Tony Mokbel: Underworld kingpin’s new life as a free man after Lawyer-X revelation
Convicted drug kingpin Tony Mokbel, once considered a major player in Melbourne’s underworld, is now enjoying his first days as a free man.
The colorful character’s latest outstanding criminal case was dismissed by prosecutors in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday morning in a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it hearing.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mokbel said with a broad grin after criminal recorder Tim Freeman told him; “You are released from your bail obligations and are free to leave.”
Convicted drug trafficker Tony Mokbel has shared his feelings and plans for the future after the last case that got him into trouble was dropped.
The moment ended a years-long fight for fair justice for Mokbel after Victoria’s legal system was rocked by the sacking of gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo as a police informant.
Known as the Lawyer-X scandal, the high-profile lawyer provided intelligence to Victoria Police and helped persuade Mokbel’s associates to turn against him from 2005 to 2009.
At the time, Purina Task Force detectives were desperate to end the bloodshed of a deadly underground war when Ms Gobbo was approached in September 2005.
Born from humble beginnings as the child of Lebanese immigrants, Mokbel rose to become the head of a highly complex pharmaceutical company known as “The Company.”
Mokbel became Australia’s most wanted man after fleeing the country by yacht on bail in 2006.
He hid in regional Victoria until October that year, then traveled across the country to Fremantle, south of Perth, and set out for Greece the following month. Mokbel later claimed Ms Gobbo advised him to run away, a claim Mokbel denies.
He disappeared after receiving notice that the police were about to charge him in connection with two murders; those of Michael Marshall in 2003 and Lewis Moran in 2004.
Mokbel was later acquitted of Moran’s murder, and prosecutors dropped charges in Marshall’s death before the case came to trial.
Despite this brazen escape, Mokbel was arrested in Athens in June 2007 and turned to his trusted legal advisor, Ms Gobbo, for advice during the extradition process.
He was passing information to the police from his conversations with Mokbel and his Greek lawyers, and Mokbel was extradited to Australia the following year.
In 2011, Mokbel pleaded guilty to drug trafficking-related charges stemming from three police investigations known as the Quills, Orbital and Magnum matters, reaching a deal that saw the other four cases dismissed.
The Quills case concerned the alleged trafficking of more than 30kg of MDMA through a pill manufacturing business in 2005; The Orbital affair allegedly involved an attempt to import 100kg of MDMA in 2005; and the Magnum matter, which involved large-scale production and distribution of methylamphetamine in 2006 and 2007 after Mokbel fled abroad.
He would be eligible for parole in 2033 at the earliest.
Ms Gobbo was dismissed as Solicitor-X following a lengthy legal challenge that culminated in a High Court decision in December 2018. The move led to fresh appeals by Mokbel against his convictions and sentence and spurred a Royal Commission.
In 2019, Mokbel suffered a brutal prison attack that resulted in him being placed in solitary confinement for his safety, and in March 2022 he suffered a heart attack, affecting his life expectancy.
In 2024, NSW Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Fullerton was suspended from Sydney to hold weeks-long hearings and ultimately deliver answers in a 579-page judgment about Ms Gobbo’s role in Mokbel’s convictions and other matters.
Judge Fullerton found that police used Ms Gobbo as a source for unique reasons, such as gathering intelligence on Mokbel and his associates, while the woman’s “primary motivation” was to bring down Mokbel.
The judge said Ms Gobbo had strategised with the police on how she could target three of Mokbel’s colleagues – as well as his customers – to come forward and give evidence.
“They were each deceived by Ms Gobbo into believing that her advice was independent legal advice when in fact it was anything but that,” he said.
Regarding the Quills and Orbital cases, Judge Fullerton found that Mokbel “failed to fully appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the case against him” and that he had been deliberately misled and deceived.
For the Magnum inquiry, it found that the conduct of Ms Gobbo and Victoria Police while Mokbel was in Greece did not affect the case, but added that extradition would “look different” if Ms Gobbo’s role was disclosed.
Mokbel was released on bail under strict conditions in April last year, pending the outcome of an appeal in October. He spent 19 years behind bars.
Melbourne underworld kingpin Tony Mokbel has been granted bail as some in the crowd cheered as he prepared to make his long-awaited Lawyer-X appeal.
The Court of Appeal overturned the Quills case, concluding that Ms Gobbo’s involvement represented a “total devaluation” of her professional obligations and affected the entire investigation.
The three-judge panel overturned Orbital’s conviction and sent him back to the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether there should be a retrial, and rejected Magnum’s appeal.
Mokbel’s sentence was suspended and he was sentenced to 13 years, 7 months and 15 days in prison in the Magnum case, which was considered time already served.
Judges said the Magnum case constituted a “very serious” offense in which Mokbel made more than $4 million in a 12-month period by running a drug trafficking enterprise while evading the criminal justice system.
“This was a horrific and shameless attack,” they wrote.
“As we said in our appeal against conviction, the proliferation of banned drugs is a catastrophic disaster for our society and the trade of such drugs on a commercial scale is an absolute evil.”
Speaking outside the court on Friday after prosecutors announced they would not seek a new trial in the Orbital case, Mokbel smiled and said “life goes on.”
He told reporters that “going to prison was the biggest mistake of my life”, but when asked if he regretted drug trafficking, Mokbel said: “I don’t regret anything.”
