Struggle 'possible' after shooting...

Suspected hitman Andrew Veniamin could have continued fighting for up to a minute after being shot in the head and neck, a forensic pathologist told the Supreme Court yesterday.

Well, that's one way of explaining why Mick needed to give him such chronic lead poisoning...

Robert Richter QC (we prefer SC, but hey) is the right man to have in your corner for a gig like this. He's been chomping at the bit to get, as Rumpole would say "a nice little murder". Instead room service brought him up a big one:

Questioned by Robert Richter, QC, for Gatto, Dr Dodd agreed it was difficult to determine individual reactions to particular injuries and that even people shot in the brain could remain active for a brief time.

Given ol' Benji was brain dead from birth, it's a tough call to make.

The defence has claimed that the men struggled until the last of five shots was fired from the .38 revolver that Gatto claims Veniamin had with him.

As Winston Churchill might have said - "well they would say that..."*

But under re-examination by prosecutor Geoff Horgan, SC, Dr Dodd said that if Veniamin had struggled after his carotid artery was lacerated, then he would have expected to see more evidence of arterial blood on the walls of the passageway.

"The body was on the ground and there was an exceedingly large lake of blood under the head and shoulder area pooling back towards the back of the corridor," Dr Dodd said.

We'll call that a draw then...
* Update: Was not Winston, was in fact Mandy Rice-Davies NOT Christine Keeler and most certainly NOT Winston Chruchill.
Struggle 'possible' after shooting - National - theage.com.au

Say it ain't so...

Senior police say the unit will continue to operate into next year, although they are satisfied the underworld war - at least on Melbourne streets - is over. Senior prison officers have kept suspected warring parties separated in jail to ensure the feud does not continue behind bars.

The last known gangland-related murder was Caine's on May 8 - more than a year ago.

Some key Purana investigators have been allowed to return to other duties, while the remaining detectives prepare briefs of evidence for court appearances.

"It's important to remember that we have not had a Purana-related murder for well over a year," said Stephen Linnell, a spokesman for Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon.

"That's not to say Purana's work is finished. In fact, there's still a tremendous amount of work to do. You certainly haven't heard the last of Purana.

"There's already some cases before the courts and there's a number yet to come. In a sense Purana's work will never be completed. It's the start of a new way of combating organised crime and we are very much focused on continuing that fight.

"It's important for the community to understand that Victoria Police is committed to continuing the fight against organised crime."

AFL coach Mick Malthouse famously described a sporting club's fortunes being like a clock. If you win a premiership at midnight, then 1-3 is your rebuilding time, and you must begin to deliver by 9 o'clock.

The current Underworld status is about 2 o'clock. As was rightly pointed out, we haven't had a hit since Lewis Caine on May 8 2004. The main players are behind bars or dead. The vacuum we here at MU have been talking about is growing day by day and rest assured folks- the current crews are in all manner of strife, but let us say this right fucking now lest there be any confusion:

THIS IS NOT THE FUCKING END.

'e doan like porridge

Harsh prison conditions were affecting the mental state of gangland figure Carl Anthony Williams, the president of Victoria's appeal court heard today.

We've always said the fat boy was full of piss and wind, and it seems he can't cope with porridge either (jail, gaol etc).

Fuck Carl, you play with matches youse gets burned. Hit the gym, lose the puppy fat (puppy fat on a 30+ yr old!) and get on with your life. Forget Roberta, she's not given to being alone- and with the years you are facing olde bean... well let's just say Roberta Botox are gonna get well acquainted real soon.

Meanwhile on the other side of town:

Keith Faure, 53, his brother Noel Faure, 50, and Evangelos Goussis, 37, all appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court today charged with (ed: Lewis) Moran's murder and the attempted murder of Wrout.

The three stooges tried to pull off a contract killing. They knocked their prime, missed the secondary and then folded up like a dodgy old card table.

They did ok though- havinng popped Lewis Caine earlier in slightly less spectacular fashion they took out old Lewis Moran. (hey if yer name's Lewis you are not SAFE- Kate Langbroek- I'm looking at you!)

Link
Three charged with Moran murder

We are ONE- but we are many

All Telstra advertising bullshit aside- Melbourne Underworld Insider Blog turned one recently (we were reminded of this fact by a reader- thank you Brownie!).

Te celebrate we're going to do 10 lines of speed, a gram of hash, three foils of smack and then do a drive-by on the competition blog some interesting facts 'n figures this week.

Stay tuned!!

Gangsters targeted by new squads - Crime & Corruption - Features - In Depth

The Vic Police have called in the consultants- no they will not recommend outsourcing everyone and then hiring themselves on higher rates- that's the Workcover and the TAC version of a revamp. No, this is the mighty Victoria Police and the result will be efficiency and better communication.

..right.

The proposals include:

- Incompetent and lazy detectives to be sacked if their performance remains unacceptable.

MU says: Well good thing the Drug squad was disbanded when it was or the lot of them would be looking for guard work.

- Psychological and personality testing to identify police susceptible to corruption.
Well that's going to reduce the intake rather severly one might suggest.

- Rewarding elite investigators with study opportunities, overseas trips and career advancement.
WTF is "elite"? Lots of dodgy arrests? Lemme get this straight- if you verbal some stooge and fit him up for a non existent crime- you could get a "study tour" to Las Vegas. Yeah. Right. That ought to stop corruption.

-Establishing a 24-hour crime desk to assign resources to breaking crimes around Victoria.
"Your crime is important to us- press one for murder, two for break and enter, 3 for rape or say your crime after the tone"

- Regular reviews to stop police continuing "dead-end" investigations into crimes that are unlikely to be solved.
If this happened 5 years ago, the Silk/Miller muders would not have been solved.
- A mentoring system for specialist detectives to pass on expertise throughout the force.
Sounds a lot like "you get brown paper bag A from crim B and go to crown to achieve C- laundering"

- Less emphasis on crime types and more on tackling major crime identities.
Celebrity crooks with celebrity cops. We've called for this for sometime. Like Big Brother, but with guns.

All bullshit aside, this does look like a better strategy than MU Insider had expected. The lack of Vic Police input- is a bloody good thing. We naturally await Paul Mullet of the Police Assoc. to bleat like one of the sheep from 1984- "All Cops are honest! All Cops are honest! All Cops are honest!" Honestly, he's a fucking dinosaur who has allowed the bad eggs to rule the roost. Don't get us started on the issue of dismissing dodgy cops. In short unless you are caught red handed, convicted, shot and cremated- Mullet reckons you are ok by him. Moron.

But there is one gaping hole in the strategy:

Some murders where the offender is known will be handled by local detectives, while more complex killings and long term "cold-cases" will be investigated by the homicide squad.

Oh dear. Does the Colin Winchester case ring any bells out there folks? The AFP version


Paul Mullet telling us how great all the cops are...
Gangsters targeted by new squads - Crime & Corruption - Features - In Depth

Five shots that ended a life

The Mick Gatto trial will soon be getting underway- he's pleading not guilty by way of self defense- which makes sense.

Here's why he might be ok:
1/ Gatto may have been tooled up- but he'd not done a whole lotta shooting in a looong time. If Benji was to be knocked by the Carlton Crew, it certainly would not be Gatto in a fucking restaurant, in front of so many witnesses. No fucking way.
2/ Gatto is not fond of the sponsor's product while our ol' mate Benji was a dancin' shakin', two-lines-before-brekky kinda bloke:

Mr Horgan said the conversations showed the change in their relationship, from one of friendship to one where Gatto was wary of Veniamin.

That's mostly due to Benji becoming a button-down-psycho in his final months. He was a paranoid, aggro, tooled up little upstart who was on borrowed time from the moment he met Carl and Tony Mokbel. If I was Gatto, I'd have been fucking wary of the pocket rocket too. We here at MU reckon that if Gatto hadn't nailed him, someone would have- and that someone could have come from either the Carlton Crew OR even the Williams/Mokbel crew. That's how much of a liability Benji was becoming.
3/ Benji was believing his own bullshit. He's knocked a few easy cases, and possibly the Munster (though the cops conveniently say he didn't do it now coz it helps to mess with Gatto's post shooting words) and frankly I reckon he was keen to have a go at Gatto. Maybe not kill him there 'n then, but certainly stick a rosco up his nose and see what came out. Wrong move Benji old bean.


For a while there, it seemed that Gatto was trying to broker a true between the warring groups. Fighting might be fun, but there was money to be made and if the two main players couldn't get their shit together and get back to the task at hand-the drug trade- then some smart bunch would. Vietnamese crews moving away from heroin, Russian mafia, Philippines crews, Indos, Schapelle Corby, the list of possible players goes on.

It would make sense to get Gatto to get it all cooled down. He's negotiated some interesting settlements in industrial relations before, and the underworld is just like the real world, but with bullets, death, drugs and this blog.

But sending Benji to negotiate with Gatto? Not fucking likely!

The Fifth Element:
KORBEN
Found him...

AKANIT
(tense) Send someone to negotiate!

KORBEN
Mind if I go? I'm an excellent negotiator.

COP 1
Uh... Sure, go ahead.

Korben gets ready.

COP 1
We're sending someone in who's authorized to negotiate.

Korben walks quickly into the room, heads straight for Akanit, raises his gun and puts a bullet through his head.

KORBEN
Anyone else want to negotiate?

COP 2
(to another Cop)
Where'd he learn to negotiate like that?

Where Mr Gatto has a problem
1/ Five. Fucking. Shots. Once for fear, twice for adrenalin, thrice for certainty. But four 'n five were pure indulgence.

"In that passageway . . . the deceased man, Andrew Veniamin, had no retreat and nowhere to hide," Mr Horgan said. "The accused man . . . shot him twice to the neck and once to the head. He shot at him a fourth time as the deceased lay dying on the floor of the passageway . . . but he missed. In all, five shots were fired."

Christ Mick, one more shot and you'd have had to reload. Why not saw his head off to finish him?

2/ How the defence handle the issue of the gun's sudden arrival on the scene is muy importante aussi. They will say it was Benji's. We here at MU have no opinion either way. We would be 90% sure that Gatto was tooled up. Normally Benji would be too BUT:

Veniamin was wearing white thongs, elastic-waisted three-quarter pants, a light T-shirt and boxer shorts, clothing that would not have enabled him to hide a weapon. Mr Horgan said neither the restaurant owner nor anyone at Gatto's table noticed anything to suggest Veniamin had a gun.

Who said Benji would hide a weapon? We're talking 'bout a fucking hitman not a boyscout who's showing a gun to his mates. It would come as no surprise to see Benji roscoed up with it pointing right at his cock Workcover would have a field day there...

If the prosecution contend that Benji was unarmed, cast your mind back to the early days of this website, when Benji was first killed and we ran this quote from the Herald Sun:

But Veniamin was a known hothead, who sources said started "going nuts and losing the plot" about eight months ago.

"He was getting carried away, driving his $200,000 Mercedes while tooled up (carrying a gun)," a former detective told the Herald Sun.

"He wouldn't leave home without a rosco (gun). He wouldn't even go to the bathroom without one. He was paranoid, and a lot of people started distancing themselves because he was getting out of control and upsetting people left, right and centre."

Now, get that to fly...

Five shots that ended a life - Crime & Corruption - www.theage.com.au