April 13, 2025 • 53 mins
Carl Williams rose from small-time drug dealer to one of the most powerful—and dangerous—figures in Melbourne’s gangland wars. Known for his smiling, seemingly unbothered public appearances, Williams was anything but harmless. He orchestrated a bloody campaign that left multiple rivals dead, including members of the Moran family, as he sought to dominate Melbourne’s criminal underworld in the early 2000s.
Join Holly & Matthew as they explore the life and legacy of Carl Williams, the man who declared war on Melbourne’s underworld—and paid the price.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
Join Holly & Matthew as they explore the life and legacy of Carl Williams, the man who declared war on Melbourne’s underworld—and paid the price.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A strange, spiraling white light was spotted in the early
morning sky over Sydney, with even skeptical witnesses wondering if
it was a UFO. They were last seen on the
beach with the tall Man and that's the best description
police have ever had of it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
More than seventeen years after Harold Holt disappeared into raging
surf at Chevy A Beach, his widow has finally revealed
his last romantic words docky, terrifying, mesmerizing.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's the way a number of Australians have described the
alleged encounter with the Yowi. It's time for the Weird
Crap In Australia podcast. Welcome to the week Crap In
(00:45):
Australia Podcast. I'm your host, Matthew Soul. This is episode
three hundred and fifty eight and the conclusion to the
Melbourne gang.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Land Wars A million Years Coming.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Sorry, Holly might still be getting over a little bit
of a fit of giggles. As usually before we jump
into a podcast, I usually have to warm up a
little bit, or or I just do something silly just
to get a rise out of her. So she's just
getting the tears out of her eyes. Right now, let's
just say I was saying dirty words in a bit
of a sing songy voice.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
He was singing dirty words to country road. That's what
he was doing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Take me home. Now you're worried, aren't you. Yep. Now,
before we get into it, just very quickly, we have
a small correction as well. That was sent through to
us by Hippa. She just said on the latest episode
you mentioned oz Kick it is still running, which I'm
glad to hear. Matthew also said the kangaroos don't have
(01:46):
a homeground, but they do live in North Melbourne, next
door to the kangaroo's home ground. Thank you very much, forelinus. Now,
when I was a kid, they didn't have a homeground,
but it's good to see that they have one now
and it's always lovely to hear from our Melbourne listeners.
So Peppa, thank you for the correction. All Right, ladies
and gentlemen, we're about to jump into probably the most
(02:08):
rant filled episode of the Gangland Wars that is going
to be the Life and Times of Carl Williams, which
is effectively going to wrap up the series. This is
our longest series to date. We're happy to see that
so many of you have jumped on board for this
particular topic, and the feedback we have received has been
(02:28):
predominantly positive, with a few small corrections here and there.
So we're very very happy that you've enjoyed it, and
we're very very happy to walk the fuck away from this.
This has been long, very long.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oversaturation of my time.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
But I'm glad that everyone's enjoyed it all right, Without
further ado, Holly take it away. Carl Williams, the clown
Prince of Crime Bowbery.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Carl Anthony Williams was born October thirteenth, nineteen seventy to
working class parents living in the North suburbs of Melbourne.
The area around broad Meadows where he grew up was
full of housing commission houses and those out on their luck,
including immigrant families that couldn't find a foothold to begin
their climb up the social and employment ladders. Broad Meadows
in the nineteen seventies and eighties was a place of
(03:16):
violence and pride, where disputes were settled with fists and
the reputation ruled above all. Heady criminals, bikis and low
level racketeers all hustled to scrape a living and they
were the predominant demographic of some areas. It was into
this that Karl joined their ranks.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So these sort of depressed areas generally have a decent
amount of drug trafficking. And it's just a simple socioeconomic factor.
If you were down on your luck, you constantly depressed,
you're going to turn to marijuana. You're going to turn
to other drugs which are relatively cheap. Funnily enough, though,
when it comes to overall spend, it's usually the higher
(03:53):
socioeconomic side of the fence that spends the most on drugs,
just to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Williams George Williams was known to police as an sp bookie,
a trade which brought George, with little Carl following close behind,
in contact with the fringe figures of Melbourne's underworld, including
the Indrigetta, the Painters and Dockers, and the Carlton Crew.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
George and Carl Williams were changed for serious drug offenses
as a result of a police raid in nineteen ninety
nine on George's broad Meadows property with thirty thousand pills
with the street value of twenty million were found. George
was jailed for four and a half years in November
two thousand and seven after planning guilty to teaming up
with his son to smuggle almost five kilograms of meth
and phetamines. Quote from Melbourne gangland figure George Williams dies
(04:38):
Thursday the twelfth of May twenty sixteen, ABC and.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
All of that just to tell you that Carl Williams
came along his trade.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Honestly, I mean it makes a lot of sense and
what we've seen throughout the gangland Wars and through most
of Melbourne's organized crime as there is an aspect of
legacy passing down one criminal empire to the next. You know,
the Miranda in Dynasty started with Lez and then moves
on to his kids, and it's the same with Karl.
(05:06):
These sort of people don't get created in a vacuum
most of the time. There's usually external influences to push
them towards these sort of things. So none of this
really surprises me. It's quite sad to hear that this
little boy was carried around from mob spot to mob
spot while he learned the criminal trade. It's sadly I
don't think he really had a choice. I mean, we
(05:28):
always have a choice, but there are always those social
factors that are going to help to build behaviors that
we take on later in life.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, some factors make choices harder than others.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Absolutely, absolutely. I think I already talked about Vivotsky, I
think in a previous episode about his social theories concerning
our behavior and learning. If you're surrounded by a group
of criminals from a very young age, what do you
think the behavior that's going to be normalized for that
child is going to be, and that is going to
be criminal active. They don't know any different. So yeah,
(06:03):
at this point already the cards were pretty much stacked
against Carl Williams.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
At school, Williams was restless and unremarkable, more interested in
making deals in the school yard than paying attention in class.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Hey, yeah, Pali, I got I got three charizards here,
and I can do your deal.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I can do your deal. Threw him three charizards and
the blast toist.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
He would have been in school in the eighties. I
don't know what pop culture that would have been.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I don't like AFL football cards.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Maybe, I mean possibly, I think they're that old.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Top tops did movie cards like they did that they
took scenes from movies and put them on the cards,
so there was like Jaws and and things like that.
Maybe he was trading those in the school yard.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Let us know, Melbourne Night's what were you trading in
the eighties?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Williams had little patience for authority and quickly realized that
a regular job wouldn't give him the lifestyle he wanted.
By his mid teens, he was already running scams, selling
dodgy cars, passing off counterfeit goods, and pulling small time frauds.
He relied on charm and confidence to make up for
the fact that at this stage he was still just
a hustler on the fringes, nowhere near the crime figures
(07:14):
he looked up to. But Williams was ambitious. He wanted
more than what broad Meadows had to offer, and he
didn't plan on working his way up the traditional way.
By his early twenties, Williams had built a reputation with
local police, not as a serious criminal, bad as a nuisance.
He was involved in Czech fraud, credit card scams and
identity theft, and in several minor convictions, but never anything
(07:36):
serious enough to put him behind bars for long.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
These sort of people are your serial offenders, you know,
the ones that you're going to see at a supermarket,
constantly trying to pass off dodgy checks. Not that people
do that anymore, because I don't even think banks offered checkbooks,
do they.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
As far as I remember, they deleted them or they
got rid of them.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure checkbooks are finished. For all you
little kids out there listening. A checkbook was basic. I
have this much in my account, I'm writing near this figure.
You hand that into the bank. The bank will then
deposit the money into your account, or you can get
it paid out as cash.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
A highly sophisticated I owe you very much.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So and a lot of people would do dodgy checks,
which is they get their hands on the checkbook, they'd
write the check, the check would be accepted, and then
obviously there'd be no money in the bank account. And
so that is how you commit check fraud. What does
identity feth look like In the early nineties, check fraud
just check fraud?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, probably, I mean credit cards were still on the
klaki clackie machines, so yeah, I don't think there was
very much of that goal around.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, there might have been a little bit of credit
card theft.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Perhaps, Mostly I think it was pickpockets. It was during
this time that he saw his next opportunity drugs. The
amphetamine trade was booming in Melbourne, particularly in the nightclub scene,
and it was far more profitable than Petty Thoord.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah. Think Blade nineteen ninety nine. The introduction to the movie.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Had that blood bread maybe.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
See that's too old a reference too, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I don't know, I remember it. It's a Marvel movie.
Go watch it.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Holy I'm thirty seven this year, Dahlan, We're on our
way to forty.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
It's a Marvel movie. It's now part of the counton.
You have to go watch it. And even if you
don't care about Marvel movies, go watch it anyway because
it's a good movie.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah. I suppose because Blade is in Dead Poul Wolverine,
so it probably encouraged a bunch of people to go
back and rewatch those movies. Probably, yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Williams started small, running makeship flabs out of rental properties
in Melbourne's western suburbs. His early operations were crude and risky,
but they were enough to get his product out on
the streets.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The underworld's old guard, such as the Italian community based
Cotton Crew, basically expected newcomers to prove themselves in criminal
ranks before they finally graduated to leadership positions. Success in
standover roles, armed robberies, safe breaking, prostitution rackets and protection
services was the expected pathway, and the rise to power
was viewed as being a gradual process. Williams and Mockbell
(09:59):
flouted them perceptions with their quick entry into gangland leadership.
The catalyst for their success was the almost instant wealth
that they accumulated from drug trafficking quote from Gangland Crimes
that Shocked Australia, page two hundred and four. Of course,
these days as well, outside of illegal brothels and massage parlors,
(10:21):
generally speaking, the prostitution rackets no longer exist either, due
to most states adopting some form of regulation. I think
one of the last holdout states was actually Victoria. Concerning
legal prostitution, I don't quite remember. I don't think I'm
maybe wrong about this, I'm probably wrong about this. I
don't think South Australia has legal prostitution laws on the books.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yet within a few years Williams had moved beyond low
level hustling. He was now a name in Melbourne's drug trade,
gaining recognition for his ambition, willingness to take risks, and
ability to deliver results.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
He was also walking down the streets of Melbourne doing
finger guns, singing every day hustle.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Roll my eyes at you. I think the listeners just
heard me roll my eyes at you. And he's actually
dancing now. Throughout the nineteen nineties, Melbourne's nightlife was fueled
by amphetamines, ecstasy and speed. Williams saw the growing demand
and wasted no time establishing himself in the market. His
early labs were unsophisticated and frequently relocated to avoid police detection,
(11:24):
but the drugs they produced were cheap and in high demand.
He built a reputation as a reliable supplier, flooding clubs
and music festivals with product and attracting attention from both
street dealers and bigger players. William's real advantage was strategy.
He undercut competitors by offering bulk deals at lower prices,
faster distribution and better profits for dealers.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Later, he go on to found Chemist's Warehouse, lower prices
every day ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
His aggressive tactics put him on the radar of major
figures in melbourn'sdrug trade, including Jason and Mark Moran, who
controlled large distribution networks. The Morans brought Williams into their operation,
but only as a supplier, someone to produce drugs while
they handled the bigger deals. To Williams, this was both
an opportunity and an insult. He had no intention of
staying in the background. From the beginning, Williams resented his position.
(12:16):
He watched the Morans flaunt their wealth while treating him
as just another worker.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
But to be fair, he was yep, you know. And
I think this is where the struggle between Marine and
Williams really kicks off in I mean, this is why
I think Williams was stupid in most aspects of his life.
He could have become a part of the overall Marine network, right,
he could have become a strong player within their system. Instead,
(12:45):
he wanted to be king. But in order to become
king they he had to throw off the rules that
kept a sanity amongst the criminal element, and so all
he ended up doing was he got to live as
a king for a little while inside a walled off
building because he was terrified he was going to be
killed all the time, and then he ended up in
(13:06):
prison anyway, So if he just sort of fell into
their system, he probably could have had a successful career
and retired. But one could argue for the general public
that had he not become raging, lunatic narcissist, that the
Gangland Wars probably never would have ended. Well, sorry, the
(13:27):
Gangland Wars wouldn't have started, but the gangs probably would
have maintained their position and continued to do what they did.
But of course, like as soon as the gangs disappeared,
then another criminal element moves in behind them. But yeah,
it's really interesting to see someone sort of he understood
what was needed, he understood how to make the product.
(13:49):
I don't think he understood the politics.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And by all accounts his product was subpar anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Anecdotally from what I've heard.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
William's quietly built his own network under the Moran's nose,
expanding his operations and took note of the Moran's weaknesses.
He wasn't interested in being part of their organization. He
wanted to take it over.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Alleged underworld kingpin Carl Williams has been charged with seven
new drug offenses and faced the Melbourne Magistrate's Court via
video link from prison today. Williams, thirty five, was convicted
of drug trafficking last year and faces three counts of
murder relating to Melbourne's protracted underground war, in which twenty
seven people have been murdered since nineteen ninety eight. He
(14:33):
now faces one new count of trafficking a commercial quantity
of amphetamines between December two thousand and June two thousand
and two, six counts of dealing with the proceeds of
crime totaling forty six thousand, six hundred dollars in cash.
Williams charged with new drug offenses January twenty nine, two
thousand and five. At that age.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
On October thirteen, nineteen ninety nine, you know his birthday,
one of the Moran Brothers shot Williams. He survived, but
the attack turned into a personal We spent four episodes
covering it. We're not going to cover it again now.
During his recovery, he began assembling a crew young violent
enforces with nothing to lose and everything to gain. They
were fiercely loyal and willing to do whatever Williams needed
(15:13):
to secure power. Williams escalated from small time operator to
major player. Flushed with cash from drug sales, he moved
his operations from makeshift setups to larger, more organized production sites.
Hid him wearhouses and rural properties. With greater production capabilities,
he could control supply, flood the streets with cheap drugs,
and expand his influence across Melbourn's underworld. Money also became
(15:36):
a weapon. He bought out rival dealers when possible, and
used intimidation when it wasn't. His crew enforced debts, carried
out violent attacks, and eliminated threats as Williams pushed deeper
into territories once controlled by the Morans and.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Their allies by the Stupid Joker.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
By the end of two thousand, Williams had cemented himself
as a serious figure in Melbourne's crime scene. He was
no longer a low level hustler, but a major supplier
with connections to Biking Yang's corrupt officials and high level dealers.
He had built his empire through strategy, intimidation, and relentless ambition,
and he wasn't planning on stopping.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
While in jail and reman for close to two months,
Williams began to plan his first attack. Williams thought that
if he killed the Moran brothers immediately and meant established
underworld figures, including Gaddo, would seek revenge. He decided his
best chance for survival was not to jump at shadows,
but to cast a bigger one, so he launched a
hostile takeover. Initially, Williams was outnumbered and in no position
(16:36):
to take on the Marines, let alone contemplate plans for
gangland domination. Then, by a stroke of perfect timing, he
was finally bailed on his drug charges on the twenty
second of January two thousand. Three days later, Jason Moran
was jailed for a fray and sentenced to twenty months
at jail. That meant Mark Moran lost his closest ally
and was now dangerously exposed quote from Underbelly the Gangland
(16:59):
War Page.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
By two thousand and three, Williams had ascended to a
level of dominance that few in Melbourne's underworld had ever achieved.
What had started as a street level amphetamine operation had
transformed into a multi million dollar criminal enterprise. The controlled
not just the city's drug trade, but the flow of money, power,
and fear that governed the underworld itself. His name carried
weight in every backroom deal, every nightclub, every illicit transaction
(17:25):
that took place in the city. He was no longer
just a player. He was the game. His entire empire
was built on a foundation of speed and strategy. His
drugs were cheaper, stronger, and more wildly available than anyone else's.
His distribution network was precise, running like a corporate supply chain,
with every dealer and enforcer knowing their role and their place.
(17:46):
He had transformed a messy, unpredictable trade into a system
that churned out profits and an industrial scale. Bills moved
from his production hubs to the streets with frightening efficiency,
while cash flowed back just as fast launded through car dealership.
Strip clubs and gyms is financial?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
How do you louner money through a gym? Is it
just the initial setup costs?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
The initial setup costs. Then of course you've got people
who never actually use the gym, pay joining fees and
membership fees and lesson fees that they never attend, and
things like that.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Seems very difficult. I can see like a strip club
being you know, a lot of cash moving in and
out of a strip club. I can sort of see
that car dealerships absolutely make sense to me. But yeah, Jim,
seeing really like a complicated way of laundering money.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You can pay personal trainers in cash to look after you,
and it doesn't really matter how much cash you hen them.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, I suppose so.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
His financial empire was as carefully orchestrated as his criminal one,
ensuring that while the authorities were chasing shadows, the real
money was already clean and untouchable.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Just before we continue on, then, just listening to all
of these wonderful things that this man is doing and
how well organized he is, is my interpretation of him
as a dickhead and a dumbass. Is it unwarranted?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
No, it's not. See, the problem is that he didn't
build or create any of this infrastructure. He took it over.
He just put himself at the top of that ladder.
Someone else had already installed it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So he was a thug. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
By this point, Williams no longer needed to issue threats personally.
His enforces, led by the ruthless and unpredictable Andrew Benji Viennamen,
handled the dirty work with brutal efficiency.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Benji was a brutal, brutal person. We could do an
episode on him, but we're not coming to because we've
done enough, because we've done enough for the Kanglan for
a while.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
As I said, I had to cut a lot of
people out of the story, but they are here still.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, we've built, like you've built a timeline, the.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Main line of the story. We just haven't covered all
the side characters.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
You know. It's like Colton Crew to the Marines to Williams,
and that gives you you through line. There are all
these other little characters all over the place, and at
some point we can do episodes on them in the future.
So when we need a filler episode, or you know
we're running short on a topic, we can always go
(20:07):
back and revisit this.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Benji was more than just a hit man. He was
William's personal executioner, a man who strived on violence and
had no hesitation in pulling the trigger. Together, they made
sure every debt was paid, every challenge crushed, and every
enemy silenced. Williams's men didn't just operate in the shadows.
They were a visible force, a constant reminder that Melbourne's
criminal world now answered to one man. Yet for all
(20:32):
his power, Williams was not untouchable. By the mid two thousands,
the body count in Melbourne reached unprecedented levels, and with
every Gangland execution, the police became more determined to bring.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Him down, only because some of those executions resulted in
the deaths of their own people who were involved.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Or got very close to exposing others. Seveilla's team tracked
his movements why aretaps listened in on conversations. His name
was being whispered in courtrooms and among high ranking officers
who wanted nothing more than to see his empire dismantled.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Career criminal and police informer Terrence Hodson and his wife
Christine were murdered in their flat in suburban Melbourne in
May last year. One former policeman under scrutiny is Paul Dale,
the detective who was in charge of handling Hodson as
a police informer before he was killed. Hodson was to
give evidence against mister Dale in a serious corruption case.
That case collapsed after Hudson's murder, and mister Dale has
(21:26):
always maintained he has never been involved in any corruption.
My boy Dale, he's a good boy. He never kill anybody.
But four corners reveals police of determiner. Before he was sacked,
mister Dale had formed an improper relationship with an underworld
figure who was a member of the so called William's
crime syndicate. Vote from Gangland killing link to Victorian police
(21:49):
corruption Monday fourteenth to March two thousand and five, ABC
I were not exaggerating the police's involvement in the Gangland Wars,
just in case people are like, man, you guys come
down the police a lot. Yeah, because there's evidence when
it comes to the Victorian police, they were the ones
that had a good chunk of them, were the ones
(22:09):
that helped protected the protophile priests within the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
They were the Catholic mafia.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And during the Gangland Wars there were plenty of them
who were also helping to push the drugs and their
own pockets were going to get lighter should people like
Carl Williams on the Marines disappear. That's on the record.
They know this, they just don't want to talk about
it and they don't want to acknowledge it. They're hoping
that after a few generations have gone by, and to
be fair, a lot of generations of police have come
(22:35):
and gone since the Gangland Wars. They sort of figure, Okay, well,
maybe the next generation will slowly work this out. But
you know, I still think those people who were involved,
the members of the Victorian Police force who were involved,
should be in jail. And a lot of them managed
to escape jail.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
There are enough carr up members of the Victorian Police
Force still in active service that after a Rural commission
into corruption in Victorian police nothing got done.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yepase she can't arrest all.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Of them, just like remember when we were doing the
Queensland inquiry and the marriage is like, wait, I give up.
I can't get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It's just so corrupt that we just have to stop.
Otherwise we'll just be hearing about corruption cases forever.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Williams wasn't worried. He had police in his pocket, corrupt
officials who ensured that Raid's conveniently missed his biggest operations.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Now, how many of them belonged to the Liberal Party, Well.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
They were all definitely painters and doggers.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Oh so maybe actually the Labor Party then maybe maybe?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, He laughed off the headlines, dismissing the authorities as
an inconvenience rather than a real threat to him. The
Melbourne Gang Lamb War wasn't something to fear, it was
something to exploit. Every dead rival was another opportunity to expand,
another chance to tighten his grip. The problem was Williams
wasn't just making enemies among the police. He was making
(23:58):
enemies everywhere. The old Guard, the remnants of the Marne
Clan by Kigan's independent operators hadn't forgotten what he had done.
They weren't just sitting back and watching him take over.
They were waiting, planning. Williams had become a crime lord,
the orchestrator of an empire that stretched its influence into
nearly every illicit sector in Melbourne. His empire ran like
(24:19):
a well oiled machine, and he had perfected the art
of having others do his dirty work. While he remained
largely out of the media spotlight and avoided police attention,
his empire's strength masked a growing floor.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, it is interesting around this time when you look
at reporting, which is mostly focused on the Carlton Crew,
the Morues or the illegal bookie operations, Williams does quietly
manage to solidify his power base outside of media attention, though,
as you said earlier, Holy, his name was being whispered
about by police. Hey, you know, have you heard about
(24:53):
this Williams guy. It's interesting that he did manage to
maintain such a low profile for such a long time.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
It was really until the first season of Underbelly hit
the TV show that everyone went, oh, that's Carl Williams.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And that was two thousand and eight.
He hated that portrayal too. He despised it good.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
His arrogance was already setting him on a collision course
with law enforcement. Though he believed his position was untouchable,
the cracks were beginning to show.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Police knew they needed a circuit breaker, and the best
way to do it would be to jail Williams. It
was the self styled premier himself, always so cautious about phones,
who handed them the damning evidence. He told his wife
in one call that if Purena detective Sergeant Stuart Buttonsen
raided their house, she should grab the gun from under
the mattress and shoot him in the head. In a
(25:44):
prison phone call, the runner complained of his treatment, and
Williams talked about chopping up the sergeant Baston's girlfriend. The
tape of William's threats where the break the police needed
quote from Underbelly, page at two hundred and sixty two.
And you may be wondering why police are so interested
in nabbing people over things like, you know, credit card
fraud or in this case, threats towards someone's person, right.
(26:09):
The reason that they like that is because, as what
that quote says, they need a circle breaker. They need
to be able to cut the leader's head off and
watch the rest of the organization sort of crumble in
and of itself, turns it into sort of mini conflicts.
So they can get him on a threat charge that
is a unfortunately it's a bit of a misdemeanor, but
you can put someone in jail for you know, six
(26:31):
months up to two years. Being a police officer as well,
the judges are usually harsher in those sentences, so you're
able to get him off the streets into a jail
cell at least for twelve months, and that gives everyone
else a chance to start dismantling the operation while he's away.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well gathering evidence while this smart guy quote unquote is
not around to tell them to shut the fuck up.
Exactly In public, Williams meticulously crafted an image of a
self made businessman and devoted family man. He drove luxury cars,
wore tailored suits, and bought lavish homes in Essendon and Hillside,
each equipped with state of the art security systems. He
(27:08):
married Roberta Williams, whose presence in the media often found
her defending Williams.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I'm still waiting for Roberta to pop up on Dancing
with the Stars, I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And together they presented an image of the perfect family.
Their daughter, Dakota, was the center of their world, often
seen with Williams at events and shopping centers, a display
of affection and wealth that hid the brutal reality of
his criminal empire. Strangely enough, he never walked around with
her on his shoulders.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Gotcha, musk.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So even Carl Williams had enough security in his position.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
It really demonstrates weakness, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It's American politics should be doing that here na. Beneath
this carefully cultivated facade, the violence and brutality of William's
world continued to escalate. It was all part of the
illusion he maintained until it inevitably unraveled. Power breeds arrogance,
and Williams began to believe in the myth he had created.
He no longer saw himself as just a drug lord.
(28:09):
It was the king of Melbourne's underworld, immune to the
fate that claimed every other rival before him. Yet even
as he busked in his wealth and power, his downfall
had already begun. The very violence that had once cemented
his dominance had become his achilles heel.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
I mean, you have to be particularly arrogant to assume
that you can undercut your supply, your supply network. The
Marines were the ones who were pumping his drugs into Melbourne.
He thought, well, I can sable some of my manufacturing,
heighten up the market, and then move those drugs myself,
(28:45):
and then I get all the profits. I just need
to do this quickly and quietly. And that was ultimately
the problem, because, as we've discussed on previous episodes, the
Moreans weren't that stupid, and they worked out pretty quickly
what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
The public, outraged by the constant bloodshed on their streets,
had reached his breaking point, and politicians were under increasing
pressure to put an end to the Gangland wars. In
two thousand and three, the Purana Task Force was established
with the sole goal of dismantling organized crime in Melbourne,
and Williams quickly became the primary target.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
What do you think about this? My interpretation is with
Purana that it was really about the oz kick day.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It was formed before the os Kicker incident.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Its funding and its power.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
It got a real kick in the ass with that, yeah, with.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
That incident, with you know, the assassination of Jason Marine.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yea. It also doesn't help to become, you know, public
enemy number one if you call yourself the king of
Melbourne's underworld.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I mean becoming a grandiose like the best criminals are
the ones you never hear of, and that that is
always going to be the case. The people who wield
real power in this world, like real power are the
ones that are so quiet you would never like. We
were talking about this the other day, Holly. We were
talking about a banking family, the Rothchilds, yep, And you
(30:07):
never heard of them, no, right, Their purported wealth is enormous,
but you don't really see them ever. You know who
they are, but you don't hear about them. And I
think the same thing applies for people who are good criminals.
You know, you want to be known as the kingpin
of crime, but you don't want anyone to know what
(30:28):
the name is. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
You want to only be known as the joker, not
as joker.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah exactly. It's like, you know, oh, have you heard
about this this kingpin who runs a crime syndicate? Yeah?
I wish we could find out what his name is.
You know, those those sort of criminals are the ones
who have the most success and last far longer than
people who become ostentatious. You become ostentatious, you become loud,
you become visual, you become a target. And that's what
(30:55):
Williams became. You know, this is someone who's had a
chip on his shoulder since he grew up in poverty.
He grew up surrounded by crime. He wanted to be
the biggest thug in the group of thugs. He achieved that,
and then he boasted about it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
No longer just a person of interest, he was now
the focus of an all out assault by law enforcement,
with every resource at their disposal.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Williams then revealed a mean streak, which was later resented
by his hired gunman. The agreed contact higher for Jason
Moran's execution was reportedly fifty thousand dollars. The runner allegedly
only received two thousand, five hundred dollars for his hit,
and the Williams pledge that he would be provided with
a unit in Frankston also became a broken promise. Carl
(31:40):
Williams ultimately suffered the consequences for such betrayals. Months before
the double murder, the Purana Task Force received their first
strong lead in the Gangland Wars after the driver unintentionally
provided damaging information from his bugged car. Again, the arrogant
Williams showed a lack of judgment. Quote from Gangland Crimes
Paid one find five. Now, of course this generally happens too.
(32:04):
You'd never ever ever undercut the people who work for
you ever, in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
If you're hiring someone who has no qualms about killing people, yes,
maybe fucking pay them so they don't suddenly have no
qualms about killing you.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Absolutely, and you can apply this to the broadswave of jobs. Right.
If you underpay your workers, they will not be loyal
to you. They will fuck off as soon as they
get a better option. If you are happy with your profits,
share a little bit of it with your people, and
then your people will be loyal. It's a very easy concept.
(32:44):
I often laugh at business owners when they turn around
and say, you know, there's no loyalty anymore. Actually, that happened.
That's happened to you, Holly. I'm not gonna go too
specific on this, but Holly worked for someone for quite
some time, and there are a lot of promises made,
few of them kept, and a better offer came up
and you took it. Yep. And as soon as you
(33:06):
took that better offer, what happened? You got the guilt trip? Yep?
Why are you abandoning this business? And the reason that
Holly was abandoning that business was because she was provided
with more money, holidays, sick days.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And not being woken up at six am to.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Go into work and not treated as if you were
an appendage.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Funnily enough, I saw that bosser less than a year
ago now, and he was all happy and smiles to
see me.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So, you know, and to look to be fair, I
think you just reacted in the moment.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, you just saw all of his freedom crumbling back
onto the business.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
But I always say to people you know when they're
upset that they've lost a work or that they've lost
someone who works with them, etcetera, etcetera. What did you
do to keep them? It's very important. You can apply
this to the criminal element. If you have an assassin
for hire, make sure your assassin is paid. It guarantees
as silent, so guarantees.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Our loyalty, guarantees that it won't be in your brain.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You don't give someone two and a half grand for
killing a prominent crime figure like Marine. You just don't.
Marine would have found it insulting that that's how much
it cost to kill him.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, all of the Mirans would have been pissed. Lighted
by success, Williams failed to see that his once loyal
associates were beginning to turn on him. The fear that
had once kept his men loyal was being outweighed by
the reality of long prison sentences for murder, drug trafficking,
and organized crime. One by one, his closest lieutenants flipped
(34:33):
cutting deals with Purana detectives in exchange for reduced sentences
and witness protection.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I mean, why wouldn't you if.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
He's only paying me two grand to kill someone when
he promised fifty grand in a house.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Fuck that dude. He's under paying you. You're scared of
him anyway. He's constantly threatening everybody, so why not fuck
him over? This is and I'm glad we've got to
this part because I was feeling a little bit unsure
of my assessment of him, and I was like, oh, God,
have I been saying the wrong thing for seven episodes? No? No,
I haven't. He was an idiot? Yeah, meme the Donald
(35:07):
Trump of chrome.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Meanwhile, surveillance on Williams ramped up, tracking is every move
and capturing every transaction. In two thousand and four, police
raids on properties tied to Williams yielded not just cash
and drugs, but hard evidence linking him to multiple murders.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
The driver also divulged significant evidence to investigating detectives, and
he received an eighteen year jail sentence for the Marshall murder.
After confessing to Barbero, Jason Moran and Marshall homicides, The
runner received a twenty three year sentence, and he will
not be available for parole until he is in his seventies.
Another accomplice, known as the Lieutenant, also received a custodial sentence,
(35:47):
and all three are now in witness protection programs quote
from Gangland Crimes, page one, five six. Now, of course,
the police will not tell you that part of those
witness protection programs were to protect them from police as well.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
William's reign came to an end when he was finally arrested,
ragged from his empire and handcuffs, he was forced to
confront the truth his empire, built on violence and treachery,
had been living on borrowed time. At first, he remained silent,
confident that his lawyers could manipulate the system the way
he had manipulated so many others. But the evidence was irrefutable,
the walls closing in on him, and for the first
(36:22):
time in his life, Williams found himself with no moves left.
In two thousand and seven, with the weight of overwhelming
evidence and testimony from former associates, Williams pleaded guilty to
orchestrating multiple murders, including the execution of Jason.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Moran and now isolated Carl Williams confessed to three murders
in the hope of gaining leniency from the courts, but
Justice Betty King jailed him for thirty five years, a
decision on which has been granted one avenue of future appeal.
Quoted from Gangland Crimes, page one hundred and fifty six.
It is shocking to me. It was shocking to me then,
(36:58):
it is shocking to me now now that Williams got
such a lenient, light sentence of thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, there was no life behind that. It was just
thirty five and you can come.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Out because we've seen like serial killers in Australia generally
get life in prison, you know, never to be released.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Ye, that's through a Knight killed one person life.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah. Absolutely, Williams was responsible for hundreds of deaths potentially,
not only including people who overdosed on bad drugs, but
also the people who were killed under his command or
the unavoidable skirmishes that happened between all these different gangs.
Williams was a horrible person who perpetrated horrible crimes that
ended up in a lot of misery and got thirty
(37:41):
five years. You know, when you look at spree killer Night,
I think what did he end up with? Like, he
ended up with life in prison and he killed what
thirty five people?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
No, it was in his teens. He was outdone by
the Port Arthur Killer. And yeah remember.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah, so Knight ended up in his spree shooting, killing
far less pea people that Williams was responsible for got
life in prison. Williams got thirty five years. It pissed
off a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
It's even funnier. He was thirty seven at this point,
so he would literally spend the same amount of time
almost that he'd lived now behind bars.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, instead of he should have been listed as never
to be released.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
The once feared crime lord who had commanded Melbourne's underworld
with the ruthless efficiency, was now locked away in Bawin
Prison's High Security Union High Security Unit, a place where
men with their own brutal pass had every reason to
despise him. Yet Williams refused to accept his fall from grace.
In his mind, he was still the puppet master and
still a force to be reckoned with. Even inside one
(38:42):
of the most secure prisons in Victoria, Williams continued to scheme,
convinced that he could play the system just as he
had done on the outside. Desperate to protect his family
and perhaps secure an early release, he began cooperating with authorities,
offering them valuable intelligence on rival criminals, corrupt officers, and
gangland dealings. Note the one in the middle there. It
(39:04):
was both a strategic move and a sign of desperation.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
It was also to secure the future of his wife
and adopted daughter, because the police offered to pay for
her tuition fees for his daughter's private school, and it
was a way to make sure that they were set up.
A lot of people got very, very upset with the
amount of money that was being spent on William's family,
(39:29):
but the resulting convictions from that amount of money that
was being spent was worth a lot more than the money.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Saved a lot of money in task force fees.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
But people were still very angry about it. But see
this is what I'm talking about. I mean, he started
flipping immediately.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah. Yeah, His empire crumbled and the only remaining power
he had was the information locked away in his mind.
His cooperation with the Office of Police Integrity soon made
him a target within the prison system, as it would
ultimately mark him as a traitor in the eyes of
his fellow inmates.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
There are two ways to get yourself stabbed in prison.
One be a pedophile, or two work with be a snitch.
Snitches get stitches. There's a reason for that.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Williams never learned how to fade into the background. He
still craves a spotlight, seeking media attention with interviews and
headline appearances, maintaining the myth of his own invincibility. Inside Bawan,
he refused to see himself as anything other than a kingpin,
even though he was now just another inmate surrounded by
men who had nothing to lose, very very similar to
(40:32):
Judy Moran.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
The problem is around this point, though, under Belly starts
premiering yep, and he cops it yep because I can't
remember the actor's name, and I apologize for that. I
should remember his name. He portrays him as a sort
of a bumbling idiot, and Williams hated that interpretation of him.
(40:54):
He hated it with a passion. Gayton grantly, Gayton grantly,
and he did a fantas job. I think everyone quite
liked his performance. Maybe it was a little bit more
exaggerated than it needed to be, and I don't think
Roberta particularly liked her portrayal either, but it clearly got
under his skin because I think he wanted to be
(41:16):
seen as like the man, you know, the guy like
he wanted to be Vincentinofrio in Daredevil, you know, the
kingpin of crime, the scary figure.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
He wanted to be kingpin in the Marvel universe what
he ended up being with Bozo de Clown.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Absolutely in the underworld. Williams had once been protected by
his wealth, his power, and his ruthless enforces, but in
prison he was no longer in control. On April nineteen,
twenty ten, in the cold, brutal confines of Barwan's Acacia unit,
Williams was brutally attacked by fellow inmate Matthew Johnson, a
violent career criminal with his own unyielding code of loyalty. Johnson,
(41:54):
who had been placed in the same unit under questionable circumstances,
attacked Karl with savage pursuers, using the metal stem of
an exercise bike to deliver fatal blows to his head.
The assault, captured on CCTV, was a shocking and fittingly
brutal end to the life of a man who had
once orchestrated the deaths of his rivals with chilling detachment.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Do you remember how no one gave a fuck about
him being beaten to death?
Speaker 2 (42:19):
It's like, oh, no, anyway, the general.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Consensus of most Australians picking up a newspaper in those days,
and it was still a newspaper, picking up the newspaper,
turning on the television. I think every single Australian.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Oh, that saves a tax payer money.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Pretty much. No one cared in any way, shape or form,
which I think was a mistake because someone set that up.
And whether it was rival gangland figures, gangs within the
prison system, or police, all three or all three, because
police were quite concerned with the amount of information that
(42:56):
was being delivered to a you know, latter affairs or yeah, well,
I mean IA was all over Victoria, and it was
all over the Victorian Police Force.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Sorry, in Australia it's the Office of Police Integrity.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Sorry what I call it ia Internal affairs, It's OPA OPA.
So yeah, the OPA was all over sorry OPI OPI.
So OP was all over the Victorian Police. At the time,
it had become a federal concern as well, so you
had federal police investigating too, and a lot of people
(43:29):
were very, very concerned. And then Williams before his testifying, dies.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Before he even finishes giving up all his information.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Dies, No, and it's not outside the realm of possibility
that someone that Williams pissed off managed to orchestrate this.
It's also not outside the realm of possibility that someone
within the Victorian police force organized this. So we will
never know. I don't think who organized it, but it
was absolutely organized.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Within moments, Carl Williams, once the more most feared man
in Melbourne's underworld, was left lying lifeless on the prison
cell floor, his empire and his life destroyed in one swift,
unforgiving act.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Police ay Williams were seen in a common area outside
his cell area just before one pm when an inmate
snuck up behind him and struck him several times in
the head with the stem of the bike. Williams suffered
serious head injuries, went into cardiac arrest and could not
be revived. Another inmate was in the room at the
time of the attack, and both men are now being
questioned by police. A prison officer was about ten meters
(44:31):
away when the incident occurred. Quote from Carl Williams abashed
and killed in jail Monday, the nineteenth of April two
thousand and ten.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
William's death was not the dramatic, orchestrated downfall of a
criminal mastermind. It was the grim inevitable result of the
violence he had spent his life orchestrating. His legacy, far
from that of a legendary kingpin, was one of devastation, betrayal,
and broken lives. The bloodshed he had caused had irreparably
scarred Melbourne, leaving a s city marked by the very
(45:01):
violence he had fostered. The man who had believed himself
untouchable had ended his life in a manner that mirrored
the fate of so many of his victims, Betrayed alone
and silenced by the brutal world he had created.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Ladies and gentlemen. That concludes the Melbourne gang Land Wars.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Because that is technically the last canonical death.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Hooray for you. Clap, clap, clup, clup.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
You made it through seven emphisodes.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
You did it. Everyone gets a gold star. Get put
that on your forehead.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I got a gold star.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Polly first and foremost. I would like to say a
big thank you for all of the work that you've
done on this. This series took four books, lots of research,
and I think everyone owes you a big clap. As
long as you're not driving don't do that.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
It actually evolved into seven books and many many news articles.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
It was a big, big series. And one of the
reasons that we wanted to do this is because every
year we have this sort of like quintessential theme around
our sort of years. Sometimes it happens by accident, but
this time it was definitely going to be the Melbourne
gang Land Wars because if you think about it, you
have now been listening to Melbourne Gangland War stories now
(46:12):
for two months straight of Melbourne Gangland Wars. So that's
a lot of wars. Yeah, if it's a lot of episodes,
one episode a day for a week. But I don't
think we could have done this any other way. I
think that over the course of the podcast, we've built
up the foundations for Melbourne gang activity and so the
(46:33):
natural conclusion was to now, you know, present these seven
episodes through. So this is a brief overview. And I know,
and that's crazy to think about because when you add
all these episodes up, it's probably going to top out
at about five, maybe six hours of episodes, and in
six hours we really couldn't.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Cover everything, No, not even close.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
So if you're at all disappointed, and I don't think
anyone is, because we've been getting a lot of like
thumbs up over this series. If you are a little
bit disappointed that we couldn't cover every single aspect, let
us know, particularly what we were missing that you wanted
to hear about. You can send an email through to
wee crap in Australia at gmail dot com, or you
can send us a message via our social media is.
(47:15):
Just type in weir craping Austraya into the search engine
of your favorite social media and let us know what
we missed. Because we always need what like, we always
need little bridging episodes between series so we can always
do one shots in the future where it's just you know,
one episode Benji being an interesting example of a criminal
(47:37):
that we could cover in an whole episode. So if
there's something that we missed that you desperately want to
hear about, please use that email address, send through your list,
and we can then continue to do what we've always done,
which is just pepper those episodes throughout. But this is
a broad overview of the entire wars, starting with the
(47:57):
Painters and Dockers and ending with Will. So I hope
you've all enjoyed it. It has been fun. We are
ready to move on. We have never done a seven
part series before. This is a first for us. I
don't particularly like doing seven episodes on one subject because
I don't focus long enough.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Had you has a bit of ADHD, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
So it's nice that we did it, but it's nice
to also wrap it up. But I hope everyone has
enjoyed it now I mentioned all of the social media's.
Of course, a couple of ways that you can help
support the show. One is by finding us on Patreon
friendly five dollars a month. You get bonus minisodes where
we talk about some of the interesting headlines from Australian
news that week, so you get a little bit more
(48:42):
of our personal opinions there if you would be interested.
So we do those minisodes once a week. You also
get these mainline episodes released to your uncut ad free
and early. You can also grab yourself the Week Crap
in Australia book series, which is definitely longer than the
Underbelly book series. You can find that from our great
mates at Impact Comics dot com dot au.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Do you mean longer is in more volumes or longer
is in page count?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Page count?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
And there's eleven books that I know.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, but they're real little have to fact check that one.
Do you think like the Underbelly books? Right? I think
one of our books would fit three Underbelly books.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
At least at least because they're big type.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah. Wait, our books are big type or their books
are big type. Well, that makes it even worse. Then
I feel even more confident in that statement. You can
grab that from the great mates at Impact Comics dot
com dot Au. If you want to paperback overseas, just
head to our print undermand service Lulu dot com. You
can also grab the ebook from the kindleshop on Amazon.
We also have a Weird Crap in Australian merch If
(49:43):
you'd like to grab yourself a shirt or a mug
or any other piece of of jdar which you can
put around your home, you can grab that from our
Red Bubble and Tea public stores. Just open Weird Crap
in Australia and all of our wonderful designs will pop
up for you. Otherwise. To conclude the Melbourne Gangland series,
handed over to Holly, who no doubt has one last
Reddator account of a Ganglan interaction. Holly, take it.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Away, all right. So our last one comes from mister
accurate strategy five nine eight. Wow, some people I've really imagined.
I've user names they do, all right, so he says,
had a few connections to various figures over the years.
Here's a couple standing outside mate's mechanic shop. I'm willing
to parade witness some ute run up the back of
(50:26):
the car in front. Guy in front starts going ballistic
at the ute driver, at which point Uncle Chop Chop
gets out of the ute and I want to apologize
for having knacolepsy, but didn't even get to finish his
sentence before the driver saw who it was that hit
him and proceeded to run back to his car and
take off.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
All right, settle down here, all right, had a little
bit of a nap, A little bit of a nap
in front of the wheel, Okay, it happens, all right,
Uncle Chop Chop, Look after.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
You look, it's about fifty bucks worth it.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Why are you running away? I was going to share
your lunch and some cheery chippies for you, all right
back in my car. Even though I apparently have NARCOLEPSI
probably shouldn't be driving anyway, I feel like I'm going
to get some chippies.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Met Benji a couple of times when he came around
to visit a couple of mates of mine. Those were
pretty quick visits.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah. Look, I've I have been in situations where similar
things have happened, not to that level of crime, but
definitely people have walked into a room where I'm like, anyway, guys,
was great catching up with you. You enjoy your weed
and that guy and I'm getting the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Francesco Frank Benvenito was the grandfather of one of my
mates in primary school. I remember going to his house
one day to be told I couldn't come in because
Grandpa was visiting.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Is this dude like Carl William's nephew or something.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Victor Pierce was shot outside my parents' business.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Okay, this person is definitely related to someone in this
criminal world. Right.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Mario Condello was shot and killed in my streets. Yep,
and my old drama teacher from school years later decided
he wanted to do family law. Not long after he
started practicing, he got a phone call from a new client, ROBERTA.
W Of course, it was a much smaller city back then,
was it?
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Or were your parents living in a crime neighborhood and.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
You were often a lot closer to some people you
hear about the news than you thought was possible. And
there you go. That's all his stories. The person who
apparently lived in the epicenter of the Gangland War.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Apparently they're just that casual observer, you know, Dave's always
in these pictures. It's the watcher, just just sort of
standing there looking like slightly shocked. Is that you again, Dave? Yeah,
you know, I just I don't know what it is.
I seem to be a magnet for true crime events.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Just wanted some chips.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, I was going down the street to have some chips.
And guess who I saw sitting there having some chips?
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Uncle chop job.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
He's really Oh look it's Dave dun If. I've seen
you around all the crime scenes lately. Mate, what are
you being up to have some chippies?
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Anyway? If I do that any longer, I am either
going to drive our audience crazy or holly crazy, or both.
So thank you very much for joining us. I hope
you've enjoyed this series. Don't forget there's more weird Crap
In Australia coming right up for you next week. Until then,
ladies and gentlemen, please stay safe, be kind and avoid
any gangland activity.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Don't worry, there'll be something nice next week.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
And we'll see you all all again then, So thank
you so much and bye for now.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
The Weird Crap In Australia podcast is produced by Holly
and Matthew Soul for the Modern Meltdown. If you've enjoyed
this podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcatching
app
A strange, spiraling white light was spotted in the early
morning sky over Sydney, with even skeptical witnesses wondering if
it was a UFO. They were last seen on the
beach with the tall Man and that's the best description
police have ever had of it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
More than seventeen years after Harold Holt disappeared into raging
surf at Chevy A Beach, his widow has finally revealed
his last romantic words docky, terrifying, mesmerizing.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's the way a number of Australians have described the
alleged encounter with the Yowi. It's time for the Weird
Crap In Australia podcast. Welcome to the week Crap In
(00:45):
Australia Podcast. I'm your host, Matthew Soul. This is episode
three hundred and fifty eight and the conclusion to the
Melbourne gang.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Land Wars A million Years Coming.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Sorry, Holly might still be getting over a little bit
of a fit of giggles. As usually before we jump
into a podcast, I usually have to warm up a
little bit, or or I just do something silly just
to get a rise out of her. So she's just
getting the tears out of her eyes. Right now, let's
just say I was saying dirty words in a bit
of a sing songy voice.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
He was singing dirty words to country road. That's what
he was doing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Take me home. Now you're worried, aren't you. Yep. Now,
before we get into it, just very quickly, we have
a small correction as well. That was sent through to
us by Hippa. She just said on the latest episode
you mentioned oz Kick it is still running, which I'm
glad to hear. Matthew also said the kangaroos don't have
(01:46):
a homeground, but they do live in North Melbourne, next
door to the kangaroo's home ground. Thank you very much, forelinus. Now,
when I was a kid, they didn't have a homeground,
but it's good to see that they have one now
and it's always lovely to hear from our Melbourne listeners.
So Peppa, thank you for the correction. All Right, ladies
and gentlemen, we're about to jump into probably the most
(02:08):
rant filled episode of the Gangland Wars that is going
to be the Life and Times of Carl Williams, which
is effectively going to wrap up the series. This is
our longest series to date. We're happy to see that
so many of you have jumped on board for this
particular topic, and the feedback we have received has been
(02:28):
predominantly positive, with a few small corrections here and there.
So we're very very happy that you've enjoyed it, and
we're very very happy to walk the fuck away from this.
This has been long, very long.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oversaturation of my time.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
But I'm glad that everyone's enjoyed it all right, Without
further ado, Holly take it away. Carl Williams, the clown
Prince of Crime Bowbery.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Carl Anthony Williams was born October thirteenth, nineteen seventy to
working class parents living in the North suburbs of Melbourne.
The area around broad Meadows where he grew up was
full of housing commission houses and those out on their luck,
including immigrant families that couldn't find a foothold to begin
their climb up the social and employment ladders. Broad Meadows
in the nineteen seventies and eighties was a place of
(03:16):
violence and pride, where disputes were settled with fists and
the reputation ruled above all. Heady criminals, bikis and low
level racketeers all hustled to scrape a living and they
were the predominant demographic of some areas. It was into
this that Karl joined their ranks.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So these sort of depressed areas generally have a decent
amount of drug trafficking. And it's just a simple socioeconomic factor.
If you were down on your luck, you constantly depressed,
you're going to turn to marijuana. You're going to turn
to other drugs which are relatively cheap. Funnily enough, though,
when it comes to overall spend, it's usually the higher
(03:53):
socioeconomic side of the fence that spends the most on drugs,
just to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Williams George Williams was known to police as an sp bookie,
a trade which brought George, with little Carl following close behind,
in contact with the fringe figures of Melbourne's underworld, including
the Indrigetta, the Painters and Dockers, and the Carlton Crew.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
George and Carl Williams were changed for serious drug offenses
as a result of a police raid in nineteen ninety
nine on George's broad Meadows property with thirty thousand pills
with the street value of twenty million were found. George
was jailed for four and a half years in November
two thousand and seven after planning guilty to teaming up
with his son to smuggle almost five kilograms of meth
and phetamines. Quote from Melbourne gangland figure George Williams dies
(04:38):
Thursday the twelfth of May twenty sixteen, ABC and.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
All of that just to tell you that Carl Williams
came along his trade.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Honestly, I mean it makes a lot of sense and
what we've seen throughout the gangland Wars and through most
of Melbourne's organized crime as there is an aspect of
legacy passing down one criminal empire to the next. You know,
the Miranda in Dynasty started with Lez and then moves
on to his kids, and it's the same with Karl.
(05:06):
These sort of people don't get created in a vacuum
most of the time. There's usually external influences to push
them towards these sort of things. So none of this
really surprises me. It's quite sad to hear that this
little boy was carried around from mob spot to mob
spot while he learned the criminal trade. It's sadly I
don't think he really had a choice. I mean, we
(05:28):
always have a choice, but there are always those social
factors that are going to help to build behaviors that
we take on later in life.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, some factors make choices harder than others.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Absolutely, absolutely. I think I already talked about Vivotsky, I
think in a previous episode about his social theories concerning
our behavior and learning. If you're surrounded by a group
of criminals from a very young age, what do you
think the behavior that's going to be normalized for that
child is going to be, and that is going to
be criminal active. They don't know any different. So yeah,
(06:03):
at this point already the cards were pretty much stacked
against Carl Williams.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
At school, Williams was restless and unremarkable, more interested in
making deals in the school yard than paying attention in class.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Hey, yeah, Pali, I got I got three charizards here,
and I can do your deal.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I can do your deal. Threw him three charizards and
the blast toist.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
He would have been in school in the eighties. I
don't know what pop culture that would have been.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I don't like AFL football cards.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Maybe, I mean possibly, I think they're that old.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Top tops did movie cards like they did that they
took scenes from movies and put them on the cards,
so there was like Jaws and and things like that.
Maybe he was trading those in the school yard.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Let us know, Melbourne Night's what were you trading in
the eighties?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Williams had little patience for authority and quickly realized that
a regular job wouldn't give him the lifestyle he wanted.
By his mid teens, he was already running scams, selling
dodgy cars, passing off counterfeit goods, and pulling small time frauds.
He relied on charm and confidence to make up for
the fact that at this stage he was still just
a hustler on the fringes, nowhere near the crime figures
(07:14):
he looked up to. But Williams was ambitious. He wanted
more than what broad Meadows had to offer, and he
didn't plan on working his way up the traditional way.
By his early twenties, Williams had built a reputation with
local police, not as a serious criminal, bad as a nuisance.
He was involved in Czech fraud, credit card scams and
identity theft, and in several minor convictions, but never anything
(07:36):
serious enough to put him behind bars for long.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
These sort of people are your serial offenders, you know,
the ones that you're going to see at a supermarket,
constantly trying to pass off dodgy checks. Not that people
do that anymore, because I don't even think banks offered checkbooks,
do they.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
As far as I remember, they deleted them or they
got rid of them.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure checkbooks are finished. For all you
little kids out there listening. A checkbook was basic. I
have this much in my account, I'm writing near this figure.
You hand that into the bank. The bank will then
deposit the money into your account, or you can get
it paid out as cash.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
A highly sophisticated I owe you very much.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So and a lot of people would do dodgy checks,
which is they get their hands on the checkbook, they'd
write the check, the check would be accepted, and then
obviously there'd be no money in the bank account. And
so that is how you commit check fraud. What does
identity feth look like In the early nineties, check fraud
just check fraud?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, probably, I mean credit cards were still on the
klaki clackie machines, so yeah, I don't think there was
very much of that goal around.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, there might have been a little bit of credit
card theft.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Perhaps, Mostly I think it was pickpockets. It was during
this time that he saw his next opportunity drugs. The
amphetamine trade was booming in Melbourne, particularly in the nightclub scene,
and it was far more profitable than Petty Thoord.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah. Think Blade nineteen ninety nine. The introduction to the movie.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Had that blood bread maybe.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
See that's too old a reference too, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I don't know, I remember it. It's a Marvel movie.
Go watch it.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Holy I'm thirty seven this year, Dahlan, We're on our
way to forty.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
It's a Marvel movie. It's now part of the counton.
You have to go watch it. And even if you
don't care about Marvel movies, go watch it anyway because
it's a good movie.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah. I suppose because Blade is in Dead Poul Wolverine,
so it probably encouraged a bunch of people to go
back and rewatch those movies. Probably, yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Williams started small, running makeship flabs out of rental properties
in Melbourne's western suburbs. His early operations were crude and risky,
but they were enough to get his product out on
the streets.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The underworld's old guard, such as the Italian community based
Cotton Crew, basically expected newcomers to prove themselves in criminal
ranks before they finally graduated to leadership positions. Success in
standover roles, armed robberies, safe breaking, prostitution rackets and protection
services was the expected pathway, and the rise to power
was viewed as being a gradual process. Williams and Mockbell
(09:59):
flouted them perceptions with their quick entry into gangland leadership.
The catalyst for their success was the almost instant wealth
that they accumulated from drug trafficking quote from Gangland Crimes
that Shocked Australia, page two hundred and four. Of course,
these days as well, outside of illegal brothels and massage parlors,
(10:21):
generally speaking, the prostitution rackets no longer exist either, due
to most states adopting some form of regulation. I think
one of the last holdout states was actually Victoria. Concerning
legal prostitution, I don't quite remember. I don't think I'm
maybe wrong about this, I'm probably wrong about this. I
don't think South Australia has legal prostitution laws on the books.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yet within a few years Williams had moved beyond low
level hustling. He was now a name in Melbourne's drug trade,
gaining recognition for his ambition, willingness to take risks, and
ability to deliver results.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
He was also walking down the streets of Melbourne doing
finger guns, singing every day hustle.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Roll my eyes at you. I think the listeners just
heard me roll my eyes at you. And he's actually
dancing now. Throughout the nineteen nineties, Melbourne's nightlife was fueled
by amphetamines, ecstasy and speed. Williams saw the growing demand
and wasted no time establishing himself in the market. His
early labs were unsophisticated and frequently relocated to avoid police detection,
(11:24):
but the drugs they produced were cheap and in high demand.
He built a reputation as a reliable supplier, flooding clubs
and music festivals with product and attracting attention from both
street dealers and bigger players. William's real advantage was strategy.
He undercut competitors by offering bulk deals at lower prices,
faster distribution and better profits for dealers.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Later, he go on to found Chemist's Warehouse, lower prices
every day ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
His aggressive tactics put him on the radar of major
figures in melbourn'sdrug trade, including Jason and Mark Moran, who
controlled large distribution networks. The Morans brought Williams into their operation,
but only as a supplier, someone to produce drugs while
they handled the bigger deals. To Williams, this was both
an opportunity and an insult. He had no intention of
staying in the background. From the beginning, Williams resented his position.
(12:16):
He watched the Morans flaunt their wealth while treating him
as just another worker.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
But to be fair, he was yep, you know. And
I think this is where the struggle between Marine and
Williams really kicks off in I mean, this is why
I think Williams was stupid in most aspects of his life.
He could have become a part of the overall Marine network, right,
he could have become a strong player within their system. Instead,
(12:45):
he wanted to be king. But in order to become
king they he had to throw off the rules that
kept a sanity amongst the criminal element, and so all
he ended up doing was he got to live as
a king for a little while inside a walled off
building because he was terrified he was going to be
killed all the time, and then he ended up in
(13:06):
prison anyway, So if he just sort of fell into
their system, he probably could have had a successful career
and retired. But one could argue for the general public
that had he not become raging, lunatic narcissist, that the
Gangland Wars probably never would have ended. Well, sorry, the
(13:27):
Gangland Wars wouldn't have started, but the gangs probably would
have maintained their position and continued to do what they did.
But of course, like as soon as the gangs disappeared,
then another criminal element moves in behind them. But yeah,
it's really interesting to see someone sort of he understood
what was needed, he understood how to make the product.
(13:49):
I don't think he understood the politics.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And by all accounts his product was subpar anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Anecdotally from what I've heard.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
William's quietly built his own network under the Moran's nose,
expanding his operations and took note of the Moran's weaknesses.
He wasn't interested in being part of their organization. He
wanted to take it over.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Alleged underworld kingpin Carl Williams has been charged with seven
new drug offenses and faced the Melbourne Magistrate's Court via
video link from prison today. Williams, thirty five, was convicted
of drug trafficking last year and faces three counts of
murder relating to Melbourne's protracted underground war, in which twenty
seven people have been murdered since nineteen ninety eight. He
(14:33):
now faces one new count of trafficking a commercial quantity
of amphetamines between December two thousand and June two thousand
and two, six counts of dealing with the proceeds of
crime totaling forty six thousand, six hundred dollars in cash.
Williams charged with new drug offenses January twenty nine, two
thousand and five. At that age.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
On October thirteen, nineteen ninety nine, you know his birthday,
one of the Moran Brothers shot Williams. He survived, but
the attack turned into a personal We spent four episodes
covering it. We're not going to cover it again now.
During his recovery, he began assembling a crew young violent
enforces with nothing to lose and everything to gain. They
were fiercely loyal and willing to do whatever Williams needed
(15:13):
to secure power. Williams escalated from small time operator to
major player. Flushed with cash from drug sales, he moved
his operations from makeshift setups to larger, more organized production sites.
Hid him wearhouses and rural properties. With greater production capabilities,
he could control supply, flood the streets with cheap drugs,
and expand his influence across Melbourn's underworld. Money also became
(15:36):
a weapon. He bought out rival dealers when possible, and
used intimidation when it wasn't. His crew enforced debts, carried
out violent attacks, and eliminated threats as Williams pushed deeper
into territories once controlled by the Morans and.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Their allies by the Stupid Joker.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
By the end of two thousand, Williams had cemented himself
as a serious figure in Melbourne's crime scene. He was
no longer a low level hustler, but a major supplier
with connections to Biking Yang's corrupt officials and high level dealers.
He had built his empire through strategy, intimidation, and relentless ambition,
and he wasn't planning on stopping.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
While in jail and reman for close to two months,
Williams began to plan his first attack. Williams thought that
if he killed the Moran brothers immediately and meant established
underworld figures, including Gaddo, would seek revenge. He decided his
best chance for survival was not to jump at shadows,
but to cast a bigger one, so he launched a
hostile takeover. Initially, Williams was outnumbered and in no position
(16:36):
to take on the Marines, let alone contemplate plans for
gangland domination. Then, by a stroke of perfect timing, he
was finally bailed on his drug charges on the twenty
second of January two thousand. Three days later, Jason Moran
was jailed for a fray and sentenced to twenty months
at jail. That meant Mark Moran lost his closest ally
and was now dangerously exposed quote from Underbelly the Gangland
(16:59):
War Page.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
By two thousand and three, Williams had ascended to a
level of dominance that few in Melbourne's underworld had ever achieved.
What had started as a street level amphetamine operation had
transformed into a multi million dollar criminal enterprise. The controlled
not just the city's drug trade, but the flow of money, power,
and fear that governed the underworld itself. His name carried
weight in every backroom deal, every nightclub, every illicit transaction
(17:25):
that took place in the city. He was no longer
just a player. He was the game. His entire empire
was built on a foundation of speed and strategy. His
drugs were cheaper, stronger, and more wildly available than anyone else's.
His distribution network was precise, running like a corporate supply chain,
with every dealer and enforcer knowing their role and their place.
(17:46):
He had transformed a messy, unpredictable trade into a system
that churned out profits and an industrial scale. Bills moved
from his production hubs to the streets with frightening efficiency,
while cash flowed back just as fast launded through car dealership.
Strip clubs and gyms is financial?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
How do you louner money through a gym? Is it
just the initial setup costs?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
The initial setup costs. Then of course you've got people
who never actually use the gym, pay joining fees and
membership fees and lesson fees that they never attend, and
things like that.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Seems very difficult. I can see like a strip club
being you know, a lot of cash moving in and
out of a strip club. I can sort of see
that car dealerships absolutely make sense to me. But yeah, Jim,
seeing really like a complicated way of laundering money.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You can pay personal trainers in cash to look after you,
and it doesn't really matter how much cash you hen them.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, I suppose so.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
His financial empire was as carefully orchestrated as his criminal one,
ensuring that while the authorities were chasing shadows, the real
money was already clean and untouchable.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Just before we continue on, then, just listening to all
of these wonderful things that this man is doing and
how well organized he is, is my interpretation of him
as a dickhead and a dumbass. Is it unwarranted?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
No, it's not. See, the problem is that he didn't
build or create any of this infrastructure. He took it over.
He just put himself at the top of that ladder.
Someone else had already installed it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So he was a thug. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
By this point, Williams no longer needed to issue threats personally.
His enforces, led by the ruthless and unpredictable Andrew Benji Viennamen,
handled the dirty work with brutal efficiency.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Benji was a brutal, brutal person. We could do an
episode on him, but we're not coming to because we've
done enough, because we've done enough for the Kanglan for
a while.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
As I said, I had to cut a lot of
people out of the story, but they are here still.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, we've built, like you've built a timeline, the.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Main line of the story. We just haven't covered all
the side characters.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
You know. It's like Colton Crew to the Marines to Williams,
and that gives you you through line. There are all
these other little characters all over the place, and at
some point we can do episodes on them in the future.
So when we need a filler episode, or you know
we're running short on a topic, we can always go
(20:07):
back and revisit this.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Benji was more than just a hit man. He was
William's personal executioner, a man who strived on violence and
had no hesitation in pulling the trigger. Together, they made
sure every debt was paid, every challenge crushed, and every
enemy silenced. Williams's men didn't just operate in the shadows.
They were a visible force, a constant reminder that Melbourne's
criminal world now answered to one man. Yet for all
(20:32):
his power, Williams was not untouchable. By the mid two thousands,
the body count in Melbourne reached unprecedented levels, and with
every Gangland execution, the police became more determined to bring.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Him down, only because some of those executions resulted in
the deaths of their own people who were involved.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Or got very close to exposing others. Seveilla's team tracked
his movements why aretaps listened in on conversations. His name
was being whispered in courtrooms and among high ranking officers
who wanted nothing more than to see his empire dismantled.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Career criminal and police informer Terrence Hodson and his wife
Christine were murdered in their flat in suburban Melbourne in
May last year. One former policeman under scrutiny is Paul Dale,
the detective who was in charge of handling Hodson as
a police informer before he was killed. Hodson was to
give evidence against mister Dale in a serious corruption case.
That case collapsed after Hudson's murder, and mister Dale has
(21:26):
always maintained he has never been involved in any corruption.
My boy Dale, he's a good boy. He never kill anybody.
But four corners reveals police of determiner. Before he was sacked,
mister Dale had formed an improper relationship with an underworld
figure who was a member of the so called William's
crime syndicate. Vote from Gangland killing link to Victorian police
(21:49):
corruption Monday fourteenth to March two thousand and five, ABC
I were not exaggerating the police's involvement in the Gangland Wars,
just in case people are like, man, you guys come
down the police a lot. Yeah, because there's evidence when
it comes to the Victorian police, they were the ones
that had a good chunk of them, were the ones
(22:09):
that helped protected the protophile priests within the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
They were the Catholic mafia.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And during the Gangland Wars there were plenty of them
who were also helping to push the drugs and their
own pockets were going to get lighter should people like
Carl Williams on the Marines disappear. That's on the record.
They know this, they just don't want to talk about
it and they don't want to acknowledge it. They're hoping
that after a few generations have gone by, and to
be fair, a lot of generations of police have come
(22:35):
and gone since the Gangland Wars. They sort of figure, Okay, well,
maybe the next generation will slowly work this out. But
you know, I still think those people who were involved,
the members of the Victorian Police force who were involved,
should be in jail. And a lot of them managed
to escape jail.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
There are enough carr up members of the Victorian Police
Force still in active service that after a Rural commission
into corruption in Victorian police nothing got done.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yepase she can't arrest all.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Of them, just like remember when we were doing the
Queensland inquiry and the marriage is like, wait, I give up.
I can't get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It's just so corrupt that we just have to stop.
Otherwise we'll just be hearing about corruption cases forever.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Williams wasn't worried. He had police in his pocket, corrupt
officials who ensured that Raid's conveniently missed his biggest operations.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Now, how many of them belonged to the Liberal Party, Well.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
They were all definitely painters and doggers.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Oh so maybe actually the Labor Party then maybe maybe?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, He laughed off the headlines, dismissing the authorities as
an inconvenience rather than a real threat to him. The
Melbourne Gang Lamb War wasn't something to fear, it was
something to exploit. Every dead rival was another opportunity to expand,
another chance to tighten his grip. The problem was Williams
wasn't just making enemies among the police. He was making
(23:58):
enemies everywhere. The old Guard, the remnants of the Marne
Clan by Kigan's independent operators hadn't forgotten what he had done.
They weren't just sitting back and watching him take over.
They were waiting, planning. Williams had become a crime lord,
the orchestrator of an empire that stretched its influence into
nearly every illicit sector in Melbourne. His empire ran like
(24:19):
a well oiled machine, and he had perfected the art
of having others do his dirty work. While he remained
largely out of the media spotlight and avoided police attention,
his empire's strength masked a growing floor.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, it is interesting around this time when you look
at reporting, which is mostly focused on the Carlton Crew,
the Morues or the illegal bookie operations, Williams does quietly
manage to solidify his power base outside of media attention, though,
as you said earlier, Holy, his name was being whispered
about by police. Hey, you know, have you heard about
(24:53):
this Williams guy. It's interesting that he did manage to
maintain such a low profile for such a long time.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
It was really until the first season of Underbelly hit
the TV show that everyone went, oh, that's Carl Williams.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And that was two thousand and eight.
He hated that portrayal too. He despised it good.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
His arrogance was already setting him on a collision course
with law enforcement. Though he believed his position was untouchable,
the cracks were beginning to show.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Police knew they needed a circuit breaker, and the best
way to do it would be to jail Williams. It
was the self styled premier himself, always so cautious about phones,
who handed them the damning evidence. He told his wife
in one call that if Purena detective Sergeant Stuart Buttonsen
raided their house, she should grab the gun from under
the mattress and shoot him in the head. In a
(25:44):
prison phone call, the runner complained of his treatment, and
Williams talked about chopping up the sergeant Baston's girlfriend. The
tape of William's threats where the break the police needed
quote from Underbelly, page at two hundred and sixty two.
And you may be wondering why police are so interested
in nabbing people over things like, you know, credit card
fraud or in this case, threats towards someone's person, right.
(26:09):
The reason that they like that is because, as what
that quote says, they need a circle breaker. They need
to be able to cut the leader's head off and
watch the rest of the organization sort of crumble in
and of itself, turns it into sort of mini conflicts.
So they can get him on a threat charge that
is a unfortunately it's a bit of a misdemeanor, but
you can put someone in jail for you know, six
(26:31):
months up to two years. Being a police officer as well,
the judges are usually harsher in those sentences, so you're
able to get him off the streets into a jail
cell at least for twelve months, and that gives everyone
else a chance to start dismantling the operation while he's away.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well gathering evidence while this smart guy quote unquote is
not around to tell them to shut the fuck up.
Exactly In public, Williams meticulously crafted an image of a
self made businessman and devoted family man. He drove luxury cars,
wore tailored suits, and bought lavish homes in Essendon and Hillside,
each equipped with state of the art security systems. He
(27:08):
married Roberta Williams, whose presence in the media often found
her defending Williams.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I'm still waiting for Roberta to pop up on Dancing
with the Stars, I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And together they presented an image of the perfect family.
Their daughter, Dakota, was the center of their world, often
seen with Williams at events and shopping centers, a display
of affection and wealth that hid the brutal reality of
his criminal empire. Strangely enough, he never walked around with
her on his shoulders.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Gotcha, musk.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So even Carl Williams had enough security in his position.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
It really demonstrates weakness, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It's American politics should be doing that here na. Beneath
this carefully cultivated facade, the violence and brutality of William's
world continued to escalate. It was all part of the
illusion he maintained until it inevitably unraveled. Power breeds arrogance,
and Williams began to believe in the myth he had created.
He no longer saw himself as just a drug lord.
(28:09):
It was the king of Melbourne's underworld, immune to the
fate that claimed every other rival before him. Yet even
as he busked in his wealth and power, his downfall
had already begun. The very violence that had once cemented
his dominance had become his achilles heel.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
I mean, you have to be particularly arrogant to assume
that you can undercut your supply, your supply network. The
Marines were the ones who were pumping his drugs into Melbourne.
He thought, well, I can sable some of my manufacturing,
heighten up the market, and then move those drugs myself,
(28:45):
and then I get all the profits. I just need
to do this quickly and quietly. And that was ultimately
the problem, because, as we've discussed on previous episodes, the
Moreans weren't that stupid, and they worked out pretty quickly
what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
The public, outraged by the constant bloodshed on their streets,
had reached his breaking point, and politicians were under increasing
pressure to put an end to the Gangland wars. In
two thousand and three, the Purana Task Force was established
with the sole goal of dismantling organized crime in Melbourne,
and Williams quickly became the primary target.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
What do you think about this? My interpretation is with
Purana that it was really about the oz kick day.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It was formed before the os Kicker incident.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Its funding and its power.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
It got a real kick in the ass with that, yeah, with.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
That incident, with you know, the assassination of Jason Marine.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yea. It also doesn't help to become, you know, public
enemy number one if you call yourself the king of
Melbourne's underworld.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I mean becoming a grandiose like the best criminals are
the ones you never hear of, and that that is
always going to be the case. The people who wield
real power in this world, like real power are the
ones that are so quiet you would never like. We
were talking about this the other day, Holly. We were
talking about a banking family, the Rothchilds, yep, And you
(30:07):
never heard of them, no, right, Their purported wealth is enormous,
but you don't really see them ever. You know who
they are, but you don't hear about them. And I
think the same thing applies for people who are good criminals.
You know, you want to be known as the kingpin
of crime, but you don't want anyone to know what
(30:28):
the name is. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
You want to only be known as the joker, not
as joker.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah exactly. It's like, you know, oh, have you heard
about this this kingpin who runs a crime syndicate? Yeah?
I wish we could find out what his name is.
You know, those those sort of criminals are the ones
who have the most success and last far longer than
people who become ostentatious. You become ostentatious, you become loud,
you become visual, you become a target. And that's what
(30:55):
Williams became. You know, this is someone who's had a
chip on his shoulder since he grew up in poverty.
He grew up surrounded by crime. He wanted to be
the biggest thug in the group of thugs. He achieved that,
and then he boasted about it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
No longer just a person of interest, he was now
the focus of an all out assault by law enforcement,
with every resource at their disposal.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Williams then revealed a mean streak, which was later resented
by his hired gunman. The agreed contact higher for Jason
Moran's execution was reportedly fifty thousand dollars. The runner allegedly
only received two thousand, five hundred dollars for his hit,
and the Williams pledge that he would be provided with
a unit in Frankston also became a broken promise. Carl
(31:40):
Williams ultimately suffered the consequences for such betrayals. Months before
the double murder, the Purana Task Force received their first
strong lead in the Gangland Wars after the driver unintentionally
provided damaging information from his bugged car. Again, the arrogant
Williams showed a lack of judgment. Quote from Gangland Crimes
Paid one find five. Now, of course this generally happens too.
(32:04):
You'd never ever ever undercut the people who work for
you ever, in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
If you're hiring someone who has no qualms about killing people, yes,
maybe fucking pay them so they don't suddenly have no
qualms about killing you.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Absolutely, and you can apply this to the broadswave of jobs. Right.
If you underpay your workers, they will not be loyal
to you. They will fuck off as soon as they
get a better option. If you are happy with your profits,
share a little bit of it with your people, and
then your people will be loyal. It's a very easy concept.
(32:44):
I often laugh at business owners when they turn around
and say, you know, there's no loyalty anymore. Actually, that happened.
That's happened to you, Holly. I'm not gonna go too
specific on this, but Holly worked for someone for quite
some time, and there are a lot of promises made,
few of them kept, and a better offer came up
and you took it. Yep. And as soon as you
(33:06):
took that better offer, what happened? You got the guilt trip? Yep?
Why are you abandoning this business? And the reason that
Holly was abandoning that business was because she was provided
with more money, holidays, sick days.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And not being woken up at six am to.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Go into work and not treated as if you were
an appendage.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Funnily enough, I saw that bosser less than a year
ago now, and he was all happy and smiles to
see me.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So, you know, and to look to be fair, I
think you just reacted in the moment.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, you just saw all of his freedom crumbling back
onto the business.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
But I always say to people you know when they're
upset that they've lost a work or that they've lost
someone who works with them, etcetera, etcetera. What did you
do to keep them? It's very important. You can apply
this to the criminal element. If you have an assassin
for hire, make sure your assassin is paid. It guarantees
as silent, so guarantees.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Our loyalty, guarantees that it won't be in your brain.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You don't give someone two and a half grand for
killing a prominent crime figure like Marine. You just don't.
Marine would have found it insulting that that's how much
it cost to kill him.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, all of the Mirans would have been pissed. Lighted
by success, Williams failed to see that his once loyal
associates were beginning to turn on him. The fear that
had once kept his men loyal was being outweighed by
the reality of long prison sentences for murder, drug trafficking,
and organized crime. One by one, his closest lieutenants flipped
(34:33):
cutting deals with Purana detectives in exchange for reduced sentences
and witness protection.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I mean, why wouldn't you if.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
He's only paying me two grand to kill someone when
he promised fifty grand in a house.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Fuck that dude. He's under paying you. You're scared of
him anyway. He's constantly threatening everybody, so why not fuck
him over? This is and I'm glad we've got to
this part because I was feeling a little bit unsure
of my assessment of him, and I was like, oh, God,
have I been saying the wrong thing for seven episodes? No? No,
I haven't. He was an idiot? Yeah, meme the Donald
(35:07):
Trump of chrome.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Meanwhile, surveillance on Williams ramped up, tracking is every move
and capturing every transaction. In two thousand and four, police
raids on properties tied to Williams yielded not just cash
and drugs, but hard evidence linking him to multiple murders.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
The driver also divulged significant evidence to investigating detectives, and
he received an eighteen year jail sentence for the Marshall murder.
After confessing to Barbero, Jason Moran and Marshall homicides, The
runner received a twenty three year sentence, and he will
not be available for parole until he is in his seventies.
Another accomplice, known as the Lieutenant, also received a custodial sentence,
(35:47):
and all three are now in witness protection programs quote
from Gangland Crimes, page one, five six. Now, of course,
the police will not tell you that part of those
witness protection programs were to protect them from police as well.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
William's reign came to an end when he was finally arrested,
ragged from his empire and handcuffs, he was forced to
confront the truth his empire, built on violence and treachery,
had been living on borrowed time. At first, he remained silent,
confident that his lawyers could manipulate the system the way
he had manipulated so many others. But the evidence was irrefutable,
the walls closing in on him, and for the first
(36:22):
time in his life, Williams found himself with no moves left.
In two thousand and seven, with the weight of overwhelming
evidence and testimony from former associates, Williams pleaded guilty to
orchestrating multiple murders, including the execution of Jason.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Moran and now isolated Carl Williams confessed to three murders
in the hope of gaining leniency from the courts, but
Justice Betty King jailed him for thirty five years, a
decision on which has been granted one avenue of future appeal.
Quoted from Gangland Crimes, page one hundred and fifty six.
It is shocking to me. It was shocking to me then,
(36:58):
it is shocking to me now now that Williams got
such a lenient, light sentence of thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, there was no life behind that. It was just
thirty five and you can come.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Out because we've seen like serial killers in Australia generally
get life in prison, you know, never to be released.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Ye, that's through a Knight killed one person life.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah. Absolutely, Williams was responsible for hundreds of deaths potentially,
not only including people who overdosed on bad drugs, but
also the people who were killed under his command or
the unavoidable skirmishes that happened between all these different gangs.
Williams was a horrible person who perpetrated horrible crimes that
ended up in a lot of misery and got thirty
(37:41):
five years. You know, when you look at spree killer Night,
I think what did he end up with? Like, he
ended up with life in prison and he killed what
thirty five people?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
No, it was in his teens. He was outdone by
the Port Arthur Killer. And yeah remember.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah, so Knight ended up in his spree shooting, killing
far less pea people that Williams was responsible for got
life in prison. Williams got thirty five years. It pissed
off a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
It's even funnier. He was thirty seven at this point,
so he would literally spend the same amount of time
almost that he'd lived now behind bars.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, instead of he should have been listed as never
to be released.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
The once feared crime lord who had commanded Melbourne's underworld
with the ruthless efficiency, was now locked away in Bawin
Prison's High Security Union High Security Unit, a place where
men with their own brutal pass had every reason to
despise him. Yet Williams refused to accept his fall from grace.
In his mind, he was still the puppet master and
still a force to be reckoned with. Even inside one
(38:42):
of the most secure prisons in Victoria, Williams continued to scheme,
convinced that he could play the system just as he
had done on the outside. Desperate to protect his family
and perhaps secure an early release, he began cooperating with authorities,
offering them valuable intelligence on rival criminals, corrupt officers, and
gangland dealings. Note the one in the middle there. It
(39:04):
was both a strategic move and a sign of desperation.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
It was also to secure the future of his wife
and adopted daughter, because the police offered to pay for
her tuition fees for his daughter's private school, and it
was a way to make sure that they were set up.
A lot of people got very, very upset with the
amount of money that was being spent on William's family,
(39:29):
but the resulting convictions from that amount of money that
was being spent was worth a lot more than the money.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Saved a lot of money in task force fees.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
But people were still very angry about it. But see
this is what I'm talking about. I mean, he started
flipping immediately.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah. Yeah, His empire crumbled and the only remaining power
he had was the information locked away in his mind.
His cooperation with the Office of Police Integrity soon made
him a target within the prison system, as it would
ultimately mark him as a traitor in the eyes of
his fellow inmates.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
There are two ways to get yourself stabbed in prison.
One be a pedophile, or two work with be a snitch.
Snitches get stitches. There's a reason for that.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Williams never learned how to fade into the background. He
still craves a spotlight, seeking media attention with interviews and
headline appearances, maintaining the myth of his own invincibility. Inside Bawan,
he refused to see himself as anything other than a kingpin,
even though he was now just another inmate surrounded by
men who had nothing to lose, very very similar to
(40:32):
Judy Moran.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
The problem is around this point, though, under Belly starts
premiering yep, and he cops it yep because I can't
remember the actor's name, and I apologize for that. I
should remember his name. He portrays him as a sort
of a bumbling idiot, and Williams hated that interpretation of him.
(40:54):
He hated it with a passion. Gayton grantly, Gayton grantly,
and he did a fantas job. I think everyone quite
liked his performance. Maybe it was a little bit more
exaggerated than it needed to be, and I don't think
Roberta particularly liked her portrayal either, but it clearly got
under his skin because I think he wanted to be
(41:16):
seen as like the man, you know, the guy like
he wanted to be Vincentinofrio in Daredevil, you know, the
kingpin of crime, the scary figure.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
He wanted to be kingpin in the Marvel universe what
he ended up being with Bozo de Clown.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Absolutely in the underworld. Williams had once been protected by
his wealth, his power, and his ruthless enforces, but in
prison he was no longer in control. On April nineteen,
twenty ten, in the cold, brutal confines of Barwan's Acacia unit,
Williams was brutally attacked by fellow inmate Matthew Johnson, a
violent career criminal with his own unyielding code of loyalty. Johnson,
(41:54):
who had been placed in the same unit under questionable circumstances,
attacked Karl with savage pursuers, using the metal stem of
an exercise bike to deliver fatal blows to his head.
The assault, captured on CCTV, was a shocking and fittingly
brutal end to the life of a man who had
once orchestrated the deaths of his rivals with chilling detachment.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Do you remember how no one gave a fuck about
him being beaten to death?
Speaker 2 (42:19):
It's like, oh, no, anyway, the general.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Consensus of most Australians picking up a newspaper in those days,
and it was still a newspaper, picking up the newspaper,
turning on the television. I think every single Australian.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Oh, that saves a tax payer money.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Pretty much. No one cared in any way, shape or form,
which I think was a mistake because someone set that up.
And whether it was rival gangland figures, gangs within the
prison system, or police, all three or all three, because
police were quite concerned with the amount of information that
(42:56):
was being delivered to a you know, latter affairs or yeah, well,
I mean IA was all over Victoria, and it was
all over the Victorian Police Force.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Sorry, in Australia it's the Office of Police Integrity.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Sorry what I call it ia Internal affairs, It's OPA OPA.
So yeah, the OPA was all over sorry OPI OPI.
So OP was all over the Victorian Police. At the time,
it had become a federal concern as well, so you
had federal police investigating too, and a lot of people
(43:29):
were very, very concerned. And then Williams before his testifying, dies.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Before he even finishes giving up all his information.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Dies, No, and it's not outside the realm of possibility
that someone that Williams pissed off managed to orchestrate this.
It's also not outside the realm of possibility that someone
within the Victorian police force organized this. So we will
never know. I don't think who organized it, but it
was absolutely organized.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Within moments, Carl Williams, once the more most feared man
in Melbourne's underworld, was left lying lifeless on the prison
cell floor, his empire and his life destroyed in one swift,
unforgiving act.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Police ay Williams were seen in a common area outside
his cell area just before one pm when an inmate
snuck up behind him and struck him several times in
the head with the stem of the bike. Williams suffered
serious head injuries, went into cardiac arrest and could not
be revived. Another inmate was in the room at the
time of the attack, and both men are now being
questioned by police. A prison officer was about ten meters
(44:31):
away when the incident occurred. Quote from Carl Williams abashed
and killed in jail Monday, the nineteenth of April two
thousand and ten.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
William's death was not the dramatic, orchestrated downfall of a
criminal mastermind. It was the grim inevitable result of the
violence he had spent his life orchestrating. His legacy, far
from that of a legendary kingpin, was one of devastation, betrayal,
and broken lives. The bloodshed he had caused had irreparably
scarred Melbourne, leaving a s city marked by the very
(45:01):
violence he had fostered. The man who had believed himself
untouchable had ended his life in a manner that mirrored
the fate of so many of his victims, Betrayed alone
and silenced by the brutal world he had created.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Ladies and gentlemen. That concludes the Melbourne gang Land Wars.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Because that is technically the last canonical death.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Hooray for you. Clap, clap, clup, clup.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
You made it through seven emphisodes.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
You did it. Everyone gets a gold star. Get put
that on your forehead.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I got a gold star.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Polly first and foremost. I would like to say a
big thank you for all of the work that you've
done on this. This series took four books, lots of research,
and I think everyone owes you a big clap. As
long as you're not driving don't do that.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
It actually evolved into seven books and many many news articles.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
It was a big, big series. And one of the
reasons that we wanted to do this is because every
year we have this sort of like quintessential theme around
our sort of years. Sometimes it happens by accident, but
this time it was definitely going to be the Melbourne
gang Land Wars because if you think about it, you
have now been listening to Melbourne Gangland War stories now
(46:12):
for two months straight of Melbourne Gangland Wars. So that's
a lot of wars. Yeah, if it's a lot of episodes,
one episode a day for a week. But I don't
think we could have done this any other way. I
think that over the course of the podcast, we've built
up the foundations for Melbourne gang activity and so the
(46:33):
natural conclusion was to now, you know, present these seven
episodes through. So this is a brief overview. And I know,
and that's crazy to think about because when you add
all these episodes up, it's probably going to top out
at about five, maybe six hours of episodes, and in
six hours we really couldn't.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Cover everything, No, not even close.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
So if you're at all disappointed, and I don't think
anyone is, because we've been getting a lot of like
thumbs up over this series. If you are a little
bit disappointed that we couldn't cover every single aspect, let
us know, particularly what we were missing that you wanted
to hear about. You can send an email through to
wee crap in Australia at gmail dot com, or you
can send us a message via our social media is.
(47:15):
Just type in weir craping Austraya into the search engine
of your favorite social media and let us know what
we missed. Because we always need what like, we always
need little bridging episodes between series so we can always
do one shots in the future where it's just you know,
one episode Benji being an interesting example of a criminal
(47:37):
that we could cover in an whole episode. So if
there's something that we missed that you desperately want to
hear about, please use that email address, send through your list,
and we can then continue to do what we've always done,
which is just pepper those episodes throughout. But this is
a broad overview of the entire wars, starting with the
(47:57):
Painters and Dockers and ending with Will. So I hope
you've all enjoyed it. It has been fun. We are
ready to move on. We have never done a seven
part series before. This is a first for us. I
don't particularly like doing seven episodes on one subject because
I don't focus long enough.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Had you has a bit of ADHD, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
So it's nice that we did it, but it's nice
to also wrap it up. But I hope everyone has
enjoyed it now I mentioned all of the social media's.
Of course, a couple of ways that you can help
support the show. One is by finding us on Patreon
friendly five dollars a month. You get bonus minisodes where
we talk about some of the interesting headlines from Australian
news that week, so you get a little bit more
(48:42):
of our personal opinions there if you would be interested.
So we do those minisodes once a week. You also
get these mainline episodes released to your uncut ad free
and early. You can also grab yourself the Week Crap
in Australia book series, which is definitely longer than the
Underbelly book series. You can find that from our great
mates at Impact Comics dot com dot au.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Do you mean longer is in more volumes or longer
is in page count?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Page count?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
And there's eleven books that I know.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, but they're real little have to fact check that one.
Do you think like the Underbelly books? Right? I think
one of our books would fit three Underbelly books.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
At least at least because they're big type.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah. Wait, our books are big type or their books
are big type. Well, that makes it even worse. Then
I feel even more confident in that statement. You can
grab that from the great mates at Impact Comics dot
com dot Au. If you want to paperback overseas, just
head to our print undermand service Lulu dot com. You
can also grab the ebook from the kindleshop on Amazon.
We also have a Weird Crap in Australian merch If
(49:43):
you'd like to grab yourself a shirt or a mug
or any other piece of of jdar which you can
put around your home, you can grab that from our
Red Bubble and Tea public stores. Just open Weird Crap
in Australia and all of our wonderful designs will pop
up for you. Otherwise. To conclude the Melbourne Gangland series,
handed over to Holly, who no doubt has one last
Reddator account of a Ganglan interaction. Holly, take it.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Away, all right. So our last one comes from mister
accurate strategy five nine eight. Wow, some people I've really imagined.
I've user names they do, all right, so he says,
had a few connections to various figures over the years.
Here's a couple standing outside mate's mechanic shop. I'm willing
to parade witness some ute run up the back of
(50:26):
the car in front. Guy in front starts going ballistic
at the ute driver, at which point Uncle Chop Chop
gets out of the ute and I want to apologize
for having knacolepsy, but didn't even get to finish his
sentence before the driver saw who it was that hit
him and proceeded to run back to his car and
take off.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
All right, settle down here, all right, had a little
bit of a nap, A little bit of a nap
in front of the wheel, Okay, it happens, all right,
Uncle Chop Chop, Look after.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
You look, it's about fifty bucks worth it.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Why are you running away? I was going to share
your lunch and some cheery chippies for you, all right
back in my car. Even though I apparently have NARCOLEPSI
probably shouldn't be driving anyway, I feel like I'm going
to get some chippies.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Met Benji a couple of times when he came around
to visit a couple of mates of mine. Those were
pretty quick visits.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah. Look, I've I have been in situations where similar
things have happened, not to that level of crime, but
definitely people have walked into a room where I'm like, anyway, guys,
was great catching up with you. You enjoy your weed
and that guy and I'm getting the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Francesco Frank Benvenito was the grandfather of one of my
mates in primary school. I remember going to his house
one day to be told I couldn't come in because
Grandpa was visiting.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Is this dude like Carl William's nephew or something.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Victor Pierce was shot outside my parents' business.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Okay, this person is definitely related to someone in this
criminal world. Right.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Mario Condello was shot and killed in my streets. Yep,
and my old drama teacher from school years later decided
he wanted to do family law. Not long after he
started practicing, he got a phone call from a new client, ROBERTA.
W Of course, it was a much smaller city back then,
was it?
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Or were your parents living in a crime neighborhood and.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
You were often a lot closer to some people you
hear about the news than you thought was possible. And
there you go. That's all his stories. The person who
apparently lived in the epicenter of the Gangland War.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Apparently they're just that casual observer, you know, Dave's always
in these pictures. It's the watcher, just just sort of
standing there looking like slightly shocked. Is that you again, Dave? Yeah,
you know, I just I don't know what it is.
I seem to be a magnet for true crime events.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Just wanted some chips.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, I was going down the street to have some chips.
And guess who I saw sitting there having some chips?
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Uncle chop job.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
He's really Oh look it's Dave dun If. I've seen
you around all the crime scenes lately. Mate, what are
you being up to have some chippies?
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Anyway? If I do that any longer, I am either
going to drive our audience crazy or holly crazy, or both.
So thank you very much for joining us. I hope
you've enjoyed this series. Don't forget there's more weird Crap
In Australia coming right up for you next week. Until then,
ladies and gentlemen, please stay safe, be kind and avoid
any gangland activity.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Don't worry, there'll be something nice next week.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
And we'll see you all all again then, So thank
you so much and bye for now.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
The Weird Crap In Australia podcast is produced by Holly
and Matthew Soul for the Modern Meltdown. If you've enjoyed
this podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcatching
app
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