Paul Anderson - Reloaded

Paul Anderson has been a crime reporter for the Herald Sun since 1994, and is currently the papers longest serving police roundsman. One of the team that won a Walkley Award in 1995 for a special liftout on the murder of Sheree Beasley, Paul was also head of a team of reporters that won the 2004 Quill Award Best Deadline Report for a series of stories on the murder of crime patriarch Lewis Moran.

Paul is also the author of Shocking Australian True-Crime Stories, Melbournes Gangland Killings and Bodies,Bullets and Betrayal.

PAUL ANDERSON

Published in 2007
by Hardie Grant Books
85 High Street
Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia
www.hardiegrant.com.au

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Copyright text Paul Anderson 2007

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

Anderson, Paul, 1971 .
Dirty dozen : reloaded.
ISBN 978 1 74066 556 8 (pbk.).
1. Crime Australia Case studies. 2. Criminal
investigation Australia Case studies. I. Title.
364.994

Edited by Sally Moss
Cover and text design by PCD
Cover photograph courtesy of The Herald & Weekly Times
Photographic Collection
Typeset by Kirby Jones
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

Photograph section credits: courtesy of The Herald & Weekly Times
Photographic Collection; courtesy Victoria Police; Angela Wylie/courtesy of The Age.

Every effort has been made to incorporate correct information. The publishersregret any errors and omissions, and invite readers to contribute up-to-dateinformation to Hardie Grant Books.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgements

Firstly, thanks to my sources on both sides of the law. They know who they are.

Thanks also to my Herald Sun police rounds colleagues Mark Buttler, Anthony Dowsley and Matt Cunningham, and court reporters Elissa Hunt and Katie Bice. Gratitude to Supreme Court media liaison officers Prue Innes and Liz Cruickshank, Michael Thompson and staff at the Victorian Government Reporting Services transcript division, staff at the Melbourne Coroners Court, Andrew Wicking of the Court of Appeal registry, Phil Raimondo at the Office of Public Prosecutions, High Court deputy registrar Rosemary Musolino, staff at the Public Record Office of Victoria, and staff at the Victoria Police Freedom of Information office.

Last but not least, thanks to my Hardie Grant handlers Mary Small and Jasmin Chua, editor Sally Moss and Nic Pullen at Holding Redlich for his legal advice.

Contents

1
The Dogs of War

The uncut version of how one man ran Melbournes
gangland war.

Until this fucking cunt is put in a hole
there will be no peace.

GREED IS GOOD, according to fictional white-collar villain Gordon Gecko. It raises the bar of competition and excellence, driving people to succeed where they might once have failed. It stimulates the economy. It gives businessmen, no matter what their field, an identity: a reason to get out of bed in the morning. With greed comes money and success. With money and success comes power. With power come the trappings: fast cars, hot women, designer drugs, penthouse apartments you name it.

Greed is good. But theres a flip side to that coin. With power comes corruption. With absolute power comes absolute corruption. Gangland kingpin and mass murderer Carl Anthony Williams and his alleged favourite hitman Andrew Benji Veniamin believed that greed, seasoned with revenge, was good. Big Carl pleaded guilty to ordering three underworld murders and has been convicted of ordering a fourth. Detectives from the Purana Taskforce believe he could have been responsible for up to ten killings, even though he only personally pulled the trigger once. Police intelligence suggests Veniamin was a power-hungry gunman with a crazy streak who did over his best mates for control of a suburban cannabis cartel before hooking up with the Carlton Crew and then teaming up with Williams. Police believe Veniamin was involved in the murder of up to six men. To his death he was the prime suspect for the killings of two of his closest friends one hed known since Grade 4. Greed spawned power for Carl Williams and Andrew Veniamin. It then corrupted their souls.

Born on 16 November 1975, Veniamin took up boxing as a teenage whippet. He trained hard. According to those in the know, he had the makings of a good fighter. But unforeseen events would end his sporting dreams. Acting Detective Sergeant Boris Buick, of the anti-gangland Purana Taskforce, would say in court of Veniamin: Im aware that although he was a champion junior boxer, in 1997 he had a high-speed motorbike accident broke his leg, his knee and damaged his back and that ended his prospective fighting pursuits.

With best buddy Dino Dibra in tow, Veniamin started pinching cars. Dibra is said to have been involved in re-birthing rackets, where parts from stolen cars were assembled onto legitimate chassis. The vehicles were then on-sold. In between brief jail terms, Veniamin and Dibra would grow from being car thieves to suspected killers enjoying cocaine-fuelled orgies in city penthouses. Their playgrounds were the nightclubs where designer drugs fuel the fire.

Veniamins rap sheet dates back to 1992. Predictably it kicks off with car theft and builds momentum with The Dogs of War 3 crimes like intentionally or recklessly causing injury, robbery/assault, false imprisonment, assault police, unlawful possession and arson. Dibra has an equally impressive criminal CV. It begins in 1990 with theft and culminates with a litany of reckless, dangerous and unlicensed driving offences. At age nineteen he was regarded as one of the states most dangerous drivers. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Dibra would amass convictions for crimes such as making threats to kill, assaulting police and using and possessing drugs. He also continued driving like a maniac, drumming up more dangerous and unlicensed driving charges. Dibra was said to be running rampant on cocaine and steroids.

In December 1998, he and his own rat pack shot and wounded two bouncers at Prahrans Dome nightclub. Earlier that year, Dibra was linked to the murder of career criminal Mad Charlie Hegyalji, a Yugoslavian-born drug trafficker and gunman. Hegyalji spent the day before his early-morning execution on 23 November drinking with associates in North Caulfield and St Kilda. According to friend Ronny Allen, Hegyalji tried to contact Dibra via a payphone to score drugs that day. After a cab dropped Hegyalji off at his Caulfield North home around 1 am, a gunman ambushed him on his doorstep. Despite managing to get a hand up to his face, Mad Charlie took four to the head. Homicide Squad detectives later interviewed Dibra. While admitting to having received Hegyaljis phone messages, he had not responded to them. He said he had no idea why Hegyalji would have been calling him. No one has been charged over Mad Charlies murder.

By early 1999, Veniamin and Dibra were running a profitable cannabis cartel in and around the western suburbs of Melbourne. They had the market cornered through violence, fear and intimidation. Sometimes they shot people. Veniamin is said to have sprayed bullets into the back of a victims legs and groin during one callous warning. An informers information report tendered in court would state: The actual shooting was said to have been organised by Dino Dibra and Andrew Veniamin in a stolen vehicle.