Benji alone for fear of an ambush. But Roberta Williams didn't share her husband's concern and, in a touching show of faithlessness, remained close to Veniamin to the end.

Veniamin was one of the first principal targets of the Purana Taskforce and police developed a strategy of trying to harass and disrupt his routine so he would not have the freedom to continue to kill. Purana investigator Boris Buick (a passionate investigator and red wine connoisseur) gave evidence at the Gatto trial that police were constantly pulling Veniamin's car and raiding his home and those of his friends and relatives. He said this curtailed his criminal activities:

‘To the best of my knowledge, and as I said, we had saturated coverage of him, he was no longer committing acts of violence and was well aware of our interest in him. As well as essentially saturating the deceased by means of surveillance, personal surveillance and electronic surveillance, we also commenced regularly intercepting him and his associates, specifically seeking to disrupt their criminal activities.

‘We searched vehicles and other persons, of associates of his, and some other premises that he was associated with. And he was well aware at that stage, and we essentially made it aware to him that we were targeting him and his associates … to prevent further offending, in particular to prevent offences of a violent nature and involving firearms.'

Police bugged his home and car and had a court order to bug his telephones. The court order covered the period from 20 July 2003, to 19 May 2004 — coincidentally just four days before he was killed. Veniamin knew he was bugged and complained to Gatto that anyone he spoke to was raided a short time later. But the constant police surveillance helped clear him in at least one case. When Graeme Kinniburgh was shot dead, police were quickly able to establish Benji was near Taylors Lakes at the time
— on the opposite side of Melbourne from the murder scene in Kew.

Veniamin loved guns and was always trying to find more, allegedly keeping one cache of weapons at a friendly kebab shop. But with police always near him, he could not always carry a weapon. According to Purana investigator Detective Senior Constable Stephen Baird (who was to die suddenly just months after the trial): ‘Veniamin became paranoid, in fact, about being surveilled by police, both physical and electronic, and also paranoid about being intercepted by police at any time and both his person searched and any vehicle he was being in searched for firearms.'

So why then did he carry a .38 revolver with him to meet Mick Gatto in a Carlton restaurant on 23 March 2004?

ON 22 December 2003, nine days after Graham Kinniburgh's murder, Gatto met Veniamin and others at the Crown Casino in what police claim was an attempted peace conference. For police it was an ideal spot as the area was saturated with security cameras and the meeting could be monitored. For the main players, who did not trust each other, it was also an ideal place for the meeting for the same reasons: it was neutral ground where the cameras ensured there could be no ambush. The Atrium Bar at Crown is much safer than from a dead-end corridor at the back of a Carlton restaurant.

The cameras even picked up the jockey-sized Veniamin kissing the much larger Gatto with the traditional mafia-style peck on the cheek as a respectful welcome.

Detectives later employed a lip reader to discover what the suspects said. According to the lip reader, Gatto chatted to Williams — who remains the main suspect for organising Kinniburgh's murder.

Gatto said, ‘It's not my war. You walk away from this and mind your own business. If someone comes up to you for that sort of
shit, if someone comes up to me with the same sort of shit I'll do the same thing. I'll be careful with you. You be careful with me. I believe you. You believe me. Now we're even.'

And walk away they did. But no-one was even.

Williams thought about Gatto's words. Could this be the end? He sought advice from his lieutenant who said: ‘Ask Benji. He knows him (Gatto) better than me.' Veniamin was insistent: ‘Kill him.' There would be no truce.

Gatto's sharp instincts would told him that it was not a matter of if, only when, there would be an attempt on his life.

The nature of his phone calls to Veniamin changed. The prosecution argued that telephone intercepts showed ‘a growing menace in Gatto's voice' that Veniamin failed to pick up. Gatto later argued his phone conversations were never threatening. ‘I just wanted to know what he was doing, what he was up to, and you know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, you know. It was that sort of thing.'

On 29 December Gatto saw two men drive near his house. The passenger, he said, was a dead ringer for Veniamin. And more disturbingly, the passenger ducked when Gatto looked in his direction. The next day he rang Benji and was relieved when he found he was in Port Douglas rather than Doncaster. So were a group from Purana sent to monitor Williams and Benji. Sometimes investigating major crime figures has its fringe benefits, including tropical fruits and beers at the Court House Hotel.

Police telephone intercepts showed that Gatto and Veniamin spoke regularly, often referring to each other as ‘buddy' and ‘champ'. An example was a call from Veniamin to Gatto on Friday 19 March — the last day Benji's phones were tapped.

Veniamin:
What's doin', buddy?

Gatto says he hasn't heard from him in a month and Veniamin replies:
You know, I swear to you, mate, every bloke I've rung off this phone has been raided.

Veniamin tells Gatto:
Mate, I'm still there, mate.

Gatto:
Well, mate, that's assuring. I fuckin' hope you're here a long time, buddy
. As Gatto probably was not overly concerned with Veniamin's long-term health it is likely the comment was laced with irony and possibly even menace.

Veniamin, always a literal type, either ignores or is unaware of the subtext:
I've been meaning to drop into that … that joint when you're there.

Gatto:
Mate, I'm there every day, buddy. Every day we're there.

Veniamin:
I promise you, mate, I swear to you, I'm gonna come. I want to come.

Gatto:
Mate, any time you want to, buddy, you know where we are.

Veniamin, who has only days earlier been released from hospital after an attack of pancreatitis, says:
I've just been a bit stressed, I've been in and out of hospital the last two weeks, you know.

Gatto:
I heard, mate, I heard
. He adds:
Mate, stay quiet, buddy.

Veniamin:
Oh mate, I am, mate.

Gatto:
Stay quiet.

Veniamin:
But I'm still there, mate.

Gatto:
Yeah.

Veniamin:
Don't forget.

Gatto:
I know that. I know. All right.

Veniamin:
All right, buddy.

Gatto:
Take care of yourself, mate, keep in touch.

Veniamin:
I'll drop in there.

Gatto:
You're welcome any time, mate.

Veniamin:
Thanks very much, buddy.

Gatto:
Take care, Andrew.

Veniamin:
See you, buddy. Bye, mate.

Gatto:
See you, mate, thanks.

Police would ask later whether the ‘Stay quiet, buddy' comment was well-meaning advice or a veiled threat. Certainly it is
unlikely that Veniamin would have considered that when he said ‘I'm still there, mate' that four days later he wouldn't be.