Australia's Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail

by Phelps, James

Alyce Jay Bell knew the routine. First the guard would ask her if she was concealing anything on or in her body. She would say no. Then he would give her a rushed feel – overworked hands quickly brushing at legs and stomach before lightly touching shoulders and arms. They would find nothing.

  And then she would be shown to a table where her husband would be sitting and smiling, of course, because seeing her was the highlight of his long, lonesome week.

  Just a typical Sunday, really.

  Tap. Tap.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ said the guard. ‘Could you please come with me?’

  Alyce was stunned, her Sunday routine ruined.

  ‘Me?’ she asked. ‘What? Where? Why?’

  The guard was not mucking around.

  ‘We have reason to believe you may be attempting to bring contraband into the prison,’ he said. ‘Please come this way.’

  Oh no.

  Her shoulders slumped and her eyes hit the ground.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Okay.’

  Alyce had been spotted by a guard having a quick fiddle, her hands going down to her crotch for a back and forth. The eagle-eyed officer – apparently neither rushed nor overworked that day – suspected more than an innocent scratch.

  ‘We have detained you because we believe you are trying to bring contraband into the jail,’ the officer said. ‘We are now giving you an opportunity to hand over the item, or items, that we believe you have attempted to hide on your body.’

  Alyce stuck her hand down her pants. Better give them a little or they will find a lot.

  She pulled out three balloons filled with white powder, before carefully placing them on a countertop.

  ‘Is that all?’ the officer asked. ‘Do you have anything else on or in your body?’

  Haven’t I given them enough?

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s it.’

  The officer thought she was lying – he was sure she was lying.

  ‘Miss, we suspect you are carrying more items on or within your body,’ the guard continued. ‘We will be required to take you to Goulburn Police Station for the purpose of a full-body examination unless you remove the items now.’

  She fluttered her eyes.

  ‘And then will you let me go home?’ she asked. ‘I just want to go home.’

  ‘No,’ the guard replied. ‘But compliance will be looked upon favourably.’

  She decided to take her chances.

  Alyce Jay Bell was arrested and taken to Goulburn Police Station, where she produced a condom containing two mobile phones, two micro SIM cards and two USB charging cables. Police alleged she had secreted the items in her vagina. Bell was charged and convicted of attempting to deliver things to an inmate without lawful authority, possessing a restricted substance and attempting to bring a small quantity of drugs into a place of detention. The powder she volunteered to the Corrections staff was later revealed to be steroids.

  Online Shopping

  2.2 TOUCH SCREEN, ANDROID SMART PHONE. Only 81mm x 45mm and just 11mm thick. No bigger than a cigarette lighter.

  The eBay seller goes on to list some of the phone’s features.

  32GB, Micro USB, 512 RAM, hands-free loudspeaker, text and calls, email, web, GRRS, stream video and WI-FI.

  And all this for the inmate-friendly price of $119.90, with free delivery.

  ‘Mobile phones are everywhere in jail,’ said an officer who asked to remain anonymous. ‘You can get these BMW branded mobile phones, and they are tiny. In the last six months we’ve found about two dozen. Some of those are through cell searches and some are pulled up coming through visits: [the inmates] shove them up their arses.

  ‘These Bluetooth phones they make are smaller than a box of matches. The yards and cells are searched, but the main way we get them is through intelligence. We do random searches, of course, but low staffing levels are putting a limit on how many we can do. I couldn’t even take a guess at how many [phones] are in the prison right now.’

  Online traders, mostly based in China, are directly marketing miniature phones to inmates. The following selling point was pulled off an advertisement for a phone that was designed to look like the electronic key fobs used to transmit signals to unlock cars: ‘Very, very low metal content badge, which can be removed due to metal content alarm.’

  Selling for under $100, the ‘FOB Key Phone’ won’t set off a metal detector, and it can also be used to send text messages. They come branded with car manufacturers’ logos – BMW, VW and Porsche are among the most popular.

  Brothers 4 Life gang general Mohammed Hamzy is facing charges after a BMW key fob was found in his Silverwater jail cell in July 2014. According to the police statement, a charging device was also found within the wall.

  Hamzy told the officers, ‘It’s BMW. It’s mine.’

  The find forced current Corrective Services boss Peter Severin to admit that mobile phones were a major problem in New South Wales prisons: ‘Contraband mobile phones, including mini key ring phones, are an issue for correctional jurisdictions around the world. New South Wales is no different.’

  There are also phone watches available from $79, but among inmates the popular choice seems to be the fob phones. A staggering 7000 of them have been seized from jails in the United Kingdom, and the government is attempting to ban their sale. In New South Wales prisons alone, 92 mobile phones were seized within a 21-month period leading up to 2001.

  The phones enter prison in a number of ways: visitors can bring them in by way of body cavity, corrupt officers can sell them to crooks, and they can even be thrown over walls.

  ‘Prisoners are increasingly using ingenious ways to sneak in and hide mobile phones,’ said former Corrective Services minister Richard Amery. ‘We all know they are getting smaller and therefore increasingly hard to detect. Mobiles are a valuable commodity in prisons and can be used to organise criminal activities outside of jail.’

  Even murder …

  Murder by Mobile

  Bassam Hamzy stood and smiled, not one bit bothered by the handcuffs, the bright orange jumpsuit or his new home – a 6-metre by 3-metre cell in Goulburn’s Supermax. He had just been moved from Lithgow Correctional Centre to Australia’s most secure jail after being caught with a mobile phone, which he was suspected of using to run a $1.5 million drug empire. And now he was about to be charged with 15 offences he allegedly committed with the aid of a phone while behind bars.

  But still he smiled, even as police dragged him away.

  The mobile phone would soon be exposed as prison’s most dangerous weapon …

  Bassam Hamzy took the mobile into the prison toilet.

  ‘Can you slap him once in the face?’ he ordered, quietly but forcefully.

  ‘I’ve already done it, cuz,’ came the reply from his Brothers 4 Life foot soldier. ‘I’ve already chopped him … I’ve got blood everywhere, man.’

  Speaking on a different day, but with the same phone, Hamzy reinforced his demands: ‘Let me speak to him before you cut his ears off so he can hear what I’m saying. If I ever have to come up there again, I’m gunna cut all his fingers off … Next time I’ll take his ears and make them into a necklace.’

  These were just two of the threats, orders and ultimatums Hamzy issued over his mobile phone in 2008, when he made a staggering 19,523 calls in just six weeks. Yep … a maximum-security prisoner in Lithgow Jail making 250 calls a day from the slammer.

  The founder of the notoriously violent gang led by his cousin Mohammed, Bassam Hamzy ordered hits, demanded kidnappings and arranged drug deals. After it was revealed that police had been listening to the phone calls Bassam had placed from May to June 2008, he pleaded guilty to all 15 charges, including supplying a commercial quantity of methamphetamine from his cell and orchestrating the kidnapping of John Baroutas in Adelaide on 5 June 2008.

  He also admitted to supplying 600 grams of 3, 4-MDMA (ecstasy) and 15.75 kilograms of cannabis; using a false or stolen American Express card to book two Qantas airfares
; ordering a house in Melbourne to be ‘sprayed’ with bullets because of a $45,000 drug debt; and setting up his own ABN for drug transactions.

  A document tendered in court during his trial drove home the reach of Hamzy’s criminal empire: ‘Bassam Hamzy obtained a mobile phone and made a number of phone calls, organising the sourcing of various prohibited drugs in Sydney and their direction to Melbourne, where they were supplied to associates for on-supply.’

  He was sentenced to an additional 14 years for these contraband crimes.

  ‘It just shows you how serious the problem is,’ said a current Goulburn guard.

  ‘Some people might think, What’s the big deal? They think they are just calling their girlfriends or mums. Well, that may be the case for most of them, but some of them are also killing people with their phones and dealing drugs. They are doing exactly the things that being locked up was supposed to stop.’

  Part of Hamzy’s punishment was being made a resident of Goulburn’s Supermax. With a combined minimum sentence of 36 years, Hamzy was slapped with an A1 prisoner classification – the highest security rating possible – and put in a solitary cell.

  ‘He has had a bunch of restrictions put on him,’ the guard continued. ‘He isn’t allowed to speak Arabic on the phone, he is mostly kept in solitary, and all of his conversations are recorded and his mail is read.’

  Still, Hamzy could not be silenced.

  It was revealed in 2013 that Hamzy had been ‘communicating’ with the outside world through a woman posing as his lawyer. Authorities alleged the gang leader was using privileged legal visits to bypass his strict security conditions to send orders to his street gang.

  Mobile phones are used for much more than making telephone calls from behind bars. Aside from accessing the internet and web-based applications, inmates can also receive information from the outside world by way of Secure Digital (SD) cards.

  ‘It is very easy to smuggle an SD card into jail,’ said a Goulburn officer. ‘They are tiny and almost impossible to pick up in a search. They can also be sent in through the mail and are not detected by scanners. The inmate can then load them into his phone and extract whatever information has been put on it.’

  And most of that is porn.

  ‘There is a lot of porn on the cards we find,’ the officer continued. ‘They don’t have to bother with magazines because these cards are much easier to get in, and instead of just pictures they are getting full-on videos. There was a smart phone found in the Islander Yard this year [2015] with some really hardcore stuff on it. That’s pretty common these days.’

  And phones can also be walked straight in with a guard …

  Capturing Cale

  14 March 2003. Armed with a screwdriver, a video camera and an empty evidence bag, the two officers entered the cell. They had received information that the inmate known as ‘C2’ was keeping a mobile phone in his HRMU cell. Supermax has the most sophisticated prison security system in Australia: X-ray machines, metal detectors, surveillance cameras and a prisoner-to-guard ratio as high as four to one. No one can get out and nothing can get in.

  Well … that’s what they had hoped.

  Camera rolling, evidence bag open and ready, they checked the bed. Nothing. They checked the shelves. Nothing. They checked the toilet. Nothing.

  All clear.

  And then out came the screwdriver and out came the screws. The cover plate of the cell’s wall light unit was removed and behold: two mobile phones and four SIM cards. Incredible. The inmate was running his criminal empire from a Supermax cell.

  But the guards were not done yet. They placed the phones and the SIM cards in the evidence bag and moved their search next door to the cell of another inmate, known as ‘C1’.

  They checked the bed. Nothing. They checked the shelves. Nothing. They checked the toilet. Nothing.

  All clear.

  Out came the screwdriver, off came the cover plate, and behold: two more phones, two more SIM cards, a mobile phone charger, a miniature digital camera and a ratchet that could be used to remove the light unit.

  The once-empty evidence bag now full, the officers reported their find. And so the investigation began – warrants were obtained and listening devices planted.

  Correctional officer Cale David Urosevic walked over to the boom gate. He began talking to a man called ‘Lou’. He didn’t know they were watching. He didn’t know they were listening.

  ‘Did I miss any of your phone calls?’ Lou asked.

  ‘No,’ the officer replied.

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Lou said. ‘I just missed … I had a few phone numbers, and I didn’t know whose they bloody were, and I thought, Oh fuck, maybe I’m missing them and –’

  ‘No,’ the officer interrupted. ‘Not while he’s down there. It’s just too … too in the focus at the moment.’

  ‘Yeah right,’ Lou said, nodding. ‘With all those other dramas you were telling me about? All of those dramas with them getting caught out and stuff?’

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ said the officer. ‘Yeah, they are searching. They’re bringing in all these new things into place so we can’t take anything down there at all. So at the moment, I can’t see it happening with him.’

  Lou nodded again. ‘Oh, okay. So where has he been moved now? Is he still in Supermax?’

  ‘It’s where he was when he first got caught,’ said the officer.

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Lou looked puzzled. ‘Oh, right – and you don’t even want to risk taking it down there?’

  Corrections officer Urosevic then started talking of ‘organics’.

  ‘Maybe just the organics,’ he said, ‘if you still wanted that, but nothing electrical – that’s the thing, see? – because that will get caught and there will be a big frenzy over it if there’s something else found down there.’

  Lou smiled. ‘I’ve got ten steroid tablets he wants.’

  ‘Only ten?’ the officer asked. ‘He wants about 300 of the fuckers.’

  ‘I know,’ Lou replied, ‘but I have a few cards and a few pay cards as well, but if you don’t want to take them in I understand.’

  Officer Urosevic then spoke to Lou about the new security measures.

  ‘It’s just a matter of time,’ he said. ‘Because I am not down there as often as I was before.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ Lou said. ‘All I’ve got is ten and I’ve got, you know, I’ve got money and that, if you want money and all that sort of stuff?’

  The officer paused for a moment. ‘Yeah, how about the Maccas on the way out of town? I should be there about ten past four or so.’

  Lou was pleased. ‘Well, you work out how much you want, bro,’ he said. ‘It was two thousand bucks last time, wasn’t it?’

  Officer Urosevic shook his head. ‘It was four.’

  ‘But that was with the phones and that as well. But ten doesn’t sound like enough tablets for him?’

  Lou left the officer and walked into the prison, where he visited the inmate known as C1.

  He then picked up his conversation with Urosevic (as do the police’s listening devices) when he finished his visit.

  ‘How’d you go?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Yeah, so a total of five,’ Lou replied. ‘That’s what he has asked for because it was better that way. You don’t have to hold so many.’

  The officer looked nervous. ‘Yeah, well, I was thinking about that. It’s still the same level, whether it’s one trip for a small amount or a big amount.’

  ‘Yeah, mate, no worries.’ Lou said. ‘So four?’

  ‘Yep.’ The officer nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ve got it,’ Lou said, ending the conversation. ‘I’ll see you at Maccas at a quarter past.’

  And sure enough he did. Lou jumped into the passenger seat of Urosevic’s car.

  ‘Count it if you want,’ Lou said, ‘but it’s all there – four large ones.’

  The officer shrugged his shoulders and flicked through the wad of cash he had just been handed. ‘Yeah
, looks about right.’

  He then took the pills and shook Lou’s hand. Deal done, he plucked a gear and pulled onto the highway.

  Wheee-yooor! Wheee-yooor! Wheee-yooor!

  The police siren filled his ears as the red and blue flashing lights filled his rear-view mirror.

  Gotcha!

  Urosevic’s car was intercepted by NSW Police and officers of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). They searched his car, finding $4,000 and ten tablets, later identified as steroids.

  The disgraced officer was caught red-handed and was forced to admit to his crimes, detailing how, in addition to the drugs, he had smuggled mobile phones into Australia’s most secure jail: he’d simply walked them in on his person.

  ‘I walked in through the metal detector,’ he said. ‘And it went off as it always does for everybody that goes through, and then I lined up for parade duty.’

  Despite setting off the alarm, the officer was never searched.

  Urosevic was dismissed on 13 August 2003. He pleaded not guilty to a string of criminal charges, claiming he had acted under duress after threats were made against him and his family. Urosevic was sentenced to 500 hours of community service.

  Can’t Find ’Em? Block ’Em.

  There is only one solution to stopping inmates from committing contraband crimes in prison: make the mobile phones useless.

  Authorities here and in other countries, like the UK and the US, have admitted that many factors – the ever-decreasing size of mobile phones, mercenaries who will market phones exclusively to inmates, the ceaseless ingenuity of prisoners – make it mission impossible to prevent convicts from getting their hands on the potentially deadly devices.

  And they also agree that the only solution to fixing the problem is by using technology to block mobile phone signals in and around the prison.

  ‘We believe jamming technology is the ultimate answer,’ said Corrective Services commissioner Peter Severin, ‘because even if an inmate does obtain a mobile phone, it will be worthless.’

  The installation of dozens of these antennas, which emit a very low-powered blocking signal, make it impossible for anyone in the jail to receive their own mobile signal, preventing the inmate from making calls, receiving text messages and using the internet and web-based applications. Prisoners can still use other functions on the phone, like video recorders and players, to view information that may be smuggled in on SD cards.