Posted on 04/01/2004 3:05:17 AM PST by gd124
HAMISH ROBERTSON: Melbourne's 23rd underworld murder has shocked the Police Force in Victoria, with the state's top commanders saying that the two murders in the past 8-days have taken the criminal turf war to a surreal and unprecedented level.
Police have revealed that they're now reviewing the way organised crime is investigated, and they fear that the current spate of killings, over the lucrative amphetamine trade, may produce a long running feud.
As Rafael Epstein reports from Melbourne, police suggest the gang war may be continued by the children of the men executed over the last six years.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The long list of murders began with Alphonse Gangitano, the Robert De Niro of Carlton, killed wearing only his underpants in his own home in 1998.
It escalated to Graham 'the Munster' Kinniburgh being shot outside his home last year, the eighth execution that year, confirming the participation in the war of criminals linked to Melbourne's waterfront.
Now just 30 hours after Andrew 'Benji' Veniamin was buried after being killed at lunchtime in a restaurant in the inner city suburb Carlton, Lewis Moran, the crime patriarch who'd already lost two sons to this war, was also killed in full public view, a few kilometres north, in a club in Brunswick.
The Victorian detective supervising the 50 officers of Taskforce Purana, Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland, says the killings they are investigating have reached new levels.
SIMON OVERLAND: Well, it's April the 1st today, but unfortunately it's not April Fool's day and what we're dealing with here is a desperately serious situation.
I think there is a degree of the surreal about this. Certainly from my own point of view it is the first time I have genuinely been shocked by what has occurred. Last night was the first time that I was really shaken.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: And the Assistant Commissioner say many people in Melbourne and around the country don't understand this level of violence has never been seen before in Australia.
SIMON OVERLAND: What is surprising in some ways is the timing, that this has happened so soon after the last killing, and this is quite unprecedented in terms of this type of thing happening, certainly in Victoria and in Australia. It's not part of the Australian way of life, it's not something we want, but unfortunately here it is and we have to deal with it.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The major problem is police cannot confirm what they think they know because underworld figures, suspects and potential victims won't talk, and won't accept police protection, even when it is offered.
As well, investigations into corruption within the former drug squad have derailed some criminal trials, and that in turn has delayed other trials. As a result some of those involved have been out of jail, when normally they'd be in prison, more protected from attack and less able to direct any aggression.
The unique investigation has already prompted a review.
SIMON OVERLAND: We do need to go back and review the way we deal with organised crime, yes. My belief is that we need a capacity to continue to run investigations like Purana indefinitely, because that is the way you are ultimately successful in dealing with organised crime.
That's the level that we need to move to. We need to make sure we focus on organised crime and that it's not just a matter of taking individual players out of circulation, it's about dealing with the structures that support them, it's about dealing with the groups and taking the group out, because that is the only way you will ever really be successful.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Police did have one win today. The next potential victim, alleged drug trafficker Carl Williams, has been ordered by a court to answer questions about what he knows of the events leading up to the execution of his friend Andrew Veniamin last week.
HAMISH ROBERTSON: Rafael Epstein reporting in Melbourne.
And then he nailed my head to the floor ...
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