Little time was wasted on pleasantries during the first meeting between the gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo and the police officers who were handling her as an informant in 2005.
“Tell us everything you know about Tony Mokbel,” was how the police handler known as Mr White started the meeting.
“How many weeks have you got?” Gobbo replied.
It wasn’t bluster – Gobbo, later dubbed “Lawyer X”, knew plenty about Mokbel and his suspected involvement in industrial-scale drug trafficking.
The issue, as was exposed at yet another court hearing on Tuesday, was that she should not have told police, given that she was the lawyer of choice for Mokbel and those in his drug empire.
Fifteen years after the meeting, and 20 years after Mokbel allegedly bankrolled a shipment of more than $750,000 worth of cocaine from Mexico, his conviction for being involved in that importation has been set aside in the Victorian court of appeal.
Lawyers for the commonwealth director of public prosecutions say they would not seek a retrial.
Mokbel has been in prison since June 2007 when he was captured by authorities in Greece after fleeing Australia on a yacht.
There have now been three separate cases in which convictions have been overturned because they were tainted by Gobbo’s informing. In two of those matters, men were released from prison after the verdicts.
Mokbel, for now, will not be joining them. The 55-year-old remains in Barwon prison for other serious drug offences – although again he is appealing on the basis of Gobbo’s involvement.
He was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment with a minimum of 22 years in that case in 2012.
Justice Chris Maxwell noted on Tuesday that the court of appeal was “anxious” to hear the remainder of Mokbel’s appeal, which was lodged in 2017, as soon as possible, but that its ability to do so could be delayed by resourcing issues caused in part by other Gobbo-related appeals.
Some of those appeals involve other well-known figures from Melbourne’s underworld, though none of them as prominent as Mokbel.
As the royal commission into Victoria’s use of police informants found in its final report released last month, Mokbel and his cartel served as the primary motivation for Gobbo to register for her third and most consequential stint as a police informer. Her knowledge of Mokbel was also a key reason why police wanted to work with her.
In August 2005 an alleged underling of Mokbel was charged with drug offences. Gobbo, with little prompting, told police about her concerns with the case and the Mokbel crew.
“She was 100% looking for a way out of that environment where she felt compelled to do these things on behalf of people that, let’s face it, were involved in serious organised crime for many, many years – homicides, large-scale drug trafficking,” a Victoria police officer, Paul Rowe, told the commission.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she doesn’t have a level of responsibility for her own behaviour, but she was under enormous pressure and looking for a way out, a hand of friendship.”
Less than a month later Gobbo was registered as informant 3838.
A Victoria police risk assessment completed in November, about two months after her registration, emphasises her importance.
“Within a short time, the Source has provided credible and valuable intelligence to police,” it reads.
“The Source is well positioned to obtain tactically viable intelligence in relation to the criminal activities of the MOKBEL cartel.”
The finalised risk assessment also notes her effective use had the “potential to impede major crime and reduce the illicit drug trade” but that “failure to use Ms Gobbo would have the opposite effect”.
At the time she was registered, Gobbo was representing Mokbel in relation to the Mexican cocaine charges.
Mokbel was alleged to have masterminded the 2000 shipment and provided about $100,000 to fund it, and was on bail.
His trial started in December 2005, with Gobbo acting as junior counsel.
The commission found that she had been providing information to police throughout the case, including her opinion that he had “no defence” and that his senior counsel wanted him to plead guilty but he was “too stubborn”.
She also provided information about defence tactics, including possible witnesses from whom she had taken statements and the likelihood of Mokbel giving evidence.
In March 2006 Gobbo told police she suspected Mokbel was planning “unknown criminality” because he had asked twice for her not to contact him one weekend.
She was right – on 19 March, Mokbel skipped bail. He eventually made his way to Greece, spending 15 months on the run before he was arrested.
Mokbel will face court again regarding his outstanding appeal next month.
