The Gangland War

by John Silvester

  On 16 January 1998, Gangitano was shot dead in his home in Templestowe. Police say Moran was the gunman and the murder weapon was thrown from the Westgate Bridge. Police divers were never able to find the gun at the bottom of the Yarra.

  The Morans always denied involvement in the murder and kept a cross in their front yard as a tribute to Gangitano. Crocodile tears from gangsters in crocodile shoes, police say.

  Alphonse’s death should have shown Jason nobody was bulletproof. He failed to understand that his time would come.

  In the underworld, the hunter can become the hunted overnight.

  Moran was convicted of the King Street assault even though the judge remarked that his arrest, in which he received a fractured skull, was ‘remarkably heavy handed’.

  One of the police with the heavy hands later wandered into a Moonee Ponds pub for a drink. Standing at the other end of the bar was Moran with a group of heavies. A drink arrived for the policeman, care of Moran, who then walked over and said there were no hard feelings over the arrest, but as this was his area the copper should have his free drink and then ‘fuck off.’ The policeman told Moran he would not accept the drink but would accept the advice. He left.

  Mark was murdered while Jason was in jail. He was let out to attend the funeral. Many predicted he would plot the payback. A death notice he put in the Herald Sun strongly implied revenge.

  But when he was released from jail in 2001, he applied to the parole board to travel overseas because of fears for his life.

  Members of his family suggested he stay overseas, away from trouble.

  He would receive regular payments from family enterprises, and could have lived a comfortable and somewhat anonymous life. But that would cramp his style. He wanted the notoriety of a gangster’s life, apparently unaware he was doomed to the infamy of a gangster’s death.

  Against all advice, he returned to Melbourne within months.

  FOR the homicide squad, all investigations start with looking for motive, means and opportunity. In most murder cases, the challenge is to find someone who wanted the victim dead. For homicide squad crew two, which was originally assigned the Jason Moran case, there were too many to choose from. It was a matter of trying to discount some of his enemies.

  And in the Morans’ social and business circles, enemies don’t just cross you off their Christmas-card list.

  There were many theories. One was it was a payback by Italian gangsters for Moran killing Gangitano.

  Moran had many enemies, but the homicide squad quickly came to believe that Carl Williams was the most likely organiser. They certainly knew he was not the gunman — who was described as slim, fit and fast.

  Police knew of Williams’ hatred for the Morans and he was the number one suspect for Mark’s murder. But who was the actual gunman this time?

  Several names were mentioned and for once Andrew Veniamin’s was not among them: he had a rock solid alibi. But one career crook was mentioned: a staunch friend of Carl’s who had done jail time with him.

  The former armed robber was known to be super fit, ruthless and violent. He became known as ‘The Runner’.

  He was considered one of the hard men of the prison system and diagnosed by a forensic psychologist as a full-on psychopath.

  Little wonder, considering his past. Born into desperate domestic violence in the 1960s, he saw one of his sisters die young of heart failure. His mentally-disturbed father regularly beat him.

  The young Runner came home from school to find his father stabbing his mother. He jumped in and saved her life.

  He was first sent to Pentridge when he was 17, for assault. On his release he became one of Australia’s most prolific armed robbers, always running from the scene for hundreds of metres to his waiting getaway car. He was an underworld soldier and did not need to be asked twice when Williams approached him in jail to kill Moran — a man he had never met.

  ‘I said “yes” to show him my loyalty. I was aware of Carl’s hatred of the Moran family. Carl told me about an incident in 1999 where Carl was shot by Jason Moran,’ he later told police of the short-lived and murderous relationship that ended badly for all concerned.

  Williams needed a new hit man, as he was becoming increasingly worried about Veniamin. While Williams and Benji appeared to be loyal to each other, Carl was beginning to have doubts.

  He had wanted Veniamin to set up Moran but despite many promises had failed to deliver. Williams knew that Veniamin had once hero-worshiped Mick Gatto and began to think the hit man could be turned against Carl. He knew Veniamin had killed former friends such as Dino Dibra and Paul Kallipolitis, so why not Williams himself?

  Williams had been shot once and had no intention of being shot again. So The Runner was ideal. Loyal, part mad and ruthless — the perfect CV for a paid killer.

  Even before the bodies of Jason Moran and Barbaro were removed from the van, the dogs were barking: The Runner pulled the trigger.

  He had a long and remarkable criminal history and was a former member of the ten most wanted by police.

  In March 1990, he escaped from jail in South Australia where he had been serving a long sentence for armed robberies. The following month he was arrested in Melbourne and questioned over four armed robberies.

  As he was being driven to the city watch-house, he jumped from an unmarked police car and escaped again. The sleepy policeman in the back seat did not have him handcuffed. (Many years later this detective was implicated for his alleged involvement in one of the underworld murders.) After his escape, The Runner was arrested near Kingaroy in Queensland in January 1991.

  Associates of the Morans were to be dragged into the war as Melbourne gangsters were eventually forced to take sides. Some with no real interest in the feud would also end up as victims.

  Ironically, the Williams and Moran children attended the same private school. It would have made for interesting parentteacher nights.

  Once, Roberta Williams complained to police that Jason had harassed her outside the school. She considered seeking an intervention order but later withdrew her complaint. She didn’t mention Carl’s plan to lie in wait for Moran outside the school, nor the idea of her picking a fight with Trish Moran to lure Jason to come out of hiding.

  Never mind that, if it had come off, he would be shot in front of the Williams and Moran kids. Collateral damage.

  After Mark’s murder, Williams contacted one of the authors who had written that he was a suspect, saying ‘You could get a man killed writing things like that.’

  The double murder at the Auskick Clinic looked like a perfectly planned hit but it wasn’t. For weeks, Williams and his partner had been trying to find Moran to ambush him.

  Their efforts would have been considered laughable if not for their deadly intent. Much of it seemed inspired by bad Hollywood movies more than real cunning.

  As mentioned earlier, they flirted with mad plans such as hiding in the boot of Moran’s BMW or lying beneath shrubs outside the house where he was believed to be staying.

  One problem was they couldn’t find where he was living.

  Of course, there was the idea lifted from The Untouchables, of The Runner dressing as a woman pushing a pram with a gun in it. He was many things but he was no Yummy Mummy.

  Moran was on the move and hard to find. He knew he was hot, so he kept changing addresses. So when Williams and his sidekick spotted him at the Gladstone Park Red Rooster it was Jason, not them, who was armed. That’s when they followed him and he flipped the latch on the hatchback and fired shots at them.

  Finally, Williams was tipped off that Moran took his children to Auskick training every Saturday morning in Essendon North, near the Cross Keys Hotel.

  But it was not the hit of choice. Williams wanted Moran killed at Fawkner Cemetery on the anniversary of Mark Moran’s murder — but the hit team slept in and missed their Mark (or Jason).

  It was then that the Auskick plan was set in stone for the following week.

&nbs
p; During the week, The Runner and The Driver (of the getaway car) went to the Cross Keys ground to plan the murder. The Runner would be dropped at the hotel car park where Moran would be parked. He would run up, shoot Moran in the head and then run over a footbridge to the getaway van.

  The hit men collected the guns stashed at the Pascoe Vale house of Andrew Krakouer, brother of former football champions Phil and Jimmy, and went to the Cross Keys carpark. Meanwhile, Williams had set up his blood-test alibi.

  As expected, Moran arrived — but there was a problem. Noone had given the hit man a photo of his target. He saw a man he believed was Moran. ‘I thought it might have been Jason because people were coming up to him, shaking his hand and generally paying attention to him. His behaviour was typical of a gangster.’

  Williams and another member of the team drove by and gave the thumbs up — then headed off to the doctor’s appointment.

  ‘I then put on my balaclava and gloves and jumped out from the van, carrying the shotgun in my right hand. I had the two revolvers in a belt around my waist. I ran to the driver’s side window of the blue van, aimed the shotgun at Jason Moran and fired through the closed window,’ The Runner later told police.

  Moran slumped forward and The Runner fired again. He dropped the shotgun, grabbed his long-barrelled revolver and fired at least another three shots. He then took off, running over the footbridge to the waiting van.

  Moran was the target. Later, The Runner would tell police he was unaware there was a second man in the car and only learnt he had killed Little Pat when he heard it on the news.

  ‘I did not even know that I had shot Pasquale Barbaro until later…I regret that happening.’

  He had been promised $100,000 for killing Moran. He was paid just $2500.

  JOHN William Moran was a good man and an upstanding citizen. He joined the army in 1941 during World War II to fight for his country. He died peacefully with his family on 22 June 2003. He was 81.

  There were only a handful of death notices for John William Moran from his family and the Glenroy RSL, where he was a respected regular. He was also a member of the Glenroy Lawn Bowls Club, having been a player, selector and coach for 30 years.

  About 60 people attended the quiet and dignified service for the former bootmaker at the Fawkner Crematorium.

  Jason Matthew Patrick Moran (no relation) died the day before John Moran. He also ‘passed away’ in the company of members of his family — his six-year-old twins and their young cousins. But it was not peaceful.

  For Jason Moran — gunman, drug dealer, standover man and killer — there were hundreds of death notices. In death he was accorded qualities he did not readily reveal in life. In the notices he was described as ‘a gentleman … a lovable rascal … a special friend … a good bloke … a diamond’.

  About 700 ‘mourners’ attended his funeral at St Mary’s Star of the Sea in West Melbourne — the same church where Gangitano had been farewelled. Police were required for traffic control. Floral tributes worth thousands were sent.

  Moran’s mother, Judith, a big blonde woman compared in her younger days with the former film star Diana Dors, spoke at the funeral and gave a not-so-cryptic message to those present. ‘All will be dealt with, my darling,’ she said.

  Judy Moran would be a regular face in the media in the years ahead as she attended court hearings related to the deaths of her two sons and husband. She always dressed to impress and spent hours on her makeup and hair. At times she appeared to be a parody of herself, caught in some fantasy world — always denying her family’s culpability while condemning others’ violence. She called for the return of capital punishment — side stepping the fact that her Jason was a gunman and suspected murderer.

  But there was one image of her at the Cross Keys slumped on a fence with no make-up and no outlandish outfit. A real mother weeping real tears for a son she adored but could not control.

  Jason Moran was loved by his family and their grief was every bit as real as anyone feels when they lose someone close.

  But the assorted mates, associates, crime groupies and downright fools who have tried to suggest he was anything but a callous thug must have been sampling the amphetamine-based products Moran peddled.

  He was described as a ‘family man’ — yet he pursued a violent criminal career that constantly placed him, his wife and children under threat, and he was always happy to wreck someone else’s family.

  He was warned at least three weeks before his murder that his card had been marked, yet he still drove around with his children as though he (and they) were bullet proof.

  The truth is that Moran was born into a life of violence and crime — and revelled in it. He showed no signs of wanting to change.

  The tragedy is that the fascination exerted by gangsters is selfperpetuating. At one gangland funeral, two young children step from a funeral limousine. The boy, aged about six, is dressed in a little gangster suit and wears the mandatory gangster sunglasses, although the weather is bleak and overcast. The child looks directly at a press photographer and flips him ‘the bird’. This was the next generation on display.

  Most people in Melbourne know the names of Gangitano and Moran, but few recognise the names of the detectives who originally headed the investigation into their murders (for the record, they were Detective Senior Sergeants Charlie Bezzina and Row-land Legg).

  Ned Kelly may be Australia’s most recognisable name but few can recall the police killed at Stringybark Creek — Kelly’s fellow Irishmen: Michael Scanlon, Thomas Lonigan and Michael Kennedy.

  American author Damon Runyon once wrote: ‘Legitimate guys are much interested in the doings of tough guys, and consider them romantic.’

  But there was nothing romantic about Jason Moran. Beyond his own family and friends, he was no great loss. And he brought it on himself.

  15

  INSIDE JOB

  Sometimes in the underworld

  it is more dangerous

  to be owed money

  than to be in debt.

  PEOPLE can strive all their lives to make money to guarantee their security. The irony for many Australian criminals is that as their illegal assets rise, so too do the risks to their long-term future.

  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 s
ystem, 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.