One occasion, I took a suitcase full of sticks. It was so jam packed with tire sticks that you couldn't get a bloody t shirt on top of it and close the case, so it was just wrapped in plastic wipe down with methos so the smell wouldn't get out. There were two bags left on the carousel, one of them was mine, and standing around the carousel were I think twenty possibly more, but twenty year Commonwealth Police in uniform.
I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life and Crimes, and today we're going to talk to Rod Helstead, a fellow that I would call almost a friend. We met around twenty years ago or a little bit less, when we were introduced by mutual friend Billy Gray. Billy Gray, of course was from Aubury, originally up that way, but he started working in newspapers at the bought a mail. Ye we bought a mail, and in fact, so did you.
Briefly.
That was a brief stopover in a long and colorful career, Rod Helstead. And you realize that even back in the early two thousands, and thought you might sit down and write your memoirs. And we discussed this possibility and finally you've delivered. It's been published, hellelujah. It has been published by a major publisher. It would be Ellen number correct. And it is.
Called it's called take My Advice. I'm not using it. It's a very accurate type.
It's a very accurate title. Now, Rod, who are you? You're flogging your book?
But yeah, I am flogging the book.
But you've got some funny stories to tell us.
I got a lot of funny stories. It's been an up and down life without bringing a tear to the eye. I've heard a few people along the way, not least my two kids and my ex wife, yes, and various others. I've done the best I could to make amends. I decided to get sober or I was impelled to get saber twenty six years ago. In fact, twenty six years ago, two weeks ago. It was suggested to me not long after I went into AA by Barry Humphrey, who and he doesn't mind you, well, didn't mind his name on you.
He now be fine.
Now he's a good blake too. He came up to me after a meeting one day and he said, tell me, right, have you ever thought about writing your memoir? Interest in stories to tell, and I said, I have, Barry, but look, when I write it, I want to get it exactly right. Is that give you a word of advice there? He said, don't get it right, get it written. And that's stuck
in my mind. It really stuck in my mind. And then I got sober and I started building businesses and making a few bob and concentrating on that, and the book was in the back of my mind, and eventually was about four years ago. I sold one business that I kicked off and I thought, well, I got a loose end. I'll write the book.
Finally got around writing the book that.
We discussed all those years ago. Yeah, yeah, I met you with the Billy. I reckon it would be about was when I was working for WTFN in Melbourne and Bill flew down for it, and I reckon that. I reckon that would have been around about fifteen years ago.
Without doubt, before I came back to the welcoming arms of the herald Son. So finally you've written this book, and I have to say to explain to our listeners that it's not really about the joys of AA, it's about the life you led before that. So what happened in your life when you were young and younger.
Look at the stadium the beginning. The old man was a stocking station agent in Gannadhar. And I was an adventurous sort of a kid. We didn't have TV and you know all the implemented telephones and all the rest that they've got these days. You made your own fun, of course, So you know, Marmon sends us up to pork Bone Hill with a box of matches and a packet of sausages and say, behme by dark. You sort of learned to survive. Really, I mean, I don't mean survive she send us off, You know what I mean.
It was an adventurous life. Anyway, the old man said to me. I wanted to go to the saaliliards and work with him in school holidays. He was at he was, yeah, he was, and a bloody good salesman. Anyway, I went to the sailiards and I got into the sheep trucks and open gates, and the sheep are doing what they do, you know, and all over me. And I'm bloody loving it. And I got paid. I got paid a pound a day.
Bloody good money for a kid. Anyway, one day, when I was about ten, he said to me, yes, and he said it's time for you to work with cattle. Do you want to do that? And I said, yeah, sure, no problem. So he said, I'm going to have to steer around the race here to you. I want to hold onto this gate to the pen, and when the steer comes up, you go hoo ah hoo ah, and it'll go into the pen. And I said, yeah, right, no worries. And then this bloody thing came around the
corner and faired incoman. I thought it was a Spanish fighting bull. It was huge, I thought it was anyway. Anyway, it's trotted towards me, and I thought it was galloping at me, and I'm going to hourrah rah, And I got one foot on the bloody race of the that so I get shitting out of the way and holding the gate. And anyway, the thing turned and went into the pen, and I closed the gate and slid the bolt across, and I looked at the old man and he had this look on his face of absolute pride
and confidence, and I saw it. It was an exchange, you know that book that passes between people. And I realized years later on he was able to put into words when I got into AA, what was that fifty forty years later? I realized in that moment that I won. I had courage, I could stand aground. Two, I could work in a team the old man. Three that I could follow directions, and four it's a really good idea to have Plan B. Hence the foot on the fence, get out of the bloody way, the very nice your
life has been. Yeah, so that's what's dedicated on that.
Yeah, And that's I have an adventurous spirit. And what happened next, Well, we moved to Aubrey and I went to high school and I had no interest whatever in school, A lot of interest in the mates and playing footy and living that sort of life, you know, fifteen sixteen years of age, going down.
To the pub. The old record who played for Melbourne years and years ago. Ireca had a pub in Aubrey and we used to go in there. Actually it was before he owned it. We used to go in there and buy Oh I did, because I look the oldest. I'd go in there and buy. You could buy five cans of VB for a dollar twenty cents each, and I used to buy them for the boys, and we used to go to the gardens to have a drink. And yeah, it was. It was a really good life.
It was terrific life. We didn't hurt anybody, we didn't vandalize. We just lived our lives. I had no interest in school. I got good passes in maths and English, and I couldn't wait to get out. And the old man got me a job in the bloody bank.
Did it four walls? It was national and you're not your cup of tea? No, it was had four walls. I had to be outside. How long did it last?
The bank lasted two weeks in Aubury and I resigned and I managed and said, you can't do that. Your father got you other job. So they sent me to Sydney and I had six months up.
There in the bank in Sydney. Yeah, right in Sydney. Well, you know it was in this a turning point.
Yeah, what Aubrey actually was a turning point. My job for two weeks was to carry this suitcase full of used banknotes with a guard who carried a gun. We'd take it up the raid fifty meters to the your fifty yards, then to the Commonwealth Bank and we take it down into their cellar and they would then take the money and they'd count it and stamp holes in it and send it off the Reserve Bank. It was
just old notes that were no good anymore. So I spent the two weeks ago, the two times I carried that, I'm thinking, how can I make this mine? How can I can I pinch it?
I say so, you had an inquiring mind with a slightly criminal ban, Yeah, which is only natural when you're carrying use banks.
Well, yeah, it's pretty tempting. It very probably you know, thirty thousand pounds or something like thirty thousand dollars in it. Yeah, dollars. It was nineteen sixty six.
Yes, conversion. So of course you didn't do that.
No, No, I didn't. I didn't, but it was interesting. The thought occurred to me.
I'm not a thief, no, but I read that amount of money.
Certain institutions a fair game, like banks, the tax office. Tax tax biker isn't listening now.
It probably is, Yeah, it probably is. I take that back, Take that back. I would immediately we all pay tax around here. So you went to Sydney to work in the bank, and what happened there.
Well, I I just drank. I got under the booze did Yeah. I had one day out in the time I was there, I had one day at the races and I won forty dollars, which was double my weekly salary. And my mate and I decided we're going to the cross for a drink, and we had to walk past the Curability Hotel and so we called in for a quick one and there were there are about seven or eight blakes in there. Yeah, and I've been a lair I am, I said, shout the bar. Yeah, you'd always
wanted to say it, and you were what seven day? Yeah, and when you know media beer was twenty cents.
Yeah, it's cheap.
So I thought I won forty bucks. And the Republican or the barman came back and he said that'll be seven dollars eighty and I said, I got all, yeah, could it possibly be there's only seven blakes in here. They're all drinking seven ounce of beers and they're nursing those. Oh, he said, they're not drinking those anymore. He said they're all drinking skinners now. With the Scots chase.
That was less than one. Yeah, that was don't big note. Yeah, don't big note. I didn't land it. No, take my advice. Take my advice. I'm not using it. So you get to the racis And I loved it part. I ran the gamal in at school. I ran the Melbourne cup book at school. Yeah, make good money out of it and what have you. But it wasn't for me the bank life. And I decided to hitchhike over to Western Australia, did you And what was the aim of that?
Well, my mate's father knew somebody over a great bowl of gold mines out of cal Girley. He organized job for for Phil, and Phil told me that he could get me a job too. I said, yep, I'm in. And so I hitch liked over. Well, not in the minds as a geologist assistant. Oh okay, So yeah, traveling trailing out in the country that nobody ever been to before. Yeah, good stuff. I remember Dennis the geologist. He was an
odd one. He was one of twins. They used to take it in turns to stand for the local seat in the state parliament. They never have got any votes, but you know, it was a boring sort of a blake. But yeah, nice enough so you've got the job.
You've got that, you got there safely, got the safe adventures.
But sixteen rides three and a half days, did you roll a car or something. I've rolled a number of cars, but on that trip, And how long have you been working in the bush? And I was only over there for about six months. And there are lots of things happened, lots of you know, yeah, there were. There were a
lot of funny moments. There was a very nasty moment where a black by the name of Steve was driving the years and Scotty and I were the passion is in it and he was bush bashing and I said to him, better slide down flat country in West Australia. But there are rocks everywhere. I said, you can't see where you're going. He said, it'll be right. And the next thing, three goats emerged and he drove at them and we were Scotty and I were sort of thinking, well,
that's a kind of weird thing. And he accelerated and ran over one of them, and we Scotty went off his trolley. He said, pull the car up, got out and he put the gate out of its misery and then he was going to use the knife on this fellow. Steve. I had to grab him and hold him. And I mean I was big and he was small, but he was going to have this fella. And we went back to camp and we got in the ute and I said, we'll go straight back.
To strain the relationship.
Yeah, so we told the boss we'd never never worked with this bike again. Didn't tell him why. I just said, we will never work with this fellow again. He turned out to be a thief, Steve and got his just desserts. Another mile mannered Michael with the glasses, came from a family of doctors, sat at the HSC three times so I could get the marks to become a doctor, and his family incessed to be a doctor. And he just
said no, I've had enough. And he got over to Western Australia and worked in the camps with us, and he we didn't know, but Michael was the everyweight boxing champion of his own and he just took this boke apart. And I know it sound like I'm promoting violence, and I'm not, but there are certain moments in time where nothing but a good clip on the air, We'll do.
The job and that's what happened. Yeah, we're going to certainly to touch up. What was your next adventure after working in six months with a murderous killing.
Lunatic. I thought I got onto a tip for shares and I rang. My man said, by these shares, theseus they're going to list in the next few days. And they did. They listed in Queensland and West Australian company. They were twenty cent shares listed to thirty cents and they rapidly went to forty dollars or something. Oh and then I was told by the geologist that I was with when we discovered this stuff, and he said, look
it's a dud. So I rang. The old man said cell and then I resigned and I thought, I'm going back to aubury. I'm going back to a motsa. And when I got back, the old man said, now he said, we made nothing. He's a stopbreaker. Mate in Sydney he went to school with didn't buy him because he hadn't seen the prospectus. And that taught me a big lesson. Take your chances. Take your chances. If you're going to wait for proof, you'll never have a back a winner.
True. Yeah, good point. That is an interesting story because I mean the arithmetic, twenty cents each turning into forty dollars, it's a massive several thousand percent.
Yeah. Yeah, so he only had to put a grand in and you never ever work again.
Never work again, yeah, staggering. Yeah, that didn't happen.
Well, I didn't work again for ten years anyway.
No, I saw, Well, that's sort of why in a way, that's why we're here, the descent of young Rod into the pit of sin city. So you end up back in Sydney.
I ended up back in Sydney, and I did come back and work for the Board of Mail for a year, but that didn't work out.
Now I cent recalled reading the book. I read an early version of it that in Sydney at one point you'd worked in a pub there and you didn't realize you got involved in a card game and you didn't realize it was read and you lost them.
I wasn't a part of it was Bloody Mary's Wine, but.
Bloody Mary's wine. But when was that?
That was early days. We had a game of cards in my house that I was sharing with a couple of other blakes, and one of the bouncers from Bloody Mary's. A guy called Mike had the fastest hands you've ever seen in your life. I remember in one night he placed a candle on the bar and lit it, and he had one of those bowl wine glasses on a stem with the bowl, and he looked at both and in the fastest thing, he flicked his fingers at the
flame of the candle. He didn't actually touch it, but he sucked the air out from under beneath the candle and put it out, and in the same motion cracked the edge of the bowl of the wine glass and break the stem and caught the ball.
Did he?
I mean, that's incredibly fast. He was a role he partly a little blake, but he was a karate guy and he really knew his stuff, and he was he could shuffle cards. He could shuffle cards, could he? And as well as do karate as handy lad? And what was his name? Mike?
Mike?
I imagine he'd be dead by now, but who knows, knows? Who knows?
Is he much older than you, probably about ten years older. He may may be just hanging on. So Mike got you, got you into a game of cards.
Mike and he managed to beat it, did he and a number of other blakes in the in the game, and Gus, who loved to play cards, said no. He said, I think he played one or two hands and he said.
I'll sit out, thinks Oh, And Gus could see Mike kneeling from the bottom of the deck and I couldn't, okay, And he got me for five hundred. Oh, it was quite a few, bob. And what happened then? You couldn't really you couldn't pay him because I didn't have the five hundred. And he put up a proposition. Yeah, he put a proposition up. And what was that that?
We relieved the wine bar of it's the night's taking.
So robbed the joint and how did that work out?
Well, nobody got charged. We did it, and the police arrived with the way we did it. He said, look, I'll mark you. I'll whack you.
You know, you open the back door, it's dark, I step in, whack you the safe sape and you're about to put money in them?
And I said, yeah, right. So he put these.
Three coins, two bits in between three, and he's whacked me and it sort of marked me a bit.
I said, don't get serious. So he's gone whack, And I said, so he's gone three or four, really good heart and up and I've got blood run down And I then lay on the floor for a couple of minutes and I got up and I'm groggy, and I call the police and they arrived, and I realized I could be charged still out of this matter. Yeah, I choose, I could have left it out of the book, and I could choose not to talk about it now.
But you can't do it.
You can't. Well, yeah, but you can't edit your life if you're going to be fair income and want people to believe you, if you're going to put yourself up as the past a boy for andy drugs, yes, then how can you deny your own bad behavior? Well, that's very true.
This is a good point, and at this point you're only really putting yourself in, yeah, rather than naming.
Mike, and I didn't put anybody in. The police used to drink in our bar, yes, And two of them arrived, one who hated me and one who liked me. Vaughan liked me, and the other big I can't remember his name. He didn't like me at all. And so the blaker didn't like me, is questioned me, and what's your part in this? And what did you do? You set this up? No, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm groggy. I can't I've got no memory, blah blah blah. And Vaughn said, yeah, well,
pretty open and shutcase to me. Yeah, you're right to get home, Rod, And I said, well, I'm a big groggy, said I We'll give you a ride. And the other boy said your kid, nuja. He said no, I'm not. And Vorm was a senior. So got And what was the net take of the It was I think it was about fifteen hundred.
But he wanted his five hundred that you.
Which will left seven fifty eighth? Yeah, and me painting the five hundred, well left me with two fifty, but he very graciously said no, we'll split it down the middle.
Ah. And what happened then, what happened with Mike.
I was all pretty innocuous. It was just running a wine bar and doing stuff.
You know.
I moved on to other things. That's when I got into the other dealing game.
Yeah, so that was sort of the first real criminal act. Was that. Now you mentioned Mary Bloody Mary's one bar and whatsuburb.
Camping down camping down, Yeah, just down from RPA Hospital.
And so you've been pretty good at working it. You were bit of a barman sort of. Oh yeah, I've done a lot about talk to it, talk to people.
Yeah yeah, and I've done a lot of and I pull a bloody good beer and I don't spill anything into the drip tray into my session. You wouldn't be able to fill a thimble. The stuff very good.
And what happened next.
I ran into an old mate that I played footy against in Aubrey, Paul mack Now did God bless him? And Paul said, listen, can you do something for me. I've got a business. I want you to run it for me. I want to take a trip to Mexico when I have a holiday. And I said yeah, yeah, sure. What's what's the business And he said, well, I sell marijuana and I said, yeah, I can do that. I didn't think twice. I said yeah I can do that.
I've been smoking for about a year. And so he went and he gave me a couple of numbers of contact in Melbourne and the headman in Sydney, who in the book called gator non diplum. But I'm not going to tell you his real name because.
It might be it's a marine type animal.
It could be something like that.
Although there are no gators in Australia, but I'll get there is an alligator river. So yeah, contact your man had gone to Mexico. Yeah, he went to Mexico to buy things. No, No, he just went for a holiday. And I I said, I'll run it and I'll make something and I'll keep something for you. And I met this guy and my mate Paul told him that I was going to call him. I met him on the corner of New South d Raid outside Raised Bow police Station, which is an interesting starting point, it is, and we
we knodded at each other. I hopped into his car. We went to the.
Pub in what's the pub in Double Bay, The Golden Sheath, The Golden Sheath. We went the Golden Sheath.
Called the Golden Sheet. It could begin also.
And I've had some funny times in there. And we remember the guy Robert G. Barrett Rode.
Had some interesting times once or twice. He was a very funny man.
He was a very funny man. He took bloody good drink.
It took the mickey out of the literally establishment. He came down to Writer's Festival in Melbourne, which is very seriously po faced and all that, and he turned up with I think possibly two very sort of glamorous women who didn't have a lot of clothing on, and he took them both of this. That's absolutely shocked them.
I was. I was in the in the back bar with the Gator and a few other blokes one day and then through the double doors burst Robert G. Barrett with probably different ones, but two girls run under their charm, and he ballowed out right boys the Puddigan start, I'm here. It was like that he was funny man and he was. He was a bouncer on the illegal casino doors.
Yeah yeah, that's that's been a butcher and he could blue yeah yeah.
Big time. But he didn't look for anything. He was just very happy. He knew what was.
They were funny books. Yeah, yeah, they were funny. They weren't bad really yeah, and they have been filmed since yeah I should Yeah.
Anyway, we got on the terms there a Gata and I and we sort of became mates, and then I started running large amounts of smoke over with tire sticks and just for.
The benefit of our listeners, and I don't want to cause any trouble. And also we can edit this. But data is a non diplome for a bloke who has got a nickname, and he is a very significant figure in Sydney crime or in fact in Australian crime. Yes, and he's one that people like me and others have heard of for decades.
Yeah, that's true, that's true. That's right, Okay.
I just wanted to make that clear to our listeners. And we're not talking about Mickey Mouse Stuffy, No, No, we're talking about a very serious man, very serious.
And I've got to say I liked him a real lot back then and I still like him. I haven't seen him for a long time, but I remember.
But does he like you? That's the problem.
Last time I saw him, Yeah, last time I saw him, he was getting involved in other stuff and outside of smoke. And I said to him, this isn't for me, mate, I'm out, and it's a trade you don't walk away from. But I looked him in the eye and I said, I'm out. I'm finished, are we right? And he looked at me for a long time and then he smiled and he said, yeah, mate, we're right, and I believed him, and I've never had a moment's worry since.
And yeah, so you had to sort of make the formal exit.
Yeah, the exitent. Well, I wasn't just going not turn up and I wasn't going to promise to do something that I didn't do. I mean I always fulfilled the task, which was being the middle man between the buyer and the seller.
And so just described to listen to what that would involve on a given Wednesday or whatever it might be.
Well, and that term that's just reminded me my old man said to me when I went to West Australia. He said, I got two things for you. One was thirty bucks, was a lot of money. And I said, what's the other thing? He said a word of advice, He said, the well's full of buyers and sell has become the agent middle Often you'll get paid both ways. And I did, and I became a very very good salesman. And so would you travel to places like Griffith by No, No, No,
I didn't travel anywhere. Stuff. I picked it up in Sydney. It was all organized, mostly imported from Thailand. And Afghanistan and elsewhere, those buddhisticks and hash hash oil, and I would then take a couple of times. I picked it up at the airport at the customs, i should say, and they were two loads of one was tire sticks, the other was hash oil, and they we required my utility to transport both players. Why were you a good choice for this?
Did they already have people at the customs who were on side that were being bribed or were you able to just sort of disarm them with they did?
Certainly with the stuff with the hash oil in it. That was a large box. And when I went to pick it up, they said, you said, I was just in a bloody p the box paid me, buddy fifty bucks to come and pick this up. Can I get it done? I'm in a hurry, And they said, you just wait to turn. And they've emptied the box all sorts of goodies, you know, and some wooden things which they took a drill and drilled into see if there's
anything in it other stuff. They if it could be opened it, They opened it and they completely emptied the box. And they said, all right, well you can go now. I said, well, I'm going to put it in the box. I'm only paid the body transport it. So I said, you can put it in the bloody back in the box, which they did, and I said, can you give me a handle of it? And they did have your hand to put it.
Where was the actual oil? It was in the framework of the box. In the framework of the box. That's that old, that old wolf joke about it. They're stopping the bloke with a wheelbarrow full of store every days at the end of six. I've seen wheelbarrows from Doc one and straw from Doc three. It was in the framework of the box. They didn't drill that amazing your men, Gaeta, he had parents. You met the parents now, just to make it clear again, Gaeta is a serious heavy known
to many many people around this country. He has been nominated in books, films, whatever as a heavy dude. You are reasonably close to him at some point. This is before Adelaide. I suppose this is before the Adelaide adventure where you left Pound to get away. Okay, so you have met Gaitera's parents up the coast somewhere. You may tell this with unexpegated language, and we may have to do some beeping.
But I'll have to tell it with language. This is the time we brought the oil in the framework of the box. We jumped into the gator's jag. There was Gaitera's minder, his ma, and there was me and we went up the central coast. We pulled up this house. Mum and Dad were waiting for us. Yep, very humble home, firebro home.
What were Mum and dad like?
Mum and Dad were It's four thirty in the afternoon. Mom's in hair curlers. She was a lovely lady. She's in hair curlers, a nighty, a night sort of gown over at the top of it. And Dad was in his stripe pajamas and he's dressing gowns with a gold tessel cord? Did he four thirty? A little sleep and ready for sleep? I think we went into the house. We put the framework into the freezer. I still had
no idea what we were, what we were carrying. We put the framework into the freezer and then we sat down for dinner at five o'clock and Mum had cooked chops and three veg and it was bloody nice too. She came out and served us and then she went back into the kitchen and ate on her own, left the men to talk, and am I allowed to bang this table?
Well, it'll come through on the recording. There.
God. So the old man's there and he's eating his chops and what have you, and he's telling us about this time he's doing some business with the boys from Griffith and he'd obviously been well, yeah he was, Yeah, where Gaya learned his trade. Anyway, the old man is telling the story about you. He did this with Griffith and we went up there. And at the same time he's picked up a piece of bread and he's buttered.
It, white bread and he's buttered it, and then he's he's look puzzled and he's looked around the table, and then he's gone bang.
Slapped his hand on the head really loudly.
Where's the much?
Mom came out with a jara spread, put a hand on his shoulder and said there, now, do you don't you get upset? You'll give yourself a heart attack? He said, well, side a man wants he looks for the veggimon. There's no vegimon. What the fus going on? I levitated out of the chair. Geidor's minder who was sitting next to the old man. He's just looked across at me and he's muttered out the side of his mouth. You get used to it, cheers. I hope I do. I hope I do.
It was very funny. It was Gaeta.
Oh he was so you know, just that was the way it was. Probably he was. I actually liked him. I thought they were a lovely family. Yeah, it sounds a bit weird, but every everything in the same place, and.
That'd be a very good scene in a certain sort.
Of I wouldn't be a ripper.
I'll chop aresk and a bit like two hands, you know that.
Yeah, yeah, I teach something else about is that We're driving along with just himself and me one day and he burst into song?
Did he?
And I was done?
I could sing?
Oh he had a voice like a male Nina Simone.
Did he?
Oh he could sing? Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm no expert at the caper, but I know I know what's good and what's not. Yeah, and he was good, I mean top top. Yeah. He did seem Australian idol. Every family.
It didn't look like an ange prety good thing, like is that a fact? Well, it's a great story about Gator. Now at this stage, your early twenties, if that early to mid Yes, from Aubrey. Your father's a stocking station agent. You've got red hair and freckles. You would sort of front up in that time, as I say, of a country boy, sort of bloke.
I played on it, yeah, and you'd have all.
That pair of bluntstones or something. Although on Friday nights, I mean I did go shopping in Double Bar and I'd buy Italian silk shirts and Gabandine trousers and where those out, you know, opened to the navel with a gold chain.
Of course, when you're on the dance.
Look look, look look at where I'm flying, you know. But but when you're in the ute you go the other way.
Yeah, I was a working man. I was in a single it or a rough shirt and pair of jeans. Yeah, I did that twice. Pick those up there and I would take then take the stuff down to Melbourne to the contact down there.
You drive down, yeah.
Always drive. And then we decided we'd fly it occasionally we sort of there weren't any sniffer dogs and on one occasion I took a suitcase full of sticks. It was so jamm packed with tire sticks that you couldn't get a bloody t shirt on top of it and close the case. So it was just wrapped in plastic, wipe down with methos so the smell wouldn't get out,
and then the case was locked. I wore a three piece suit when I took stuff by my hair, and I carried a copy of the Financial Times, and I had a briefcase.
I was a businessman and an act, don't you yeah?
And I got off the plane and I went to a phone to ring my contact, and I stayed on the phone too long, and when I came back there were two bags left on the carousel, one of them was mine, and standing around the carousel were I think twenty, possibly more, but twenty Commonwealth Police in uniform. And I had a decision to make walk away and suffer the contact. No I know, I know, I had to pick up
my bag. So instead of me going over in amongst the thirty or twenty police and picking the bag up, I hobbled over to a lame copper standing on his own and I said, mate, I've got a crooked lead, do you reckon? You could go and grab that big bag, can't we And he said, yeah, sure, and he went over and he picked it up and he willed it. He couldn't carry. He wheeled a time that is gold, and I said, thanks very much, and I kept wheeling it.
At Melbourne Airport there used to be a big glass window and it was reflective, of course, and I just kept looking at the glass to see if they came for me, and they didn't. If they'd come for me, I was going to abandon and bolt, but they didn't come for me, and I wheeled it off and I got the deal donee that was seen in today's.
Terms buddhistics, there'd be a lot of money in today's terms.
I think it was a round one thousand and then. So what's that forty five almost fifty years ago? Was fifty years ago? Actually that would be I would have to be in the millions.
So this is very early seventies.
Yeah, seventy three, seventy four.
Yeah, well that's a lot of money. I was a cadet journalist earning very small money. But I earned about three thousand dollars in a year in nine to seventy five.
And yes, I know, I shake my head still to this day when I think about it, Where did you deliver that? I can't say. No, tour Blake, it's a long time. Yeah, we're dead.
Yeah, no.
And he's got a memory of this blake. He's a nasty fella, is it? Yeah? But roughly with suburb to Iraq? Is there right?
Yeah? And did he live that?
He lived around the corner from there. I can't remember the suburb. But he had a business into Iraq that he ran the business from. Did he He took me on one occasion. I would let him have more of a now like two thousand sticks on consignment, and I'd stayed at his house and he brings the money back. But he wanted to do it five thousand stick or something like that, and I said, no, I can't let that go. You'll have to take me with you. So he drove me in this convoluted track all over the
place to get to this place. And we walk in it so dark and it's a big establishment, big room, and there's a Blake sitting in there with a pile of cash on the table. We delivered the five thousand sticks to him. He hands the money over. We go out and we hop in his car and he drives off and he goes back to his house and he said, that went pretty well. And I said, yeah, look, next time, why don't you go directly to the place. And I'd picked up it was a reception center and I can't remember.
Let's call it White Dove. I can't rember. It's called And I pulled a leaflet off the desk a White Dove reception center. I said, or I could deal directly with the baker White Dove. What do you reckon? He was embarrassed. He was embarrassed.
Yeah, that contact inter Iraq would appear to the world to be a legit businessman.
Absolutely.
What background was he?
He sold?
He sold goods. Yeah, that's all I'll say. Yeah, I don't identify much.
And what about what other place that was over? That was the kind of time I visited there. There there was obviously the blake ran the show and he was making some money on the side. A lot of people in lots of different businesses, fronts, genuine fronts, were making a lot of money out of smoker. Yeah, I don't know what happened. I don't know whether those people get involved in powder in smack or I saw.
Meth so your guesstimate is that there's there's a lot of substantial fortunes been propped up or made much much bigger than just those those guys running their businesses to Iraq. There are national businessmen and I'm not even going to go close to try to identify them, and I don't know for sure that I'm right, but the people one or two got knighted, I think possibly the people I
mixed with did business with these people. And there is no doubt in my mind that there are people who have got huge fortunes based on illegal activity, just like Joe Kennedy in American Fortune. Very interesting, isn't it, And people who probably had no great They weren't sort of hippies, they weren't. They weren't they weren't keen on drugs. Business businessman, pure and simple, and some of them might have come out of war torn Europe as young.
And some of them, I think you may be well correctly so there it's pretty hard cases. Yeah, I think that it was in many cases. I think it was
the idea of being involved with the hard men. They as they saw at the hard men of the game, rubbing shoulders with out and out killers, and criminals, and I think they enjoyed the game of keeping the authorities at bay, even taunting the authorities at times, denying their involvement in these matters, but making it quite clear that they were more or less saying catch me if you can, I reckon. Yeah. And none of them have ever been
brought to book, is that right? Well, none have been named, not to say.
You can recall several of these people, but you've never seen them come undone. Yeah, Yeah, that's interesting. So they were the money by silence. Yeah, we hear about the ones that come unstuck. We don't hear about. What you don't hear about is the invisible because it stays invisible.
Yeah, you don't. And I think if you're in that game, you have no scruples and you'll sacrifice anybody as long as you get out of it, okay. And I think there have been people who've had to pay a price, and it's been explained to them quietly that they either cop it on the chin or things will be nasty.
Yeah, okay.
And everybody's got a family, Andrew, Yeah, so we want to protect it, don't you.
That's right. People kept backing the wrap.
And this is all here saying I wasn't involved in any of that, so that's not part of my book, but it's les that's part of this The too.
Writer it is podcast to writer Rod, we've heard about your adventures in Sydney, and next week I think we might hear about your adventures in Adelaide when you were hiding out there keeping your head low but not that low.
Yeah, that was an interesting time in Adelaide And here I am. They didn't get me.
Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnny Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to harold'sun 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.