THE BOMBING OF THE NCA: A HIDDEN VALLEY
Following the murder of Colin Winchester and the can of worms it had opened, it seemed to the public that, at least for now, everyone was content with David Eastman in jail. The AFP had arrested their suspect and had charged him successfully. He was now in prison, and everyone could move on, secure in the knowledge that an awful chapter in Australian policing history had now been closed.
The reality was a never-ending story of king-crops detected across the country. It was leading police towards Cerberus. For the majority of ‘ndranghetisti across the country, it was business as usual, and people moved on.
Included in this group were the handful of Calabrian clans scattered through-out New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, and South Australia. There was a contingent of clans who remained in the business of growing marijuana, and business was consistently lucrative. There were crops being grown across countless rural towns and bushland.
In 1974, there were six massive crops discovered; by 1985, this number had blown out to thirty-eight crops, and these were only the ones that were discovered by police. Estimates put the seizure rate at about 20%; for every crop that was discovered, at least eight more had been harvested. By the late 1980s, the ABCI updated some of the reports that had come out of the Woodward Royal Commission. It’s from these reports that we get the oft-cited statistics regarding the clans active in the business of growing weed.
Woodward had cited twenty-two crops discovered between 1974 and 1978. By the 1980s, the ABCI cited one hundred and eighty-eight throughout the decade of 1974 to 1985. Of the two hundred and fifty people arrested in connection to these crops, about one hundred and sixty of them were members of just fifteen Calabrian clans. The other ninety were, for the most part, either related to these families by marriage, belonged to a handful of other Calabrian clans from around the country, or were non-Italian co-conspirators otherwise affiliated with the clans. The ABCI estimated that the Calabrian clans controlled about 90% of the domestic market for marijuana. It was those years of the ubiquitous “Grass Castles” for clan affiliates. Small and Gilling cite reports in Evil Life, garnered from police informants, who claimed that a portion of all profits were funnelled back to families in Adelaide and Griffith. A portion of that was reportedly being regularly sent back to Calabria.
By 1989, Justice Woodward had made comments on ABC’s Four Corners expressing disappointment for the lack of action following the Royal Commission he had headed. Interviewed by veteran journalist Chris Masters, he expressed the notion that the Commission had simply been a temporary salve for the issue of the ‘ndrangheta clans. He feared it had failed to really achieve much in the long-term fight against drugs.
In South Australia, the problem of Italian organised crime was beginning to be scrutinised more, and in 1986, the AFP had launched Operation Vigilante, which was aimed at investigating the Calabrian syndicates. South Australia was a different environment when compared to the other states, especially when growing marijuana was decriminalised in 1987. According to the law passed by John Bannon’s Labor Government, each household could legally grow up to ten plants for personal use, and Adelaide soon became known as a bed of knowledge for hydroponic farming. This ensured that large amounts of grass were still being regularly harvested in the metropolitan regions. But even beyond this, officers appointed to Operation Vigilante were still observing king crops being grown in rural areas, tended by Calabrian crop-sitters. But during the five-year period from 1986 to 1991 that Operation Vigilante was active, there were no significant arrests. Attorney-General for the Labor party Michael Duffy, when responding to questions by MP Ted Mack, remarked that the NCA was “…not pursuing active investigations…” into the problem presented by ‘ndrangheta.
BARRY MOYSE: YOU WANNA BET?
In South Australia, this disregard for IOC was embodied by the head of SAPOL’s Drug Squad, Barry Moyse. Moyse enjoyed a high-profile in the public conscious at the time for his “Dob in a Druggie” campaign. Launched in Queensland by Moyse and the thoroughly corrupt Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, the idea was, ostensibly, for people to pick up a phone and ring police to inform on any suspicious behaviour observed in the community. However, Moyse himself kept interesting company and was later revealed to have a raft of issues of his own.
In 1984, Chief Inspector Moyse had been promoted to the Officer-in-Charge of the Drug Squad for South Australia Police. Also serving as President of the S.A Police Association, Moyse was regarded as a high-flying figure in SAPOL. He had successfully ran Operation Noah, which had targeted narcotics in the community, and had won some success.
During a raid on the home of drug-dealer George Octapodellis in 1986, Moyse was successfully tempted by the sheer profits he’d observed. According to sources, he soon after began receiving payoffs and even started supplying Octapedllis with drugs seized from the community.
Around this time, he was approached by an ‘ndrangheta affiliate named Gianni Malvaso. From then out, Moyse began a side-hustle that involved passing on drugs seized by the Drug Squad. These drugs would be on-sold by the dealers he chose, and he established a system where he could tip-off his associates to where his Drug Squad were aiming their efforts. This ensured the dealers paying him had time to safely dispose of any drugs before the Drug Squad officers came knocking. Moyse reportedly kept secrets for the Calabrians and ensured them their crops could be harvested regularly without interference.
By 1987, Moyse had decided to become directly involved in the drug industry, a source of huge amounts of cash. After a period getting closer to certain Calabrian figures, he’d allowed them to operate their system of keeping several king-crops in rotation at any given time. He was soon taking massive bribes and laying bets with Calabrian bookmakers in Adelaide. He was joining in on high-stakes card games, engaging with some of the Calabrian bookies operating in Adelaide. It would later come out to the public that Moyse had some serious gambling addictions. He was known to frequently leave the SAPOL offices, going several times a day to purchase scratchies and visit the TAB, a pastime he continued every day. His fixation on gambling became a well-known facet of his personality.
In March of 1987, he had decided to cross a line and directly supplied Gianni Malvaso with a quantity of marijuana seeds and a CSIRO paper that described growing techniques. Moyse facilitated a crop grown at Penfield Gardens, a suburb 30 minutes north of the Adelaide CBD. Through Malvaso, Moyse developed links to Rocco Sergi, who had come to Australia in 1986 and was a figure well-linked to certain families in Griffith. He would also begin associating with Joseph Carbone, himself another scion of local ‘ndrangheta clans. Through these figures, Moyse was close with a network of crucially placed Calabrians.
By this period Moyse was under investigation by the NCA, and surveillance caught him collecting Malvaso in his police vehicle to go and inspect the crops they were growing. Later in 1987, Moyse was observed transferring large amounts of cannabis from the boot of his police car into Malvaso’s home. When the NCA swooped in to arrest Moyse, his locker at the police station was found to contain large amounts of amphetamines, marijuana and heroin, By August of 1988, following a two-year investigation by the NCA, Moyse was brought before the courts and plead guilty to 17 charges of drug related offences. Malvaso turned against him and provided information about the corrupt police officer. Moyse was subsequently sentenced to 21 years in prison. He’d serve 10, and was removed from his position in disgrace.
Adelaide would suffer a brief period of turmoil following Moyse’s conviction. There were allegations of corruption in government and police bodies. Ultimately the NCA would produce reports that exonerated many, but they were also highly critical of police and their methodologies. For a brief period, legendary Victorian cop Carl Mengler took over as Chief Investigator for the NCA in South Australia, but clashed with Gerald Dempsey, the former Sydney barrister that had been named as the Adelaide Branch Chief.
But the crops would keep growing. Whether in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and even as far as Queensland and Western Australia; if a remote property could be located and deemed serviceable, Calabrian bosses would supply seeds and material. Crop-sitters would be employed to raise the crops to harvest. It was another two decades before attitudes towards weed started to change and smaller, indoor hydroponic set-ups would become the norm. By that time, the Calabrese had moved on to cocaine and ecstasy.
Staying for now in the 1980s and 1990s, the method described above was one of the driving forces, the largest money-maker for the Calabrian mafia in Australia. It was also very indicative of the way that ‘ndraghetisti operated; members of various ‘ndrina or “cells” came together to form temporary alliances, with a shared goal of investing, organising and orchestrating criminal schemes. They would then split the yields of profit. The most consistently profitable racket, the king-crops of weed, where the most reliable and practiced scheme at the time. Hundreds of crops had been discovered through-out the last 30 years. So it was curious that one seemingly random crop-bust would launch the string of events that would culminate in the terroristic bombing of the NCA offices.
THE HIDDEN VALLEY BUST: THE PERRE CLAN
Bruno the Fox Romeo’s wife, Nazzarena Perre, was a cousin of Domenic Perre; their father were brothers. Through this family connection, Perre had access to a network of drug trade infrastructure which he became deeply involved in, first under the tutelage of his father and cousin, but later as an active and ranking member of the South Australian network of ‘ndrine. Born November 4th, 1956, in Plati, Domenic arrived in Australia with his parents Antonio and Maria a short time after. He would grow up in Australia, marrying his wife Domenica Macheda in the 1970s.
So it was in late August of 1993, six Tactical Response Squad crept about on the outskirts of a massive, almost industrial marijuana crop. It was even outfitted with proper hydroponic watering systems, and a handful of sweaty Italian dudes took shifts walking between the rows of dope armed with a shotgun. It was one of hundreds of crops currently growing across the entire eastern seaboard, this one a fair way inland. It was, indeed, a king crop.
In any case, at 7am on August 21st, 1993, the squad had intercepted a van on the Buchanan Highway that connects Adelaide to the Northern Territory. They were in Hidden Valley, a region of the Northern Territory. By this stage, crops belonging to a handful of Calabrian families scattered across South Australia had found places like this to sustain crops. There were hundreds of similar locations across S.A, the N.T and massive tracts of W.A.
The Squad had intercepted two men leaving the grow-site. They pulled the campervan over and ordered s search on the vehicle. In the back of the campervan, with no effort to disguise it, the officers found stacks of black-sealed plastic bags of weed that weighed up to about 80kg. The officers had ripped open several of the bags, and the crisp, top-grade (for the time) smell of dope hit the air. The two men were both aged 38 years old, Stavros Symrneos and Frank Perre. By the late 90s, it was well-established that the Perre clan were intermarried with the Romeo. By more intertwined methods of succession, they were also kin to the Alvaro, Nirta and Trimboli clans. Rather than risk either man contacting anyone for the time being, they were whisked away to a Darwin jail.
In the pre-dawn hours of August 22nd, 1993, the Northern Territory Tactical Response Squad launched an armed raid on the site, and a handful of crop-minders were hassled out of beds. One used a crutch. Police walked around the site, collecting several unlicensed fire-arms, mostly old shotguns and beaten up pistols. The crop-sitters didn’t object to their collective arrest, for the most part. One hold-out had gone sprinting into the Outback as soon as he’d heard the commotion. He later had to be rescued by NT POLAir.
Because the site was so industriously constructed, the police had decided to spend some time investigating what was quite obviously an enormously established operation, one that had obviously required significant investment. They effected a news blackout for 48 hours and placed all of the sitters into custody. The site was connected to a single telephone landline, on which hundreds and hundreds of calls were logged.
On the morning of August 23rd, 1993, three days into what had evolved into an embedded investigation, the telephone rang at Hidden Valley. Seargent Young answers it but doesn’t say a word. It’s a bad line, hissy with static. After a second:
Domenic PERRE: …who’s that?
YOUNG: Me.
PERRE: It’s Don here, who is it?
YOUNG: I was just giving Dean a hand doing a couple of things…
PERRE: -are you Mark or Steve?
YOUNG: Nah, I’m Frank-
PERRE: You’d be a fucking idiot, its me, Dom, your brother.
-Note: It sounds like for a moment, Perre accepted this as if it was his brother being a dickhead. Anyway, the phone-call continued:
PERRE: What the fuck are you’se still doing up there? Why the fuck aren’t you down here? People are worried about you…
YOUNG: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please apologise to the people worried about me-
PERRE: Get ya fucking arse down here, I’ll kick ya ass-
YOUNG: We’re heading to the van now…
The police squad was being presented with a unique opportunity to track down the actors responsible for the crop. They decided to embed and wait to see who would come to collect the 80kg yield they had seized. The Squad had spent the day ripping up over 10,000 mature saplings of cannabis. Over the course of several phone conversations with Domenic Perre, Perre had deduced that the mystery phone-caller wasn’t his brother. He believed the officer to be a bad-actor there to rob his crop. Another log of phone conversation;
PERRE: Let’s cut the bullshit, you have what you want just don’t hurt the blokes-
YOUNG: They’ll be alright.
PERRE: Can I speak with one of ‘em?
YOUNG: They’re all down as the site..
PERRE: You just make sure their alright.
YOUNG: They’re okay, they’re only old men and boys-
PERRE: Don’t forget that behind the old men and the boys are the one’s with the bigger pull…
Sargeant Young had become concerned with the tone that Domenic Perre had begun using during their conversations. He decided to contact NT Police headquarters for several more Task Force reinforcements. During early phone conversations, Perre had repeatedly expressed concern for his brother and crew of crop-sitters. Ever the family man, Perre’s crop had provided employment for a crew made up of members from various families, the nephews and uncles and cousins. Young decided to antagonise Perre, deliberately rubbing in his face that he was robbing the plantation. The 80kgs seized were worth tens of thousands, with several bulk-sales and most of the crop already sold.
Perre conducted due diligence to establish whether “Simon” and his gang were crop-robbers or police. By this point Seargent Young had established a persona during his talks with Perre; he was named Simon and he and his gang were robbing Perre’s crop and giving him shit about it. Perre’s intuition kicked in; he soon established that if “Simon” was really a crim, he would have already seized the crop and absconded. To Perre it was obvious that police had some-how infiltrated his crop and had cost him several thousand dollars by seizing it. He was furious and stopped calling the phone. By that time, Seargent Young had contacted Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen of the Adelaide NCA office to come up to the site and assist in the investigation.
THE NCA INVESTIGATES
Once NT Police had interfaced with the investigators of SAPOL and Western Australian Police, there was an obvious interest the NCA was taking in these drug-crops, which seemed to proliferate through-out three of the most vast and remote regions of Australia. After close to a week at the crop-site with assistance from interstate colleagues, raids were conducted on a series of mostly Adelaide-based homes. Soon after, police held a press-conference where they announced the arrests and seizures. Twelve men were charged. These included the owner of the 700,000 acres of cattle property, on which Hidden Valley was located. The man, Dean Ottens, was a former pro-footballer. It was discovered that he was drowning in debt, owing to a recession that Australia was enduring in the early 1990s. He had been approached with an offer of significant cash-payments. He had essentially decided to “rent” a section of his property to a group of Calabrian farmers.
Among the most significant arrests were several more Calabrian men; Francesco Perre, 33 and Antonio Perre, 57. This was the same Frank who had been intercepted at the start of the raid, driving out from the property with a load of marijuana. He was identified as a brother of Domenic. Antonio Perre was Domenic’s paternal uncle and had arrived in Australia in July of 1993 from Plati, Reggio Calabria. He had claimed on his visa application that he had no criminal history. In fact, among a litany of mafia-associated charges, he had served significant time in prison for murder. He had been released in 1987. Perre had undertaken a visit to his Australian relatives in order to help “oversee” the crop, seeing as a portion of the profits were to be funnelled back to Italy.
Among a few other interesting catches involved 26-year-old Bruno Musitano, the “Shepard” from Italy who had arrived in Adelaide in 1988. His mother a Perre, this is the same Musitano who would happen to be in Canberra in 1989 during the murder of AFP Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester. Winchester’s murder is discussed extensively in the previous article in the series (See Part 8.)
Musitano had married into the Pollifrone family, one of the powerful Adelaide clans. His father-in-law, Umberto, and his brother-in-law, John, had been reported by the AFP as active members of the Honoured Society, ‘ndranghetisti. Also named in the arrests were younger members of various ‘ndrangheta families and affiliates, including Dominic Romeo, 18, Domenic Vottari, 25, Antonio Spagnolo, 19 and Vincenzo Rocco, 30.
The eight men who had been taken into custody on the plantation went to trial in September at the Supreme Court of Darwin. Their bail was revoked. The Crown Prosecutor, John Adams, accused the men of being part of a high-level drug trafficking operation. The men, all Calabrians, bar Frank Perre’s Greek mate Stavros Smyrneos. The NT Police Prosecutor cited a “multi-force agency” operation, with information coming in from investigators across Australia and Italy. The eight accused by police were represented by Adelaide barrister Peter Waye. In the past, Waye had retained a P.I from Adelaide named Frank Carbone to help work cases for his clients. After the trial had begun, Carbone had paid a visit to Bruno Musitano at the Darwin Prison. Four more men were also charged at later hearings.
One of the men that had been arrested in the raids was 46-year-old labourer, John Helps. During his police interview, he had offered to flip for the prosecution, naming several conspirators and passing along relevant information he thought would be of interest. It transpired that he had been approached by men representing the Calabrian interests; Stavros Syyrneos, Sam Catanzariti and Domenic Perre himself. Helps had been the conduit through which Ottens had been introduced to the group.
During the trial, however, Helps shared this information a lot more reluctantly. He denied everything except having been responsible for establishing the crop. He claimed another one had failed two years earlier. He also named one Tony Romeo, of Griffith, as having been the person he believed to have bank-rolled the operation. Eventually, he plead guilty, rejecting an offer of immunity. Among the others charged was 28-year-old Stephen James Touhy, who refused to give evidence the in trial. In time, guilty pleas were entered by the eight that had had their bail revoked. All of them were sentenced to between four to four ½ years imprisonment, and quietly went off to begin serving their non-parole periods. But the events kicked off by this operation had begun to exert wider spheres of ripples through-out clan circles.
THE RAID AT PERRE’S RESIDENCE
At 7am on September 6th, 1993, a joint squad of police officers from the NCA and SAPOL were prepped by Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen. At 7.30am, they raided a property situated in Salisbury, in Adelaide’s northern suburbs. The property belonged to Domenic Perre, 37 and his wife, Domenica Macheda. They lived on the property with their two children. This constituted the third attempted raid on Perre’s home, and as had been the same on the last two occasions, the house was found to be empty. In fact, Perre was in an Adelaide hospital with his wife, who was birthing their third child.
As the police forced entry into the premises, Perre’s alarm system kicked in and roused several neighbours into investigating the commotion. It was a short time before the key to the control panel could be located, and the piercing alarm turned off. The officers proceeded to rifle through the house.
Gun-parts were located in the garden shed. Under a bed in the master bedroom, two briefcases were discovered and inspected. They contained what was quickly determined to be anti-surveillance equipment. It was seized as a breach of the Telecommunications Act. By this time, Perre had been alerted to the police tearing through his house and had stepped away from his wife’s side to contact his solicitor, Peter Waye. The police were rummaging through the house when the telephone rang. Bowen picked up the phone and was informed by an indignant Waye that Perre had decided not to be present during the raid. Furthermore, he wouldn’t be making any comments, except for through his lawyer, with whom he had made an appointment that afternoon. That was all for now from his client.
Bowen put down the receiver and the search continued for some hours, searching through cupboards, and analysing papers. Still searching the master bedroom, Bowen happened upon a box containing more than a dozen unlabelled videotapes. Upon inspection, it was discovered to be homemade pornography, produced by Perre and his wife. Here, Bowen decided to add a certain degree of personal insult to the raid; he placed the opened box of videotapes directly on the bed.
Having made several seizures, police wrapped up their searches vacated the premises. Later that day, Perre arrived back to a house that had very obviously been ransacked, with little regard for the house’s occupants. An outraged Perre rang the NCA Deputy Director of Investigations and raged about the state officers had left his house in. He singled out Geoffrey Bowen as an instigator. Perre also contacted his local MP, who arranged for a staffer to visit the home. The staffer witnessed as Perre recorded the mess left in every room of the house. Perre paced angrily from room to room, shouting obscenities.
WHO, WHAT, WHY NOW?
This was the zeitgeist of 1990’s Australian IOC groups. It was a time that actually garnered myriad nuggets of information, info that colours the events leading up to the raid at Hidden Valley. Extensive operations by State and AFP officers had long held investigations towards one Bruno Romeo, the 1929 Plati born ‘ndranghetista who had made his name in the 1950s, standing over hundreds of farming families during the Market Economy post-war boom years.
Romeo, referred to by certain segments of the population as “Il Volpe’” or “The Fox” arrived in Australia in 1951 and his name features heavily in every one of the three part NAA “Mano Nera” File, always in relation to his presence in South Australian and rural Victorian communities.
Domenic Perre was related on his maternal side to Nazzarena Conte’, whom Bruno Romeo had married during their early years in Plati’. From his arrival, Romeo was the muscle of a locale’ that encompassed a great swath of three states. As most of the Aspromonte clans who made their base wealth out of produce market rackets in Australia, their evolution angled towards the age of drug-trafficking. There was the king-crop rackets by the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and the clans had graduated to full scale industrial weed harvests and re-investments in winery, property and intermittent cocaine and heroin plots. The whole reason Hidden Valley was on the radar at the time had to with NCA investigations into IOC syndicates, with SA Squads focussing on the Romeo network and his exhaustive criminal holdings.
Encompassing these were a number of little ‘ndrina, such as the network operating Hidden Valley. This particular farm was an endeavour by Perre and his family, operating for decades within the orbits of the Aspromonte clans.
In the 1970s, the Adelaide Advertiser had run a series of articles that named the infamous “Seven Cells of Adelaide”, a media narrative that has seen repeated publishing. This article series referred to a group of Calabrian families that were long known affiliates of the Plati’ groups lineage. They were not exhaustive, but outlined seven of the better connected Asporomonte groups, chiefly Barbaro, Sergi and Romeo. Included was Trimboli, Perre, Pelle and Agresta. It was inaccurate in implying that all these groups were of an equal standing in the mafia community, in fact several families were intermarried factions of others, but they certainly established the presence of the criminal fraternity that encompassed these swathes of communities.
Anyway, by 1990 The Fox and his wife Nazzarena had gone on the lam, evidently leaving their Skye, SA home within half an hour of a warrant for his arrest being issued in Western Australia. The crux of SAPOL and the NCA’s primary investigation fell upon Domenic Perre.
A week after Perre’s residence had been raided, he appeared at his lawyer’s offices with his father, Frank, to meet with NCA officers Lynch, Wright and Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen. For a short period, the three policeman asked Perre a series of probing questions, to which Perre reacted increasingly in the negative. At one point, Perre’s solicitor, Peter Waye, instructed his client to at the very least acknowledge that he was, in fact, Domenic Perre. Eventually, Bowen himself stood up and placed Perre under arrest for drug trafficking. Perre, described as first indignant and then agitated by Detective Lynch, was taken into custody, and driven to NCA headquarters in the Adelaide CBD.
By this time, it was becoming clear the Bowen had allowed Perre to make things personal. At times, Bowen was acting in direct opposition to Perre, almost as if he was trying to goad Perre into some kind of retaliation.
The effect that Bowen’s part played in the series of events to follow staggers a question that can cast a pall over the retrospective analysis of the events. It was clear that there was an antagonistic climate beginning to colour the interactions between Bowen and Perre, and this was only the beginning of these interactions. The officers had led Perre to an interview room and began cataloguing the series of items they had seized during the raids. At times, Bowen would make jokes at Perre’s expense and quizzed him insultingly about certian seizures. NCA notes later tendered to trial would state that the other officers present felt that Bowen’s actions were “…calculated to antagonise.” Perre, however, had become cooly indifferent to Bowen. It was clear he was seething, but refused to be goaded into making any comments. He sat through the interview, was escorted to the Adelaide Court watchhouse, and was bailed to a later date.
On September 28, 1993, Domenic Perre and his younger brother Adam arrived at the NCA offices in Adelaide to collect the property that had been seized during the raids at Domenic’s house. Perre actually had a lot going on around this time; he was said to be in a volatile state. While his wife had just birthed their third child, his mother had also died just days earlier. With his brother Frank in custody, Domenic had applied for a dispensation that would allow Frank a visit with their mother, but it had been denied. The family then made a bail application that would have allowed Frank to at least attend the funeral, but this application was also denied. Sources claim that Perre felt responsible for the troubles his family was now facing.
All theAse things were factoring into the decisions that Domenic was being forced to make. When he went with his brother to collect his property, he discovered that SAPOL officers had seized the firearms he owned and were refusing to return them. It was around this very time when SAPOL had received an anonymous tip from an unnamed source that apparently resided in South Australia’s Riverland. The informant’s tip was put into a memo that was circulated amongst the offices. It alleged that the Perre family was working with other mafia clans in enacting a scheme that aimed to kill investigators.
The information was taken on board but was not regarded as a serious threat. Domenic and Adam left the building with the recovered property, but it was noted that while waiting for the lift on the 11th floor, Domenic was again seething with rage. In any case, Domenic’s visit to the NCA building would later come under intense scrutiny, as it gave him a chance to memorise the lay-out of the floor. Shortly later, Perre would be charged for being in possession of illegal surveillance equipment. These were new charges, to accompany his upcoming trail for bankrolling the Hidden Valley crop.
THE BOMB
On March 2nd, 1994, Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen was working on the cases that had led him into the networks around Domenic Perre and his family. Around 9am that morning, Bowen enquired with the mail room about a package that contained court exhibits related to the Perre investigation. When he was informed that there was indeed a package addressed to him, he and NCA lawyer Peter Wallis collected it and placed it on Bowen’s desk. While it did not appear to be the parcel he was waiting on, this parcel addressed to him piqued his interest. With Wallis sitting across the desk from him, Bowen made a crack about mail-bombs and began to open the package with scissors. He cut the package open and removed a cardboard box from the packaging. He started to lift it, and the parcel exploded in a fiery blast. it was 9.15 in the morning.
An infamous picture of the aftermath includes the image of a telephone hanging by its cord out the side of the window, a window which had been shattered by the blast, sending shards of broken glass out over the street. Later, Wallis would comment on the day of the expolosion;
“…there was fire and metal falling all around me. I was in extreme pain.”
Confusion reigned in the area, with detectives and officers either noticing debris falling from the roof or a second of intense vibration that had come from the level below. People on the same floor heard the blast, the sound of the office’s window shattering, then the bloodcurdling screams coming from it. Several NCA employees would rush to start trying to open the office’s door, but the jamb had been affected by the blast and it was difficult to open. After finally breaking the door down, the attending officers could see the room was on fire. They found Wallis screaming in a heap on the floor, with no sign of Geoffrey Bowen. He lay covered in debris, having been caught in the immediate radius of the explosive. The explosion had destroyed the ceiling panels and air ducts above it. The entire southern facing window had shattered.
Someone called the ambulance while officers assisted Wallis, others could hear Bowen moaning from under the debris of his destroyed office. A team of officers began to remove parts of the building that had fallen on top of Bowen’s body. Once they saw him, they attempted to drag Bowen out of the smoky haze of the blast, but he would scream in agony at every attempt. The bomb had essentially blown off several of his limbs. His skin was sloughing off, and he was losing blood rapidly. The explosion had destroyed the office, so all plastics in the room had melted, all its furniture had splintered, and the walls were scorched black.
Wallis was hustled out onto a couch in the hallway. His clothes were burned and black. The group in the office eventually cleared all the debris from around Bowen, who was still alive at this point. South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service (SAMFS) would arrive first and a group of firefighters helped remove Bowen from the still smoking room. By 9.30am, ambulance officers were examining Bowen while placing him on a stretcher. A laryngeal mask was applied, and he was placed in an ambulance. Paramedics began travelling to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Bowen had lost an arm and most of a leg in the blast. The rest of his skin was charred. He’d suffered several lacerations and gaping wounds and was barely breathing. The injuries were described as horrific.
Despite frantic efforts to resuscitate him as he arrived at the hospital, the head of the trauma division, Dr. Bill Griggs, pronounced Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen, the WA Police officer working for the NCA investigating the mafia, dead at 9.39am. Wallis arrived at the hospital at 9.41am. It was quickly noted that he had lost an eye in the blast, in addition to shrapnel wounds and serious burn over nearly half of his body. He was luckily in a stable condition.
Pedestrians below the office witnessed shards of glass and parts of the wall explode over their heads. Smoke was billowing out of the hole in the office. Sheets of paper and demolished wall panelling smashed onto the concrete. Screams and chaos erupted for a moment as NCA officers quickly cordoned of the area and began treating the terrified and injured. Besides a few minor lacerations and bruises, there were no major injuries to any other bystanders. In a moment of luck, there had been no pedestrians directly below the office at the time of the explosion. No one else had been killed.
By 4.15pm that day, the fire in the office had been extinguished and forensic investigators were now examining the space. In the Intensive Care ward at the Royal Adelaide, officers from the NCA and SAPOL were attempting to interview Wallis, but the smoke inhalation he had suffered meant that he could only whisper. Detectives hovered close to him as they questioned him about the events of the morning, specifically on who could have sent the mailbomb. Wallis could only rasp out a response:
“…my speculation is Domenic Perre…Geoff’s an informant in a matter that is set down for trial tomorrow…”.
On March 3rd, 1994, Domenic Perre arrived at court for what should have been the start of the trial regarding his possession of illegal listening devices. It was the day after the bombing and investigators were in disarray. Amid a crowd of onlookers, some became abusive, shouting accusations at Perre as he attended the hearing. Police asked for an adjournment, and Perre left the building, pushing back through the crowd and ignoring gathered media pundits. The charges would be dropped shortly after.
MORE RAIDS & THE ARREST
By 9.25am that morning, the NCA offices had been declared a Major Crime Scene. An investigation team of a dozen men had begun to look into the matter. By that afternoon there was a list of nearly forty suspects, mainly Calabrians, suspected of involvement in drug-trafficking. Forensic technicians had started reconstructing the bomb. At 7.35pm, Perre’s was one of several houses raided. Officers had been instructed to search for chemicals, especially phosphorus and bomb-making equipment such as fuses, switches, wires, and batteries. Police seized bullets, a soldering iron, and various chemicals from Perre’s shed. When he was questioned by police, he handed them a letter from his solicitor, only consenting to communication with his lawyer present.
Luckily, Domenic Perre had been under surveillance that day. In fact, he had been under surveillance on and off for the last few years as a target of the NCA. On the afternoon of the bombing, he had driven into Adelaide’s CBD. He’d arrived at a parking structure near the area of the blast. He was observed driving his vehicle to park on the top level of the building, driving past numerous empty spots. He had gotten out of his car and the witnessing officer noted that Perre had appeared to have parked at a “vantage point” where he could see the damage caused by the blast. Perre then travelled in an elevator to the ground level and walked up to the area near the cordoned-off street. He would be identified later by a constable directing away cars and foot traffic as having approached him to ask what had happened. The constable responded that there had been an accident on the street, as Perre glanced at the smoking crater that had been Sergeant Bowen’s office.
He then returned to his car and drove to the Torrensville restaurant owned by his cousin, Sam Catanzariti, who was also being charged as one of the financiers of the Hidden Valley Crop. He then left to visit another cousin, one Ben Battiste. Later, in court, Battiste would be grilled on whether or not Perre had mentioned the name “Bowen” at all to him during the visit. They had sat around the table, chatting about family and drinking water. At one point, Perre had led Battiste to his red Falcon, where Perre opened the trunk of the car. Battiste was observed picking up a briefcase and carrying it back into his house. When questioned later he would remark that investigators didn’t ask him about the briefcase. In any case, it was a private matter. The briefcase was found to contain copies of Perre’s passports, Birth Certificates and different forms of identification and money. This was on March 11th, 1994; the first time Domenic Perre was arrested. It offers a curious picture of an Australian “mafioso” in the mid 1990’s. Perre arrived at court with a good fitting shirt and jacket, sporting huge black sunglasses and staring at cameras with a smirk.
FIRST TRIAL: INVESTIGATIONS
Delving into Perre’s operations showed the NCA had an impressive amount of information on him. It also led to a seedy slice of inner-city Adelaide and the drug trade. It was a colourful cast of witnesses, several of them related and similar in a way to the Griffith style of extended family networks. But also a few crazies, with tales of a police-sieged suburban gunmen, shady weapon dealers and meth labs.
Perre was charged with drug possession with intent to distribute, serving a six-month sentence while the NCA started their case against Perre for the bombing. When he walked out of jail, he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. He had humbly arranged for his family to pick him up, and he kept a low-profile until his next trial was due.
By September, the NCA was preparing to bring a case against Perre when the Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Rofe QC, declared a nolle prosequi, basically deciding that there was not enough evidence to charge Perre with sending the mailbomb. A thinner, more angular Domenic Perre walked out of the courthouse. Perre’s legal team included Frank Carbone, a licenced PI who worked on Perre’s case in Adelaide, as well as court appointed lawyer. This was a very complex case.
AUSSIE BRASCO…? Not that one…
In the cargo hold of a pond jumper personal plane, a group of NSW and Victoria based police are years deep in an undercover role involving an art-dealing, drug-buying and money laundering pair of brothers. They were named Cole, who operated with his younger brother Ben. The following quote comes from a conversation taking place in the aircraft with Rosario “Ross” Trimbole, a Griffith-based ‘ndranghetista:
Trimbole: “All we are is family…a group of people who get together and do things…we don’t call it the mafia…”
Detective Damian Marret, aka “Ben”: “How come?”
Trimboli: “Mafia’s a very bad word…we are family…like that man in Adelaide. The police building.”
“Ben”: “What? What police building?”
Trimboli: “…they hit one of our guys hard, we had to do it.”
CONFESSIONS AND UNDERCOVERS
That conversation was relayed by Victoria Police Detective Damian Marrett in his second book, Undercover. It is reproduced here to show the deep level of infiltration Detective Sergeant Colin McLaren and Detective Damian Marrett had achieved on behalf of Victoria Police, NSW Police and the NCA. The conversation took place on March 3rd, 1994. The undercover police officers and their targets were engaged in a “dry run”, in the lead up to a plan to import three quarters of a tonne of high-grade cannabis. It had been sourced from Papua New Guinea, under the aegis of the Romeo-Perre-Trimboli ‘ndrina. It was just one day after the parcel bomb had been delivered to the NCA building, which killed Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen.
Eventually, this covert endeavour codenamed “Operation Afghan” would result in massive criminal conspiracy charges and the seizure of drugs, weapons and cash. A nephew of the famous Fox, Antonio Romeo, had functioned as the leader of a small ‘ndrina that was infiltrated by undercover operatives. The group was successfully prosecuted, with over 25 years of collective sentencing imposed against several individuals. This experience had led to a situation wherein Detective Sergeant McLaren, a veteran in covert affairs, would be brought in to oversee a similar operation targeting Domenic Perre.
Because of his prior contact with members of the Griffith clans, instead of working the case directly, he was put in charge of a covert investigation overseeing two purported drug-dealing meth cooks. They were, naturally, undercover SAPOL operatives.
This investigation would successfully establish that Domenic Perre was not only heavily active in the supply and production of narcotics, but also capable of obtaining large amounts of chemicals, including red phosphorous. Perre was quite familiar with substance. Red phosphorous is not only a key component in the production of amphetamines but had also been used to make the parcel bomb that had been sent to the NCA. Forensic teams had managed to reconstruct the bomb and ascertain that the same chemical had been used to build the explosive.
ARRESTS AND RELEASES
The day of Geoffrey Bowen’s wake was March 11th, 1994, eight days after his death. It was held at the Perth CIB and attended by a large group of family, friends, and colleagues. While they celebrated his life, SAPOL officers were preparing to move on their targets.
At 7.15pm on the same day, a combined group of detectives accompanied by armed members of the Special Task and Rescue team arrived at the Adelaide home of Domenic Perre. He was formally charged with the murder of Geoffrey Bowen, as well as the attempted murder of Peter Wallis. Attending officers later remarked on Perre’s demeanour that night. One of the arresting officers, Detective Stapleton, made the following comments:
“His wife was extremely agitated, and he was quite rude and abusive towards her…he showed no emotion whatsoever [and] refused to answer any questions of speak with us”.
It was Detective Stapleton’s opinion that Perre’s wife, Domenica, was completely unaware of why her husband was being taken into custody. Stapleton also observed that, in his opinion, Perre did not conduct himself in the fashion of a person falsely accused. Perre was allowed to attend his wife and conversed with her for a short period. He was then cuffed and taken into a police vehicle, to be transported to SAPOL headquarters on Main North Road, Adelaide. Perre witnessed police taking custody of the two vehicles he owned, which were being taken in for forensic analysis.
Perre only agreed to a police medical exam when it was attended by his own personal G.P, Dr Giuseppe Barbaro (Dr. G. Barbaro would later be linked to “unconscionable conduct” regarding the operation of a company named Avanti Investments. It related to the treatment of farmers under contract to the agricultural concern.)
Eventually, it was established that there was no trace of any drug or alcohol present in Perre’s system. The only medical note referred to some scarring on his hands, which he would claim had occurred while working on his car. Police attempted to conduct a formal interview, It took place with Perre accompanied by his solicitor, Peter Waye. The interview lasted for six minutes; Domenic Perre exercised his right to remain silent, and he refused to speak to investigators.
Following his committal, he was remanded in custody. Days later, he would arrive at Yatala Labour Prison in Northfield, Adelaide.
FIRST LAG
While Perre spent the next few months in custody, there were developments in the investigation. Some questionable conduct on the part of certain members of the executive branch of the judiciary also occurred. On the day of Perre’s arrest, South Australian Police Commissioner David Hunt would release a statement that cast doubt on the presence of Italian Organised-Crime groups in Adelaide. His comments included the following quote:
“…an unnecessary fear about the so-called “mafia” – has been generated when this is clearly not the case.”
While these comments were directed at the media response to the bombing and subsequent arrest, they display an irreverent attitude to a significant criminal issue. It is somewhat in-line with what would later be written into the Operation Cerberus report, but that particular text makes sure to clarify a difference between Australian and Italian OC groups at least. Hunt’s comments may have been influenced by what was shaping up as the Cerberus findings. It could be chalked up to an innocuous faux pas, or also intended as a salve to Adelaide’s large Italian population. Not every Perre was a mafioso, of course.
The other issue involved then Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Rofe, QC. He had been appointed in 1992 and would have served as Crown Prosecutor in Perre’s case if it had actually gone to trial in 1994. However, when he was presented with the evidence gathered by Detective Sergeant Colin McLaren’s team, he was unmoved. In in his role as the co-ordinator and leader of Operation Arba, McLaren’s undercover sting had linked Perre to drug labs, witnessed him obtaining chemicals and had reportedly heard him bragging about bombs. Rofe simply declared that there was still insufficient evidence to bring Perre to trial. According to McLaren, who was enraged at rebuke, Rofe condemned his Operation Arba operatives as “agents provocateurs”. Rofe refused to go forward with the case against Perre for the bombing. In his fantastic book on the subject, The NCA Bombing: A Mafia Murder?, author Michael Madigan allows Rofe the benefit of the doubt. He accepts that Rofe’s decision on the matter was the result of unfortunate circumstances, and Rofe had been forced to act as the bearer of bad news for Bowen’s widow, Jane. There would be no prosecution. The family accepted the fact bitterly. Paul Rofe, however, would in later years suffer some significant blows to his reputation. In some eyes, it cast doubt upon his actions during the Perre case.
A drink-driving case in 1999 put some questions to his judgement. It was in 2003, though, when some disturbing conduct was reported by the local Adelaide edition of the news and current affairs program, Today Tonight. The show aired a piece on Rofe, exposing his apparent gambling addiction. It was reported that Rofe was a degenerate gambler who bet money on everything from horses to horseshoes. One of the more memorable accusations levelled against Rofe involved a day where journalists had staked out his workplace. During work hours, Rofe had visited a nearby TAB several times. He had also kept stopping in to a newsagent and had bought up to 17 instant scratch tickets over just a few hours.
For his part, Colin McLaren was scathing of Rofe. In a 2023 podcast dedicated to McLaren’s work undercover, he would claim that he had seen evidence that Rofe regularly placed bets with several SP bookies, all of whom were of Calabrian descent. It is McLaren’s belief that Rofe was indebted to some of these bookmakers. He deems this issue a factor in Rofe’s decision not to prosecute Perre in 1994. At the time, however, Rofe’s gambling issues were not widely known. Relevant to the case, Rofe had cited severe issues regarding the credibility of certain witnesses set to testify against Perre.
On September 9th, 1994, Paul Rofe, QC, had entered the case of nolle prosequi in Perre’s murder trial. This saw all charges against him dropped. Perre was released and made a comment to the throng of attending reporters, thanking his lawyer and PI friend, Frank Carbone. He expressed great relief at the day’s outcome. He left court with a group of supporters and returned to his home.
SO WHAT ABOUT THE WITNESSES?
Several players in the case against Perre were people that he interacted with regularly. He was often found hanging out at Central Firearms, a store located on Prospect Road, near the Adelaide CBD. The weapons store stocked firearms, ammunition and various accessories. It was frequented by an unusual cast of patrons, a list that included police and public alike. Perre had become close with the owner, a man named Sam Tettis. During his first prison stint, Perre had penned a letter to Tettis. The letter urged Tettis to p erjure himself at Perre’s trial, to recant some of the statements he’d made when he’d been questioned.
Perre was also known to fraternise with another two men from Central Firearms, who would also feature in his later trials. Steven Sunk was known for the knives and other bladed weapons he forged himself. He had earned the nickname “Knife Man” amongst the Central Firearms crew. The other was Allen “Gadget” Chamberlain, a curious jack-of-all-trades merchant known for his eccentricities. Described as a “self-taught gunsmith” in later media articles, he alone was perhaps closest with Perre. In fact, the staff at Central Firearms would later make note to police how close a relationship existed between Chamberlain and Perre.
Years later, during court appearances, Chamberlain would claim that in the months leading up to the bombing, he had taken possession of a number of firearms from Perre. When he had been first questioned by police, he had tendered statements under the proviso that he be allowed to enter a witness protection/relocation program. He would make damning allegations against Perre, claiming that he had been who sold Perre explosives, just two weeks prior to the bombing. He also alleged that before the bomb had been built, he had received “explosives and explosive-related books”. He had concealed these materials at his workplace. Chamberlain would make a host of claims, but there were numerous holes and inconsistencies in his story. This seriously affected his credibility as a witness against Perre.
Another associate named Tony Grosser had first met Perre through his relationship with Bruno Lee Romeo, youngest son of Bruno the Fox. Grosser was well known to police and maintained relationships with bikers, mobsters, painter and dockers, and all class of criminals. He later enacted an odd campaign in an effort to “warn” the NCA, SAPOL and various media outlets that a bombing of some kind was imminent. Grosser would claim that Bruno the Fox, who was now in custody, had ordered a bombing to occur on a police property.
Police were dubious about these claims. Indeed, Tony Grosser had earned himself a reputation as an oddball attention seeker over many years with police. Grosser would later go on to commit one of the most infamous sieges in Australian history; on May 2nd, 1994, SAPOL officers attempted to serve a warrant on Grosser at his property in Nurioopta, a small town-centre an hour’s drive north of Adelaide, located in the world famous Barossa Valley. Officers arrived at his property around 2pm and Senior Constable Derrick McManus knocked on his door. Grosser responded by letting loose a burst of gunfire at it. Through the door, McManus was shot multiple times, and so began the siege. The heavily armed Grosser held off several squadrons of police by firing at them randomly for the next 40 hours. Eventually, he exhausted his ammunition. When the siege finally ended, Grosser was taken into custody, remanded to trial and would be served a sentence of over 20 years. Funnily enough, he would actually get to know Domenic Perre better in prison. C.O reports made note of several interactions between the men in Yatala Prison.
Ultimately, the fact was several of Perre’s associates from the local gun shop turned on him. Even a handful of employees from a local electronics store that Perre frequented would give evidence in the trial.
While he had been in custody, the letter Perre had to Stan Tettis suggested he should lie to police and implicate Allen Chamberlain in the bombing. Tettis took the letter as an attempt to intimidate him into complicity. Police and Corrections Officers made photo-copies of the letter. Prosecutors attempted to bring perjury charges on their basis. Once again however, Perre would be found not guilty. Perre’s mother had died while he had been in custody, and he retreated into the fold of his family.
FRANK THE FIXER
Frank Carbone emerges as a fascinating character in this tableau. Ostensibly a private investigator, Carbone would operate as a kind of “fixer” for the Perre-Romeo clan. When the Hidden Valley raid had occurred, he had been the one to make the trip to Darwin, visiting the men who had been arrested. He loaded their commissary and assures them that Dom was doing everything in his power to fight the case.
Born in Australia in 1962, Carbone would come to be a close associate to Perre’s lawyer, Peter Waye. Carbone’s offices would be raided during the 1994 trial, with police seizing numerous files and recorded conversations between Perre and others. A year later, in 1995, his office was again raided, this time in connection to a case involving serious allegations of corruption being levelled at police.
THE STING
Early in 1995, South Australian Police Commissioner David Hunt communicated with his Victorian counterpart, Police Commissioner Niel Comrie. Their discussions were related to the recent successes Victoria Police had seen with Operation Afghan. Comrie requested assistance with their own investigations into crimes linked to Calabrian syndicates.
In July of 1995, Colin McLaren arrived in Adelaide to head Operation Arba with the Bowen Taskforce, a group of SAPOL and NCA officers. With the intention of infiltrating Perre’s circle, Frank Carbone was the first target of an attempted sting. The bait was an undercover officer posing as a businessman from Melbourne. The officer took the name of Domenic Morabito: it was a calculated effort to entice a known ‘ndrangheta associate with a name that could be considered mafia royalty in the Old Country. In Calabria, the Morabito clan have ruled from Africo, in the Locride area of Reggio Calabria for many years. It would seem as if the undercover agent was banking upon the surname, as they went in with a cold call start.
Morabito began the sting by phoning up Carbone’s office. Carbone answered the phone and Morabito explained himself to be a spurned husband, searching for his wife. He had reason to believe his wife was currently residing in Adelaide. The story went that “Morabito” was in need of skilled private investigator to find her, and he had been directed towards Carbone’s services, a firm named Eagle Investigations.
The back-story was elaborate, with false birth certificates and bank records having been created to bolster Morabito’s credibility. They had staged a wedding photo between Morabito and his pretend wife, which was supplied to Carbone along with some other points of information. Carbone would locate the woman, who was another undercover agent, in a matter of weeks. He received his $1000 fee for the job. Following this, a relationship began to form between Carbone and Morabito.
Over the course of the next few months, Morabito and Carbone would begin to socialise. They would regularly catch up at a Pirie Street bistro of which Carbone was a part-owner. Morabito would attempt to draw Carbone out with tales of weed crops and the various rackets Morabito had supposedly operated back in Melbourne. He would not-so-subtly imply that he was well-connected in Melbourne’s criminal circles.
He asked Carbone if he knew anyone who might be interested in co-financing a crop. Later, he would ask if Carbone was able to obtain firearms. Both times Carbone would refuse. For his part, it seemed as if Frank Carbone, well versed in policing tactics himself, had grown suspicious of his friend Domenic Morabito. Perhaps the questions had been a little too pointed, or perhaps Carbone had called his Melbourne contacts and found himself unable to validate Morabito’s claims.
By May of 1995, Carbone had bigger issues on his mind than the wannabe gangster who asked too many questions. His office on Prospect Road was again raided, again due to the issue involving serious cases of police corruption. Three SAPOL officers were facing a plethora of charges, and the Anti-Corruption Squad had seized numerous documents from Carbone’s archives. Among the 40-odd boxes of files, the Adelaide Advertiser would report that the material seized could only have come from internal police computers and files.
Some sources claim that by this point, Carbone was quietly distancing himself from Morabito. Other sources, mostly from the perspective of police involved, claim instead that Carbone had been hooked in by Morabito. However, Carbone was known as a canny investigator himself, and in any case, these raids on his office were a legal disaster for him. It was a distraction that likely hobbled Morabito’s attempts to hem up Carbone.
This would soon be of no consequence though; police had found themselves an actual informant, more than willing to sell out Perre. Morabito’s relationship with Carbone was of no further consequence.
During his time in Yatala Prison, Perre had reached out to an amphetamine cook serving time for drug charges. The ‘ndrine that Perre was affiliated with had been making a move towards synthetic drugs, which had the potential to yield higher profits faster than the traditional marijuana crops they’d been growing for decades. Perre himself had decided that he would pivot into a new direction and approached the speed cook, inquiring if he’d be interested in helping Perre set up a backyard-lab to produce amphetamines.
In his book The NCA Bombing: A Mafia Murder?, author Michael Madigan described the cook as “overwhelmed” at this entreaty from a known associate of Adelaide’s mafia circles. During the next visit he had with his partner, he spoke to her about his experience with one of the most notorious prisoners in South Australia. He outlined the plan to his wife, who was herself currently on bail for drug offences.
She promptly approached detectives from the S.A Drug Squad and told the officers about Perre’s intention to expand into the amphetamine trade. Drug Squad officers put her in touch with the Bowen Taskforce, and a new idea quickly formed to ensnare Perre.
In his role overseeing the undercover operation, Detective Sergeant McLaren put together a plan that hinged upon the wife of the drug cook and two undercover operatives. By 1995, Perre was out of custody and still dealing with the fallout from the Hidden Valley bust. He was fighting the courts for the return of his assets. The former issue was in a legal limbo with arguments regarding relevant jurisdictions still pending; since the crime was committed in the Northern Territory, a Supreme Court ruling by Justice Roderick Matheson had decided against any charges going to trial in South Australia.
Days later, Perre celebrated a win when another ruling in the Supreme Court of South Australia, this time by Justice Robin Millhouse, removed the order that had frozen Perre’s assets. This allowed him to regain access to his bank accounts and properties. He made a glowering statement to the media that day, detailing the $100k he’d spent on legal bills and asking why he shouldn’t receive some form of compensation. He told the press gallery about the $800 belonging to his daughter which had been included in the asset freeze, sneeringly describing it as a “…big bust for the NCA.”
Buoyed by these victories, he would quickly make arrangements to transfer most of his assets into his wife’s name, to prevent any such re-occurrence.
FROM ARBA TO ZOOM: JACK & JIMMY
Meanwhile, through the drug cooks wife, the new objective was enacted under the codename Operation Zoom. It revolved around a Melbourne policeman of Maori background who had over a decade of undercover experience. His backstory explained him to be an old friend of the drug cooks wife. They had met in Queensland several years ago. Operating under the name Jack Pahia, he was introduced by the cook’s wife to Saverio Catanzariti, called Sam. He was a cousin to Domenic Perre, heavily involved in the ‘ndrina’s drug operations.
During their first meeting, Catanzariti had arrived with an associate, later identified as a member of the Rebels OMCG. The biker was in the business of buying wholesale amounts of speed. At this first meeting, there was a discussion about the various methods of producing amphetamines. Of each, Sam and his biker mate preferred the method that involved the use of a precursor chemical named p2p. Pahia subtly steered the conversation towards a different method, one which revolved around large amounts of red phosphorous. Pahia explained this as his preferred method of manufacture. The supply of this chemical was key, as it had been determined that the parcel bomb sent to the NCA had used red phosphorous as a key component. While it wasn’t a restricted material, it was relatively rare beyond a handful of dedicated uses. It was essential to prove that Perre had knowledge of, and could readily obtain, red phosphorous.
On October 20, 1995, they would meet at the Mile End Hotel, a well-known Adelaide establishment which boasted over a hundred years of history. This meeting, along with many after, would establish Catanzariti as a big talker, which was quite a welcome dynamic for the wired-up Pahia. Catanzariti talked about how long he had known the drug cook’s wife and how he trusted her judgement in introducing them. He ranted about how he would be willing and ready to murder her and her husband, the drug cook, if anything went awry. But still, Sam Catanzariti was happy to accept Pahia as their new potential drug cook. They were eager to get production underway. At their next meeting, Jack Pahia would introduce Catanzariti to his cooking partner, Jimmy Anderson, of course another undercover operative.
Jimmy was a short man, who had actually only been able to become an NSW police officer after the minimum height requirements were no longer enforced. None the less, the man was a veteran of undercover work as well, and he stepped into the role as Pahia’s partner perfectly. It was late in 1995 when Pahia and Anderson finally met Domenic Perre, with the pair having been vetted by Saverio Catanzariti. From their very first meeting, it was clear that Perre was determined to get the lab in place. He intended to have production underway as soon as possible.
Pahia and Anderson had been thoroughly educated in the manufacture of amphetamines by trained chemists employed by police. They had gained an intricate knowledge base of the chemicals required. The knew the techniques and methods used to create amphetamines. From the start, they were stunned by Perre’s level of knowledge on the subject. Pahia would later note that it was clear to him that Perre not only had a strong grasp on the methods and chemicals but was also adept at acquiring the relevant materials.
During their meeting, with Perre focused on getting the cook underway, Pahia quoted him a price of $50k to purchase all the glassware, obtain the chemicals, set up the lab and conduct the first cook. After a bit of back and forth, it was established that, with no down-payment (Perre still had court-cases at the time which he needed funds for) the laboratory would be set up at a secluded location Perre had access too. It was December of 1995, and the cook was planned for the new year once Pahia and Anderson had obtained their materials.
On Boxing Day of 1995, the materials for the cook were put together by a team of officers and chemists at the offices of the Victorian Police Drug Squad. They methodically gathered beakers and flasks, polishing each piece, and carefully ensuring there were no fingerprints left to chance. McLaren took the step of wrapping each of the pieces in newspapers from New South Wales, which was where Anderson was supposedly sourcing the glassware from. The undercover officers were supplied with six kilograms of pseudoephedrine, a key precursor ingredient, along with six litres of hydriodic acid, used in the separation process. All the materials were packed carefully into a vehicle, which Anderson would drive back to Adelaide. Pahia flew back to South Australia on an early flight on the morning of December 27th, where he was picked up by Sam Catanzariti at 8.45am.
Catanzariti chatted freely, mentioning that he had recently sold a property. The profits of the sale were going towards the impending cook. He dropped Pahia at his hotel, a since-closed middle-of-the-range city hotel located at Parkside on Adelaide’s south named “Tiffins on the Park”. Anderson would arrive later that day, and the pair were relaxing over a meal that evening when a phone-call from their handlers informed them that Perre and Catanzariti had arrived at their hotel. They went to meet the pair. A short conversation ensued, and they all packed into a car to drive to the proposed site of the lab.
The site was in the suburb of Angle Vale, a forty-minute drive north of the city. They had arrived at farmland owned by members of the Trimboli family; a sign that had been attached to the front gate bore the words “F. & A. Trimboli”.
In 1979, a massive crop of cannabis had been detected on the site, with Francesco Trimboli being charged with its cultivation. In 1989, a series of murders committed by Francesco Pangello had seen him charged with the killings of his wife, Anna, and his two sons-in-law, Saverio Parisi and another Francesco Trimboli. There was a long history in the area, unknown to the two undercover operatives being led to a rusty corrugated-iron shed, twenty by ten metres and windowless.
As a part of this current cook, two overseers were installed. Antonio and Saverio Trimboli, who were nicknamed Joe and Sam, respectively. During this visit, Perre would identify the two as close associates in this current endeavour of his. When Pahia expressed concern about the nearby farmhouse, Perre assured him that the only occupant was Joe Trimboli, who would be helping to keep the operation on track. A short conversation exchanged between Perre and Pahia. These excerpts are taken from Michael Madigan’s book on the subject:
Pahia: With a shed as good as this, Domenic, I can’t believe you haven’t tried putting a lab together before!
Perre: I’ve never wanted to, Jack. We always had other things on the go, but the days of grass are over.
It was prescient comment by Perre. By this point approaching the late 1990s, the days of the king crop were coming to a very slow end. Throughout the last decades, massive networks of marijuana crops had funded the lifestyles and investments of the ‘ndrangheta clans. Now, with investigations arising from Operation Cerberus shining an ever intensifying light on their operations, the clans had begun to pivot their direction. They never stopped, of course, but the methods that had led to an age of “grass castles” were being adapted. Smaller hydroponic set-ups were becoming more common. Australia’s thirst for synthetic drugs was rising and there would be ‘ndranghetisti ready to fill whichever void appeared on the criminal landscape. Increasingly, that void was cocaine and methamphetamines. So followed the trends in drug-trafficking.
Amphetamines in particular were becoming a staple of Australia’s drug diet. While more labour intensive to produce, it had the potential to yield far greater profits. And instead of massive tracts of isolated land, all that was required was the expertise, and a shed like the one Domenic Perre had just shown to Jack Pahia and Jimmy Anderson.
On December 29th, 1995, Pahia and Anderson returned to the site and began to set-up the lab. On instruction from Pahia, Anderson spent some time driving beyond the site, acting as if they were ensuring privacy. At one point, Pahia phoned Anderson to tell him to start bringing in the glassware, an act which enraged Perre. He ranted at Pahia for using his phone near the location. He cited his paranoia over AFP surveillance and their capabilities with phone-tapping. Perre was acutely aware that he was at risk here, having already drawn the attention of SAPOL and the NCA.
The operatives continued their tasks, quickly getting the lab set up and ready. They returned to their hotel that evening to discover that their quarters had been searched, their belongings rifled through. Understandably concerned by this breach of privacy, they silently searched the room for cameras or listening devices, which was equipment Perre was known to be adept with. It was determined that Sam Catanzariti had charmed the receptionist into handing over their room keys. Rather than remain at the hotel, on advice from McLaren, they checked out and moved to another hotel in the Adelaide CBD.
On December 30th, 1995, another meeting with Perre took place at a café over pizza, where their accommodations were discussed. Perre had wanted them to remain onsite during the cook, but Pahia and Anderson point blank refused to stay in the “rooms” Perre had arranged for them, which was essentially an old meat-locker with two fold-up beds. Laughing at the suggestion, Pahia gently explained to an offended Perre that no, they would continue to stay at the hotel of their own choice. Further discussions involved the use of their vehicles. Perre was paranoid that their rental would attract interest, so it was decided that they would destroy it, rather than run the risk of any potential evidence being traced to the car.
Finally, Perre questioned them on the names and credit cards they were using. The hyper-paranoid Perre had employed Carbone to check up on the two operatives. It was clear that as the cook got closer to occurring, Perre was running at an extreme level of anxiety and suspicion. The operatives were able to explain their way out of Perre’s concerns, and Perre left with Tony Trimboli in tow.
This series of events was greatly concerning to McLaren, who decided once again that Pahia and Anderson would switch hotels. After a busy day of setting up drug-labs, moving rooms and dealing with Perre’s aggravation, the operatives switched off their phones for the night for a restless night of sleep.
PERRE UNDER PRESSURE
Of course, this again set off Perre. When Pahia turned his phone on the morning of December 31st, he soon received a call from a frantic Catanzariti. Sam demanded that the two operatives attend a meeting with Perre at SkyCity Casino in the Adelaide CBD. The meeting took place in a car parked outside the casino. They’d entered Catanzariti’s vehicle, and Sam drove off. A furious Perre grilled them over their “disappearance”. It was clear that Perre was incredulous at the two having severed communications, and ranted at them about having nearly destroyed the lab out of paranoia. During his outburst, Pahia took a gamble and decided to meet Perre’s aggression with his own. Pahia arced back up at Perre, demanding to know why he’d posted someone outside their hotel to spy on the pair. This met Perre with a measure of shock; he denied having done so, laughed nervously, and accused Pahia of being himself paranoid.
As they drove through the streets of Adelaide’s CBD, the back-and-forth accusations continued. Perre asked questions about people Jack and Jimmy knew, asked where the two had come from, and other such questions. The officers did their best to remain calm and relied on their well-rehearsed backstories to answer every query Perre put to them. As they drove, Perre spoke about various “Sydney drug-dealers” and the concerns of “other people” important to the operation. He continues throwing questions at them as they drove. The pair relied on each other and simply kept to their story. As the conversation continued, they became more assertive. The dynamic shifted eventually to put Perre on the back-foot. Following a short silence, Perre directed Catanzariti to stop at a payphone. Perre exited the car and made a phone-call. An intense conversation followed, mostly in Italian. It ended with Perre returning to the vehicle. He turned to the two operatives in the back seat, now with an air of cool confidence. He was deciding the two men were reliable enough, and that they could work together. They were dropped back to the casino, where the two returned to their car and their hotel.
Finally, it seemed that Jack Pahia and Jimmy Anderson had successfully gained Perre’s trust. By the first few days of January 1996, they were putting the final touches on the lab and some interesting conversations were beginning to occur between Perre and the pair of undercover operatives. During one of these conversations, with Pahia wired up for sound, the subject of Geoffrey Bowen and the NCA came up. It was noted by Pahia that Perre had a particular animosity towards Bowen, who he referred to as a “piece of shit”. An excerpt from one of these conversations went as follows:
Perre: It’s just that I had something to do with him before when he came in and trashed my place and arrested me, but I wouldn’t know one from the other, you know? Because what they had done, believe me, I was upset. Sure, I wasn’t fucking happy…fuck them, the fucking bomb, I dream about it.”
These conversations continued in a tenor that indicated Perre held the NCA responsible for some serious injustice inflicted upon his family. In another recorded conversation, he ranted about how “that arsehole”, referring to Bowen, had “carked it”. He railed over police that held their own lives in higher regard than that of the public. The relationship between Perre and Pahia was finally growing comfortable. Pahia would record multiple conversations of Perre expounding upon subjects such as SAPOL, the NCA and how he had never been linked to the bomb. It eventually transpired that by the early days of January 1996, having secured $60k in funding from Perre, the cook was finally ready to go. It was here that McLaren enacted the most important phase of the investigation.
The group had arranged for a shipment of red phosphorous to arrive from Sydney to Adelaide. The story went that Pahia had an amount of “Red P” left over from a previous cook, and it was being freighted to Adelaide. McLaren and his team had sabotaged the shipment. When the parcel arrived, the whole group was present. Anderson, Catanzariti, Trimboli and Perre watched as Pahia cut open the box. They were greeted by the sight of smashed glass and wet phosphorous, which had been rendered useless by McLaren on its way to Adelaide. This discovery was followed by a bout of yelling and accusations before Pahia moved to the integral part of the whole operation. During a discussion of alternatives, Pahia asked Perre if he could obtain red phosphorous.
“Id rather stick my dick in a chopping block” was Perre’s immediate response. Pahia argued, then muttered “fuck it” and grabbed his mobile phone, saying he would make a few calls. Perre then got up in Pahia’s face, getting close to the operative.
“I’ll tell you why. You know why?”
Pahia stopped what he was doing and looked back at Perre. He noted the intensity of Perre’s glare.
“What?” responded Pahia.
“Look at my eyes. Can’t you see?”
The group all watched Perre. Tony Trimboli interrupted, saying “I know why, you don’t have to say…”
Perre made a motion with his finger, pulling down on the skin under his left eye, and mouthed the word “Bomb.”
After a little discussion, it was decided that Perre would indeed obtain the chemical. Anderson quietly asked if there would be any problem, and Sam the Helper Trimboli asked if Perre had ever gotten it before. Perre told them that no, there would be no problem and yes, he had bought it over the counter before. He directed Sam Trimboli and Jimmy Anderson to attend a vendor named Ace Chemicals, where they could buy the red phosphorous. They were unsuccessful in their attempt though. A dejected Perre was observed making a call and shortly after met up with Frank Carbone. Carbone contacted his old mate, Domenic Morabito. Telling him that he needed as much red p as he could get his hands on, because his guys were going to be “…cooking tons of it…”, he took Morabito up on his previous offers.
It was on the afternoon of January 4th, 1996, when at last, a tin containing half a kilo of red phosphorous was delivered to a hotel where it was collected by an associate of Domenic Perre. Later that day, Perre and Pahia stood in the lab as Perre opened up the tin.
Perre: This is the stuff they tried to find. Well, I hope they don’t come here then. I fucked them last time, and I’ll fuck them again.
The cook commenced after months of diversions. At 8.01am on the morning of January 5th, 1996, a series of raids occurred at several Adelaide homes and the Angle Vale drug lab. Police seized half a kilo of amphetamines from the lab, as well as retrieving chemicals required to make an estimated $40 million worth of drugs. Police arrested the following people in connection to the drug lab:
- Domenic Perre
- Saverio Catanzariti
- Frank Carbone
- Francesco Trimboli
- Antonio Trimboli
- Saverio Trimboli
All the arrested men would front court later that day and Perre, Catanzariti and Frank Carbone were remanded in custody. Carbone would wrangle his way out of custody, able to prove beyond doubt that days he’d been alleged to be in company with the crew hadn’t actually occurred.
THE END
After a protracted legal battle that saw Perre arguing entrapment and conspiracy against him, he eventually exhausted all his options for defence and appeal. On July 18th, 1997, Perre was sentenced in the Adelaide Magistrate Court to six years imprisonment for his role in the attempted amphetamine operation, which was to be served concurrently with a nine-and-a-half-year sentence for other drug charges. Ironically, it was the investigation started by Geoffrey Bowen that eventually brought Perre down. He would be released in 2001 after serving his five-year non-parole period. When Perre fronted media on this occasion, it was a different man from the smirking figure in the dark glasses seen previously. He had aged considerably, had a bit more weight around the middle and looked tired and haggard. It had been a long process that had gotten him to this point, but he had been jailed for the crimes he had committed. While he had been in jail, the South Australian Coroners Court had launched an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Bowen’s death.
After serving his time for the drug charges, Perre returned to his family, fading into a level of obscurity he could obtain. Years passed, and his family, following the tradition of latter-generational “gentrification”, made use of their education and became lawyers and other such professionals. It must have come to a shock to the family when in on March 1st, 2018, Domenic Perre was arrested by SAPOL and formally charged with the murder of Geoffrey Bowen. It had followed a two-year operation conducted by SAPOL, Forensic Science SA and ACIC. In 2015, the agencies had re-opened the investigation into the murder at the NCA building in 1994. Codenamed Taskforce Cornus, Perre was the only suspect, and he was duly arrested and again remanded in custody. This time it was a very different Domenic Perre fronting the media. Aged by the years, bald, haggard, and confined to a wheelchair, this time an ill-looking and tired Perre refused to engage with the media throng altogether.
When the case came to trial in 2021, Perre was represented by a legal team that included his son, Anthony Perre. The prosecution called 170 witnesses, including the former undercover operatives that had ensnared him in the drug plot. They also entered well over 300 exhibits into evidence. The defence called no witnesses but focused their defence on blaming other, unnamed alleged ‘ndranghetista as culprits, likely Bruno the Fox. It was ultimately of no account.
On June 30th, 2020, the verdicts were announced; Perre was found guilty and was sentenced to a non-parole period of 37 years, essentially constituting life in prison for the aged and ill man. He was 66 years old.
On May 8th, 2023, just 213 days after his conviction, Perre was transported from the Yatala Prison infirmary to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he passed away at approximately 11pm that night. His death was met with a savage barrage of attacks on his character, which caused some level of distress to his family.
Regardless of his past crimes, which were no doubt nefarious, all that remained now was a family in mourning, and the chapter of the NCA bombing closed with the death of Domenic Perre.
Mafia in Australia 