Liam Houlihan - Bigwig. The Remarkable Rise and Fall of Tony Mokbel

In some instances ongoing court hearings, legal appeals and similar events have been crunched together to stop the reader dying of boredom. Similarly, time between chapters and within chapters jumps around a bit to keep thematically similar events together, but hopefully this is still flagged for those keen to follow the chronology. Where I felt I had to choose between forensic and potboiler I opted for potboiler.

On dates of birth and spelling of names, multiple variations on official documents have meant I have had to go with best guess. Based on Tonys age on Sajihs death certificate I have gone with the 1965 birth date, despite reports by his lawyer saying he turned sixteen on the day his father died, not fifteen (and other different birth dates given on Tonys company records). Names are spelt differently between Sajihs tombstone and his death certificate. Tonys mothers name is variously referred to as Lora, Lord, Laura and Lorde on documents. His dad is recorded in various places as Sagit, Sajih and even more distant variations.

Relatives saying Tony was born in Kuwait have been chosen over Tony putting Achache and Tripoli on company documents as his place of birth. The words amphetamines and methamphetamines are used interchangeably here although experts tell me there is very little if any of the former in Australia.

Other disclaimers: Please dont try anything contained herein at home. No animals were hurt during the writing of this book although James Campbell did try to eat three chickens.

back-dooring : having an affair with a persons partner behind that persons back

beak : judge

bent : corrupt

clams : money

coffeehousing : poker term for talking in an attempt to mislead other players about the strength of a hand

crispy : burnt

dead cat bounce : financial term for a slight recovery enjoyed by a plummeting stock during its continual demise

dockethead : known criminal with a long list of prior convictions or dockets

dog : police informant/witness (particularly a criminal)

fizz : informant

fuzz : police

gopher : errand boy as in go for

hood : neighbourhood

ice : smokable methamphetamine

in boob : in jail

jacks : police

London to a brick : gambling parlance for absolute certainty; would bet London to win a brick

lumps : as in take your lumps to suffer or endure your bad fortune or punishment for actions

meth : methamphetamine (or methylamphetamine)

mouthpiece : lawyer

on the lam : on the run/at large

plastics : derogatory police term for the Australian Federal Police; shortened from plastic fantastics, also sometimes fantastic plastics

plebs : plebeians; low-level, unimportant operators; see skrotes

pseudo : pseudoephedrine

silk : senior barrister, such as Queens counsel (QC), now senior counsel (SC)

skrotes : derogatory shortening of scrotum, similar to plebs

Soggies : Special Operations Group police

speed : amphetamine/methamphetamine

squarehead : non-criminal; straight person

staunch : reliable, trustworthy, wont sing to police

stooks : hidden places to store cash away from scrutiny

tinny : lucky

supergrass : special police informant

toe-cutters : police-speak for internal affairs bodies such as the Ethical Standards Department (ESD) who police police, based on brutal methods used by robbers who rob robbers

trannies : transsexuals/transvestites

walk and talk : method of discussing sensitive matters while avoiding fixed bugs

wifebeater : blue singlet

It was an appropriately large homecoming for the Mr Big who had boasted before disappearing, I dont do small things. The nations most wanted man was very reluctantly being delivered back to the country he fled and on his own luxurious private jet funded by the public.

On the ground Australias biggest drug criminal and one of the countrys most senior lawmen came face to face.

The inspector discharged his legal duty and told the captured fugitive that while he was on the run a jury had found him guilty of drug offences. The inspector also detailed to the prisoner the crimes for which he was wanted and further offences now alleged against him.

It was a Saturday and the courts were closed. The inspector explained a bail justice would come out to the prison. The seriousness of the moment hung in the air as the two men each respectively the personification of law and lawlessness went through the motions. It was the formal procedure that could pave the way to a lifetime, and even death, in jail.

Because of these offences and the fact you breached bail when you fled, you will not be granted bail, the inspector said.

A thought registered on the prisoners face. Then the man who had rocked and embarrassed the legal establishment broke into a broad, toothy grin. Wont stop me applying though, he said.

When it was all over, when the last skerrick of his legendary luck had dried up, Tony Mokbel was still backing himself at long odds, still grinning, still believing he could take on the system and win.

Fawkner Cemetery in Melbournes north is so large a train runs through its grounds. The fields of dead are so vast that visitors tend to drive around their mini-roundabouts and signposted streets rather than walking. It is mostly row after row of low-to-the-ground headstones poking out of green lawns.

When visitors reach the Roman Catholic vaults section the real estate becomes conspicuously high-rise. Mediterranean surnames have a near monopoly on the gilded, ornate vaults, making it a kind of posthumous Little Italy. Everywhere are Italian family names that, in the generations since arrival, have risen to prominence in food, hospitality, fashion, the law, and crime.

There among the tall headstones thrusting skyward and crowned with dozens of mini-Madonnas is a grave decorated with a cedar tree the symbol of Lebanon. Under fresh flowers, laid for the anniversary of the occupants death, a golden scrawl chipped into its stone spells Mokbel. A pair of piercing tough black eyes peers out from a black-and-white photograph mounted behind glass. They belong to a man with a serious, even severe, look on his face. His head is round and balding and his moustache is small and pointy. The resemblance is strong enough that a passer-by might remark how similar the man staring out from the tombstone looks to the notorious criminal of the same name.

This decorated patch of ground marks a place one Mokbel story ended and another altogether different one began. It is where one mans journey across the planet to seek exile from entropy and chaos ended. And it is where his sons opposite journey, one that would take him back across the world as a pilgrim of disorder, was forged. This is where Sajih Mokbel came to rest, half a world away from where he started.

In a sleepy village in the top end of Lebanon not too far from Tripoli, the mayor is a Mokbel. The local Maronite priest is Father Mokbel and about a quarter of the 1200 villagers are Mokbels. In the house that belonged to Tony Mokbels paternal grandfather and was boyhood home to his late father, Sajih, Mokbels still meet for meals.

While the name Mokbel conjures one particular type of image in Australia, in Lebanon it has multiple, altogether more pedestrian associations. The criminal adventures of Fat Tony Mokbel have successfully monopolised the family name in his adopted country, but in his familys homeland, Aussie Antonios is simply yet another of a multitude of Mokbels. The Mokbels were one of the founding families of the sunbaked rural community of Achache, but it was the Mokbels leaving Achache and the land of the cedars, not arriving, that launched the remarkable globetrotting criminal life of Tony Mokbel.