He was accused of bashing two prison guards years earlier because he spent too much time on the phone and they tried to tell him to your times up on the phone and he dealt with them. So you'd be a brave prison guard to tap him on the shoulder.
Are they shy? They like members of the Melbourne Club. They don't like publicity.
Some of them enjoy it, some of them try to keep a low profile. Yeah, they started off making their own hoodies and merchandise, but they really that maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
I'm Andrew Rules Life and Crimes. Today in the Life and Crimes headquarters, we're talking to Reagan Hodge, who is one of our brightest young crime reporters. Reagan, what brings you here? You've been looking into the story of George Morogi? Is that right? And he said, how you pronounce it? It is.
It's great to be here too, Thank you. So the AFP have talked about with us the master class in convicting George Morogi from inside bar And Prison, the state's toughest prison, and it was a massive investigation. They've done an extremely good job and they've landed him in prison for a lot longer.
We'll look at the history of George Morogi a little later in the episode, but just tell us what the AFP have found out, How did they pull that off? What gave them their start in this fiendish plan to nail a bad guy? A little bit more.
So, this was a state and federal investigation and they've done it really well. It started off with a tip off about a drug shipment coming in from overseas, and then that sort of encouraged them to start what was known as Operation eagles Peak from the AFP.
Eagles Peak interesting combination of words, and how did eagles Peak unfold?
So they started, I guess, seeing these repeat shipments of up to four hundred kilograms being imported into the country, and they believe it was methamphetamine and heroin being sent from Malaysia into a company in George Moroghi's girlfriend's name.
So George Morogi had orchestrated these deliveries from inside prison, using his crooked network outside, using codd telephone calls all the rest of it, and the authorities had realized that there were certain shipments coming in that were suspicious. What had the bad guys disguised those shipments. As you know clearly they were drugs, but what were some of the cover stories for those shipments.
Well, the one that broad him unstuck was a big shipment of methamphetamine and heroin disguised as green tea bags, green tea bags and magnets that were brought in from overseas. Sixty nine kilograms worth of that gear. And that was the result of the AFP's target development team. They've listened to hundreds of hours of Morogi and his girlfriend on the phone from inside prison. Investigators say he would spend up to six hours a day on the phone. He
was prolific on there. He was accused of bashing two prison guards years earlier because he spent too much time on the phone and they tried to tell him to make your times up on the phone, and he dealt with them. So you'd be a brave prison guard to tap him on the shoulder. So he basically did as
he pleased in there. Sometimes on the phone he would speak for twenty or thirty seconds with his girlfriend on the outside, using these fake code words, but he would tell the guards he was talking to his lawyers.
And how did he organize that? How did anybody believe that that he was talking to lawyer.
Well, investigators aren't allowed to listen to conversations with lawyers from inside prison, so I guess they've just taken his word for it. And little did he know that the AFP were tapping his girlfriend's phone, who was later arrested. He led guilty over this. So they'd been listening to hundreds of hours. They sat for months listening to these thirty second conversations or half an hour conversations.
You're not allowed to tape a real lawyer, but you can certainly tape Marggi's girlfriend pretending to be a lawyer.
Once they figured that out, they were quite happy to sit in on those conversations.
It's quite a marvelous plot line, it is.
And yeah, as I said, we've got to give credit to the target development team for those painstaking hours sitting listening to those conversations, and they've pieced together code words. It would be so difficult to do that, piecing together these code words that don't really make sense sentences the AFP.
They've said broadly, criminals might use the word I for iotaine and even trying to decipher what a conversation which might not be suspect or suspicious, but then deciphering how that is being translated to can you move these drugs into Melbourne?
Right? And it's interesting I wonder when I first read this story how they'd established that code, given that he's inside, how he'd sort of worked out keywords so that she would know what the keywords what he was talking about. It's fascinating somehow they've been able to communicate certain things they reckon.
He spent probably sixty percent of his time on the phone in jail, was orchestrating these criminal activities from the inside, and they suspect he did a fairly good job of it, as a lot of it did get into the country successfully, but AFP say they were over the moon to finally charge him further once inside bar and prison.
Does this suggest to you that Moragi had a pretty watertight network of efficient operators working for him overseas end in Australia that she could tap into. She could ring Charlie or George or Harry and say do this, do that, George wants this, George wants that she able to just ride on the coattails of an existing structure, gang structure or whatever. He might call it.
So he's a notorious crime family. The gang he established while inside bar and prison, I'm sure they had a major role in helping orchestrate these shipments into Australia and into Melbourne specifically, and with the help of his girlfriend as sort of a connection to that, he was still able to haul in tons of drugs from overseas while inside prison.
This case is further proof of crime's multicultural appeal or appeal to multicultural players, because the girlfriend is.
Who Antonetta Manella.
Manella, and of course long term listeners will recall the Manella name because the Manelas have been leading members with those of them who survived and not many have leading members of the Italian crime groups in Melbourne for decades, I would suggest based around North Fitzroy in the good old days when the old Originals turned up after World War II around North fit Troy Fitzroy and I think there were at least three brothers, and certainly two of them were murdered and one of them had a house
in May Street, North fit Troad, which is now occupied by a leading Australian author and a Storian, and the neighbors were very relieved when the Manellas moved out. There was one of them that was killed. Sadly. His name was Salvatore, so his short name was selm Manella, Selmanella. Not bad, not bad. Of course, the Manellas were very closely associated with the likes of Alfons Gangatano and Mario Condello and all the rest of that sort of Carlton
crew of no good skis. But in the next generation they've reached hands across the arrow, or across Saint George's road, or across something, and the young Manela girl has taken up with George Morogi, who is by no meansertainment.
And she will serve the next thirteen years in Dame Phyllis Frost Center, the Victoria's Women's prison. So for her alleged role in orchestra adding these shipments, is.
That a third on in this case a lucky number or an unlucky number? What do you think?
How do you say it?
Oh? I think it's a bit unlucky for.
Compared to some of the bread up, a.
Bit unlucky when some people kill people and get fewer years. Absolutely so, George Murraghi has had extra time added to his sentence, and that extra time, of course, is for this big drug bust that the AFP has so cleverly pulled off. But why was he in jail already?
This was a brazen alleged murder he executed on a Sunday afternoon September twenty sixth, twenty sixteen, where he shot and killed drug rival Owz Campbellfield Plaza, a daylight shooting.
Very brazen, very brazen.
We've seen a few in recent times of a similar nature. And he launched a bid to sort of have that appealed. His conviction appealed last year. There was some pretty damning evidence against him, which we can go into if you like.
I'd be very now am I writing saying I've recently seen some footage of this. We've got red cars and got bugs in hoodies running and all sorts of things. How do they underneath? How do we know who's underneath the hoodie? In each case?
The footage is pretty damning. It's taken from a shopping center. You see this banged up holding commodore approach the bus stop where three men are standing. One was Oars and two of his associates.
They became fairly perturbed, very quickly.
They did and the vision is pretty confronting. It shows allegedly a hood of George jump out of the car. He's stormed the bus stop and just started firing shots at these this group. He's hit cader Oz, who was a drug rival, and just chased him for twenty fifty meters or so, blasted him with eleven shots, hopped back in his Commodore and taken off down Campbellfield.
And did a little bit of dangerous driving. I think I noticed that great big intersection when I'm familiar with because I've spent many years driving down that road. He just pulled across, did a right hand turn in front of all the traffic, and away he.
Went, Away he went. They later abandoned that banged up red commodore nearby.
Did they burn it?
They didn't, And that was a significant part of this.
What did he leave in the car?
He left a bit of cardboard which eventually had his DNA written all over it. And that cardboard was from a bullet box which they reckon held nine millimeter ammunition.
They'd probably be right about that.
And his DNA was on that and that was one of the major factors in securing a conviction against George Morogi.
The jury decided that George was a bad boy. And how many years did George get? Third time would have been a lucky number for him.
Absolutely, because he got thirty two.
Thirty two, that's quite a lot.
It'll be an old man before he's eligible for parole, twenty forty nine that year, so he's got a lot of time to think of what he's done inside bow and Prison. The state stuff is jail.
Would he be wondering, do you think late at night, four o'clock in the morning, you know, just as the first shift change starts up and the roosters are crowing over in the suburbs, would he be thinking, I don't know if it's all worth it? Thirty two years in here.
It'd be fascinating to be inside his mind, wouldn't it. You'd think, is he thinking of plans for when he's out and yeah? Or is he thinking I'm going to turn my life around and stay out of this business once I'm out, when I'm almost an elderly man. It would be fascinating. Who knows? He may still be having connections on the inside. We don't know.
Well, I guess jail is its own little ecosystem or fairly big ecosystem in some ways, and that those who are at the top of the tree, it's a lifestyle of its own. They have their relative luxuries compared with other guys. They've got a better television or a better bed, or a better food or whatever whatever it is, and they can sort of lose themselves in the everyday give and take of living inside of prison.
And he's become quite used to it. He's barely spent twelve months of his adult life outside of prison, is that right. He's basically been in prison around Victoria for basically his old adult life. Really migrating to Australia and into Melbourne as a young.
Boy got into trouble pretty early, he did.
We spoke to some of his old childhood friends on health Sun dot com dot au and they've described him as being a teacher's pet. That's a quote to an quote absolute menace in just a few years.
Really, And where did they come from? His parents? What sort of people were they were they hardworking tradesmen whatever.
Well, they fled Iraq when he was just six years old, before he started school. They fled to Syria for a year. Obviously, that's a pretty troublesome place. Things didn't work out there, so they've come straight to Melbourne when he was six or seven. Three kids, obviously George is one of them. Box Forest's Secondary College is where he started his schooling as a young teenager, which our listeners may recall. That's now Glenroy College.
Oh, it's glen Roy College. The box Forests out there in the book the cemeteries out in.
The northern suburbs. Yes, and he was only a short, little fella, not much of him.
Didn't stop Napoleon.
Well, No, he was picked on because of his size at school, oh dear, But that quickly turned once he became bigger and stronger. He started to fight those people back, so much so that he would start to carry knives at school. He would carry fifty dollar notes, which back twenty years ago was a significant amount for a teenager
to carry, let alone now exactly. And we're unsure if he left or was kicked out of that school, but there was a bit of instability with his family in those years, and he moved in with his old man and then enrolled at broad Meadows Secondary College, which is notoriously tough is a school, but yeah, certainly it's a.
Lovely school and it's just it's unlucky that now and again some hard cases.
Go there and hello to our friends in the Northern suburbs. But no, it was a certainly a tough upbringing for George and rough life. He's lived some of that through his own choice, but certainly as a child moving migrating countries.
Yeah, to a fractured life. To be serious, he's fractured life from a young age in things like refg Camp's very tough places where survival is difficult, and that would explain why he's a disturbed character. Well, I know we joke about it, but the reality is a lot of these guys that we talk about damaged people, and they've been damaged by circumstances that affect their family when they're very young.
Yeah, families can be fairly unstable and that can throw around all sorts of options for and just speaking generally, Yeah, people who've found themselves on the wrong side of the law. It's it's not a great way to kickstart your life. And if you're hanging around the wrong people, or your parents have been hanging around the wrong people, it's it's the writings on the wall in some cases.
Indeed, I've seen examples of that with teachers and editors and all sorts of people. What the letters in CF suggest you National Conservation Foundation.
Not quite notorious crime family.
Oh I see, okay? And who are they again? You've mentioned them before.
There are a few of them, some we I believe we can't name.
Oh these members of members of.
This notorious crime family gang.
But they shy. They like members of the Melbourne Club. They don't like publicity.
Some of them enjoy it. Some of them try to keep a low profile. Yeah, they started off making their own hoodies and merchandise, but they really that maybe that will isn't such a good idea. But they're suspected in a lot of the drug shipments and drug deals around Melbourne. And they're heavily entrenched in organized crime and.
Across some ethnic groups or heavily Iraqi or what you know, Middle Eastern Middle Eastern, by and large, basically with the odd aberrations such as Miss Manila.
A few minor exceptions that.
Can happen in people fall in love Romeo and Juliet. It is it's the human condition, Reagan, That's what happens. Just can't help, but sometimes they can't and then they do bad things. So, Reagan, the big question here is the AFP have had a win, a big win. But is it a big win in terms of the total amount of drugs brought into this country? Is it a significant amount of drugs they've stopped. Did it affect the market that you think or is there any feedback about any of that? How do you rate it?
So George Morogi was one of five of the big name the AFP were after, right, he's a top five, he was a top fiver, and so they were over the moon, as I said, to arrest him again and lay further charges. At least another one of those five has been arrested, and as you can imagine, they are fairly tight lipped on the remaining three of these top five organized crime players.
And if you were one of those other three or close to them, would you be sleeping soundly or would you be worried about you know, who's listening.
I wouldn't be sleeping all that easy given the AFPs and Victoria police's a masterclass, as I said, tapping phone calls, and you never know who's listening.
If you were one of these guys, would you move house like every day?
I would be very cautious of where I'm living, who I'm associating with, and even the security measures around my property.
What about our starcross lovers. That's George and what's miss Manella's name? And oh yeah, it's a beautiful note. George and Antoinette. Has the relationship flourished under these conditions? Or is it withered? You give him one. He's in a big, bad jail and she's in another jail. They can't really bring each other much. I don't suppose unless they've both got legal telephones, we'd say might have. Is there any feedback about the romance.
Not that I'm aware of. You never know how these things can flourish when they're apart. Long distance relationships have worked in the past, yeah, but a lot of the times they do come unstuck.
So Reagan George is going to be in their very long time.
He will be in for a long time. But there were pretty big plans to get him out. So upon the AFP listening to these hundreds of hours of calls, they heard an alleged plot for a prison escape George to be a free man. One of them allegedly included the use of a helicopter, Oh totally above bar and prison and saving the Big George from the Big House.
Is that a fact?
Imagine that for a story.
It is wonderful. And these plugs they're desperate, They've got a lot of time to think and access to a lot of money outside. You would think it is fascinating. And of course you may or may not remember that many years ago there were people locked up for drug offences in Pentridge Prison and they had a set up to a former British Special Services and whatever to fly a helicopter into Penridge, pick them up and spirit them
out to a park in the nearby suburb. They're going to then run into a nearby flat, get massive makeover makeup and then get put on him in a boat on the back of a truck and the boat will be taped down the back of a truck and they would be taken into state and then they were going to float the boat off and drive it to Malaysia or New Guinea or Papi in New Guinea, whatever and escape.
But of course it all came unstuck because the police were listening to the pilot in the room next door at a leading Melbourne hotel and they were able to stop that plan before it got off the ground. Yeah, before the chopper got off the ground. They were able to but it actually made a lot of scenes. They probably could have got away with it as Indeed, there was of course a great case in Sydney where John Killick bank robber or similar escaped from silver Water Prison.
I think it was because he's Russian. Girlfriend Lucy Dudco, I'm going to say she was Russian, had got a ride with a chopper pilot and pulled a gun and made land into prison and I mate run over and jumped on and they took off and they escaped for a very short time. This is starcross lovers, blonderful stuff. The Ballad of John and Lucy.
One of the other alleged plots to break free from Barwin was upon going to court for one of his many schedule meetings. Yep, the AFP heard that he was allegedly going to just try and break free from the guards.
Yeah.
You know those shots how magnificent photographers get. Yes, they've got a split second. They have to get the shot as they're walking from the prison van to the court in the CBD. They believe Morogi was going to try and break free at that instance and run through the CBD. Can you imagine that with his hands in cuffs. Do you know anyone that can break free of vancuffs? Because that was his plan.
I suppose as long as his feet weren't shackled, he could still run, but he wouldn't run very well, and he would count on the prison office as being a little bit nervous of chasing him.
Possibly, I think he thought better of it with those two plans. Well that the latter. Anyway, it wouldn't.
It's seen a lot of future in it. Now you need a lot of organization. Well, Reagan, it's a delight to have you fill us in on those things you've told us. How this really started with the lovers talking to each other about business, and probably they should have stuck to couing sweet nothings to each other. Now they're both inside.
They're inside for a long time.
Crime doesn't pay, apparently not, and neither do detectives. Thanks Reagan, Thanks Andrew, thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot com dot au forward slash Andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news Podcasts sold
at news dot com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts sold And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description
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