ADELAIDE ‘NDRANGHETA: THE NCA BOMBING
THE MAFIA IN ADELAIDE
OF the estimated 400,000 Italian migrants arriving over the post-war decades, by 1960 30,000 had settled in Adelaide. Of course followed ‘ndranghetisti. South Australia’s luscious farmland and potential attracted a population and there were a handful of Calabrian men that extorted from the others. As the farmers settled in the countryside, so did the gangsters there do their own business. The particular route between Greater Adelaide and Mildura was key and the farming of market produce as per usual became the backbone around which all the other schemes could revolve. 1970s, the Adelaide Advertiser ran a series of articles on “La ‘Onarata” or mafia/black-hand activities, but there had been a presence already established for decades. The Brown Report cites one Giuseppe Rullo as the “boss” of the Mildura ‘ndrine during the war years and one of the three top bosses in South Australia. Another was Carmine Alvaro, who had arrived in Adelaide from Sinopoli in 1924. He had three sons, Paolo, Giuseppe and Cosimo Alvaro. The four of them would build the Sinopolese groups similar to those that were active in the Western Sydney suburbs and Canberra.
One interesting throwback that came to police attention in the mid 1960s was the discovery of one Giuseppe Parisi living in Adelaide, associating with suspected mafiosi and active in the local rackets. This would in fact turn out to be the very same Giuseppe Parisi who had been one of the leading figures in the crew of Calabrians who had been extorting farmers in Northern Queensland during the 1930s, an associate of Vincenzo D’Agostino and Giuseppe Mammone. Parisi had been deported in 1934; evidently he had found his way back to Australia and had found a new part of the country to ply his trade.
In any case, another one of the top figures in South Australia was Bruno “The Fox” Romeo, one of the most storied Australian ‘ndranghetista who was active in organised crime for over 50 years. Born 18 May,1929 in Plati, Bruno and his wife Nazzarena Perre would arrive in Australia in 1951, processed in the largest migrant reception centre in the country, located in Bonegilla, Victora. He would spend some time in Griffith before moving through Mildura to Adelaide. Bruno’s cousin Raffaele Romeo would succeed Rullo in the Mildura/Adelaide ‘ndrine. Police at the time believed Raffaele was also related to Paolo Romeo, who had come under police scrutiny for his role as an active member of a neo-fascist party in Italy. Paolo had also settled in the Mildura area.
By the 1960s. the Brown Report detailed Bruno Romeo role as a top-echelon ‘ndranghetista who was said to be greatly feared by the Italian communities across South Australia and rural Victoria. The declassified ASIO files now held at the National Archives of Australia spend several pages detailing the man called “Il Volpe”. It outlines a number of occasions where Romeo would display his ruthless streak and it is from these files that most of the oft-repeated stories involving his early years were first documented. One incident reported an occasion where Romeo had ripped up over one thousand tomato plants when one local farmer, only named as Caruso, had crossed him. In 1963, Caruso’s cousin, a farmer named Giuseppe Molina had balked at paying Romeo his produce tax. He woke one night to a section of his house lit on fire; luckily it was small and burned out. Molina had been sleeping in the house with his wife and daughters.
Other rackets involved the illegal trading of fox skins between Tasmania and Victoria. Romeo extorted his way across all the mainland states and eventually followed the Plati Group’s method of moving into the drug trade to reap its astronomical profits. Throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, he funded over 100 cannabis crops across nearly every state. In later years he and his family would form connections to figures in the heroin, amphetamine and cocaine trades. The Romeo family would also make moves to a acquire propriety companies to funnel profits through, which was the foundation of Harbrick Pty. Ltd.
By the end of the 1970s, however, The Fox and his three sons were deeply entrenched in crop operations that were beginning to come to the attention of police across three states and the NCA. His eldest son Domenic would be named in the Woodward Royal Commission in connection to a crop of 10,000 plants discovered in 1976 at Loxton, in the Riverlands of rural South Australia. Justice Woodward would note the fact that Domenico was married to Joesphine Sergi, one of Giuseppe Sergi’s seven daughters who were instrumental in solidifying clan connections across Australia. One of Romeo’s own daughters, Caterina, would marry one of “Old Joe” Sergi’s sons, Giuseppe, thereby forging even more solid links to the Sergi clans. Domenico would be sentenced to two years in 1977, but by 1980 had already been arrested with five others over a crop of 15,000 plants discovered at Myponga, a small town 53 kilometres south of Adelaide. Arrested alongside him at that time was Sebastiano Giorgi, who would go on to serve as the director of Harbrick Pty. Ltd., the Romeo family firm used for property acquisition and money-laundering in the 1990s. Giorgi would be sentenced to two years prison, while Domenico would receive a five-year sentence.
Further activities from the sons of Bruno the Fox would come under his aegis and all seemed to have the same modus operandi; grow large amounts of weed, and sell it in bulk for massive profits. Besides the Loxton crop Justice Woodward would refer to, Domenic Romeo, also called “Mick”, would be charged for his role in a crop of 15,000 plants discovered at Myponga, in rural South Australia in 1980.
Bruno Romeo would be arrested in 1988 for operating a crop of 30,000 plants at a remote sheep-station at Mt. Magnet, approximately 500 kilometres north of Perth, as well as a series of other crops, including ones grown at farming property at Gin-Gin in the Perth hinterlands. Further charges were laid after police seized 200kg of cannabis found on hand. While on bail however, Romeo would disappear before the trial began, and a warrant for his arrest would be issued in July of 1990.
Among the other men arrested were Sebastiano Pizzata, a 25 year old man who had been arrested alongside his brother-in-law, also named Sebastiano, his two cousins named Antonio and Antonio Paolo, as well as Ferdinando Morabito, Paolo Ficara, Francesco Trimboli and Rocco Versace. When police searched the home that the 25 year old Sebastiano shared with his parents, they found a notebook containing a series of names and telephone numbers in his room. Among these contacts was a telephone number that was one found to belong to Pasquale Barbaro, aka :Il Principale”, the leading Canberra ‘ndranghetisti who would later become known as a collaborator.
When Pasquale Barbaro was giving open statements to the QPS, he had to say of Romeo;
“…he’s never been locked up and he pays a lot of money for protection…he never takes any risks himself, always has other people take the risks for him…”
Such was the case that people were willing to go to jail for him rather than speak to police. In 1981, groups of the Sergi and Romeo clans in Shepparton organised a grow. The Katunga Crop was raided by Victorian Police who arrested several persons, including Antonio Perre, Francesco and Francesca Perre, Frances Sergi and brothers Giuseppe, Pasquale and Antonio Sergi. Eventually, police would look at Romeo’s three sons, Bruno Lee (born 1956), Giuseppe (born 1954) and Domenico Romeo (born 1951), who by this stage all had convictions for growing large-scale cannabis crops. However, Antonio Perre quickly put his hand up and took full responsibility for the grow. A cousin through his wife’s family, Antonio Perre and the Sergi brothers of Shepparton were sentenced to seven years in custody.
Part of the articles published by the Advertiser would name the so-called “Seven Cells of Adelaide”, a misunderstanding of structural positioning but naming several of the most prominent ‘ndrangheta clans. Grouping them by their affiliations, these were the Sergi, Barbaro and Trimboli clans, the Nirta and Alvaro clans and the Romeo and Perre families. This list can sometimes lead to the incorrect assumption that only individuals with those last names were involved in the Calabrian rackets. A memorandum being shared amongst the state CIBs referenced information gleaned from a secret informant. It named a number of individuals identified by the informant as close associates of Romeo in the market extortion racket; figures such as Diego Scambiatterra of Adelaide, Felice Cua, Don D’Anna, Francesco Cufari and the Tassone brothers Giuseppe and Raffaele of Mildura. The memorandum also named figures based in Melbourne and rural areas of New South Wales as associates of Romeo. These memorandums, however, had been gathered during the 1960s, when Australian authorities had first focused attention on ‘nrdrangheta activities.
The files were comprised of the reports that had been put together with the Cusack and Macera Reports. The files were also comprised of information gathered by Agent Colin Brown, when ASIO had first taken serious looks at Calabrian organised crime networks.
With the information on hand out-dated by several decades, the spate of the so-called “King Crops” of weed had piqued the interest of police around the country. When Operation Cerberus was launched in November of 1990, it was a massive undertaking that involved eight national organisations, including the ABCI, NCA and AFP, the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, the Australian Customs Service and every state police service in Australia. A Taskforce was formed with a mandate to investigate the Calabrian organised crime groups and the role played by the ‘ndrangheta in Australia’s drug trade.
Over 150 operations were conducted which resulted in nearly 300 people being charged with drug offences. Massive quantities of marijuana and amphetamines were seized, along with nearly $6 million in assets and about $12 million in unpaid taxes that the ATO would attempt to recover. It was a massive undertaking. When the operation concluded, it released its findings in a 13 page report that, while an exercise in semantics*, concluded that there was ample evidence that “Italo-Australia organised crime groups” were operating around the country and were deeply entrenched in a number of legitimate industries.
*Curiously, the report declined to admit to any actual mafia or ‘ndrangheta groups in the Italian sense were active in Australia. Instead, it chose to refer to the ‘ndrangheta clans as Italo-Australian crime groups. This, at least, gave the relevant authorities the ability to claim there was “no mafia in Australia”. Just a massive network of the afore-mentioned groups.
None the less, Operation Cerberus was a success, which uncovered many aspects of the criminal sub-culture the Calabrian mafiosi operated under. It was investigators working as part of Operation Cerberus that had begun to pick at Bruno Romeo’s business dealings. It brought him and his family greater scrutiny, and after he had skipped bail, WA Police failed to find him for another two years.
The NCA would form a specific taskforce to root out Romeo in an investigation that would involve every state police service and Interpol. The NCA froze his assets, which included several million dollar properties in Adelaide and Queensland’s Gold Coast. Put under immense financial strain, the Fox none-the-less managed to evade investigators. It took intense efforts on behalf of Taskforce Rottweiler to locate him and detectives would search for him across a network of suspected safe-houses across South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. They got their break when an informant told them that Romeo’s wife Nazzarena had been spotted attending a medical centre in Brisbane. They swooped on the practice and put it under surveillance in December of 1992. She was observed attending a follow-up appointment, which allowed the NCA officers to now place Mrs Romeo under surveillance. When the appointment was over, they followed her to a bus station where an officer was able to follow her onto a bus headed just over the border to Lismore, a town in far northern New South Wales about a four hour journey from Brisbane. When she got off the bus, police observed her being collected by a man in a white utility vehicle, which they were able to trail to a remote property close to Nimbin, the town regarded as Australia’s number one destination for hippies and alternative lifestyles. With the aid of police dogs, the officers searched the property and literally caught The Fox red-handed, attending to a crop of over 400 plants by himself. AS the officers descended on him, he reportedly fell to his knees and vomited.
Police escorted the dirty and scraggly mafia boss worth millions to a Gold Coast police station, where his extradition to Western Australia was granted. He went before the courts in June of 1993 and was committed to trial for his role in the Mt. Magnet crop. During his subsequent trial, the court heard that Romeo had attempted to arrange the murders of two crown witnesses, who testified about how Romeo had essentially forced them to allow their properties to be used to grow crops. One of the witnesses described how Romeo had given him $130,000 for a property in 1986, a property being sold for $172,000. The witness detailed how he had paid the balance with an agreement that he could own the property if he allowed Romeo to grow a crop on it. After it was harvested however, Romeo had informed the witness that he was keeping the property and would continue to use it as a crop-site. The witness would go on to claim that Romeo had subsequently attempted to extort him for the $170,000 and would later threaten to kill him if he did not raise the money for Romeo.
For his part, Bruno the Fox would eventually plead guilty to three counts of cultivating cannabis with intent to sell, as well as a single count of conspiracy to cultivate cannabis. He was only charged over the Mt. Magnet crops, never facing any charges for the Lismore crop he had been caught at. Romeo, sporting an eye-patch, unkempt facial hair and confined to a wheelchair, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. For now, the Fox was cornered. In a series of articles for the Canberra Times that covered Romeo’s time on the run and subsequent arrest, veteran reporter Robyn Cash made an interesting note; during the 1970s and 80s, that ubiquitous mobster from Griffith named Aussie Bob often went by the alias “Bruno”. Looking back, it would seem as if numerous grows attributed to ”Bruno” could have actually been operations funded by Romeo. But at the time, Trimbole was the “face” of the Australian mafia and managed to reap even more credit than was really due to him. But for now, with Romeo behind bars and Aussie Bob Trimbole a long time dead and bloated corpse, it was figures on the periphery who continued the criminal endeavours that Bruno the Fox had been doing for decades.
SINS OF THE FATHER; SINS OF THE SONS
As for his one Italian and two Australian born sons, they would forge their own schemes, but formed them under the aegis and authority of their father, who had become one of the most senior ranking ‘ndranghetisti in Australia. They operated their own ‘ndrine, but always carried the Romeo “brand” made so recognisable by their father.
After the crops at Loxton and Myponga, Mick Romeo had been sentenced to five years in jail for the latter. While he was inside, his younger brother Joe would be arrested for being in possession of 75kg of weed.
Joe would also face charges relating to heroin trafficking in 1984. He had allegedly supplied the drug to an undercover cop by means of a courier sent to Port Adelaid. He received a seven year sentence for this scheme. In March of 1990, Joe was arrested in connection to a crop discovered near the small NSW town of Cobar. The case went to trial on 13 July, 1994. He pled guilty to taking part in the cultivation of a crop of nearly 4000 plants throughout 1990 and 1991. He was also identified in court as one of its main financiers and organisers. He would face trial with a group of Calabrian associates, Antonio Rizzotto, of Sydney, and Antonio Calabria and Rocco Prochilo, both who resided near Griffith, as well as two South Australian men, Frank Barbaro and Ralph Esposito. Also arrested was Rocco Esposito, an Italian national visiting Australia on a tourist visa and a nephew to Antonio. Only Prochilo would be acquitted, Rizzotto and Calabria were found guilty after fighting the charges and all the men were jailed for sentences between three to five years. Joe Romeo would be enter his guilty plea two days before his father would be sent to prison. Rizzotto, identified in Cerberus documents as a senior ‘ndranghetisti of Sydney heavily involved in heropin trafficking, was also known as an associate of Bruno Romeo. His arrest here illustrates the links between the various ‘ndrine operating across the country.
The youngest son, Bruno Lee Romeo, would also follow the lead in his family’s business, and in 1985 was charged for the cultivation of a crop of 4000 plants at Mt. Magnet, an old gold mining town in the Mid West region of Western Australia. In 1987, Bruno Lee would receive a sentence of eight and half years for his role in the crop.
In 1981, Bruno’s son-in-law Joe Sergi, who had married his daughter Caterina, was been arrested with his brothers Pasquale and Antonio and his cousin Antonio Perre over a massive operation that ranged across three farm growing crops around the Goulbourn Valley, the first at the rural Victorian town of Strathmerton and the other two in Katunga, in the northern reaches of Victoria. This was of note because police had also arrested Romeo’s wife, Nazzarena and his daughter Caterina in the raids, although they were later released without charge. Police seized nearly six tonnes of marijuana, which had been weighed up and divided into sealed bags, ready to be shipped for sale. In March of 1982, after the charges had gone to trial, Joe Sergi would receive a five year sentence, with his three co-conspirators receiving seven years each. The presiding judge had made comments in his final submissions that indicated his belief that the men charged were fearful of revealing their links to “…the [operations] real instigator…”, in this case, Bruno the Fox Romeo. These men were willing to go to jail rather than rat out Romeo.
The mid-1990s would see the fledgling beginnings of the links between the Calabrian suppliers and the Outlaw Motorcycle Group distribution networks. The Romeo clan would from connections to the Hells Angels Adelaide Chapters, and the Gypsy Joker Chapters in Perth. This would begin the relationships still apparent to this day, where Calabrian organisers and fixers arrange the bulk-sales of narcotics to OMCGs.
By the late-1990s, a shift in production methods was becoming apparent; a SAPOL operation investigating retailers selling hydroponic equipment would see a boom in growth. In Adelaide, the number of these retail outlets would grow from three in 1990 to nearly a hundred in 2001. The investigation would find that nearly a quarter of that number were directly linked to Calabrian organised crime groups.
In 2001, Bruno Lee and his older brother Joe were arrested in connection to a amphetamine racket that oversaw both production and distribution of the drug. The venture was based on Queensland’s Gold Coast and supplied speed to contacts across the eastern-seaboard to South Australia, with a reach as far as Western Australia. The Romeo family’s main partner in this endeavour was Francesco aka Fat Frank Barbaro.
Fat Frank was descended from the Barbaro branch originally based in Canberra, who had come to prominence in the 1980s, when his uncles became involved in the infamous Coleambally crops, being swept up in Operation Seville. Fat Frank, obviously nicknamed for his girthy frame at 200kg, was the second eldest son of Pasquale Barbaro, aka Il Principal, the former Canberra clan boss who had given interviews to the NCA and Queensland Police before his 1991 murder in the south Brisbane suburbs.
Fat Frank was neck-deep in the drug trade, and through him were other important links to the OMCG worlds; he was close with Arthur Loveday, the infamous Bandido armed-robber, standover man and convicted murderer, who had been named National President of the Bandidos in 1996, following a formal pardon in 1992 after he and two others had murdered a former rival at Parramatta Correctional Centre in 1981. When Loveday married into the Vella family, he forged important links to the Rebels OMCG, the largest biker club in Australia. He had wed Catherine Vella in 1998; her cousin, Alex Vella, was at the time the National President of the Rebels. Loveday named Fat Frank Barbaro godfather to his children, and cemented the links between the various OMCGs and several important ‘ndrangheta clans, including the Barbaro, Sergi and of course, the Romeo clan.
Every reference to Fat Frank Barbaro in the Cerberus files makes notes his obsession with old-world notions of respect and honour. He is recounted as being obsessed with ritual and demands of deference, often using the excuse of disrespect and violation of his honour as a standover method. It is noted that during the 1990s, Barbaro travelled extensively between all the major capitals of the country, ensuring the bonds between the OMCGs and the ‘ndranghetisti were solid.
While “The Fox” was in jail, in 1997 another colourful chapter of his life was opened to the public. During a dispute relating to the assets of then deceased INXS Michael Hutchence, it was shown in company papers that the firm in control of said assets, a conglomerate named Nexcess with its own chequered past, had loaned Harbrick Pty. Ltd. $270,000 in 1994, in order to purchase a bowling alley in Labrador, on Queensland’s Golf Coast which had previously been owned by the Romeo clan. The document had been signed by Domenic and Bruno Lee Romeo, and the accountant in the middle of it all, a controversy ridden man named Alford Ebbage, would later be ordered to pay a small settlement in 2001, when the case was discontinued with no charges pending.
On October 30th, 2016, reports emerged that Bruno Romeo had died at his home in Rostrevor, in the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide. He died at the age of 87, survived by his wife and three sons. His death closed a massive chapter in the history of the Australian ‘ndrangheta, as one of the most storied and feared figures to ever operated in the country. Since his humble beginnings terrorising farmers and standing over market merchants, he had overseen the growth of a massive drug empire that had brought in millions over several decades. Reports made mention of authorities being on notice for an expected influx of ‘ndranghetisti from around the country, expected to attend his funeral. He had been close to the Sergi family, not only through his daughters marriage to Joe, but through is close relationship to Dominic “Little Mick” Sergi, the man who had represented Australia at a meeting in Calabria with several notorious mobsters in July of 1990, and considered one of the most senior figures of the Plati Group. His funeral was said to be have been attended by figures from Griffith, Perth and Adelaide.
The family legacy lives on following the death of the man known as “The Fox”. In January of 2020, a joint-agency taskforce named Operation Jackfish targeting Bruno’s middle son Joe saw him charged in relation to a well organised scheme involving a string of grow-housed across the Adelaide suburbs where crops of hydroponic weed set-ups were harvested and packaged, with the intent to distribute across South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The operation had grown out of a 2016 meeting where Joe Romeo had recruited an associate named Basil Contos in the scheme to traffic the high-grade cannabis across the country via freight cargo and couriers. After the drugs had been sold, Contas would deposit carefully decided sums into bank accounts controlled by Romeo, and would also regularly send large amounts of cash back to Adelaide, where a female accomplice of Romeo’s would collect the packages of cash from delivery platforms at Adelaide bus stations. The operation ran without a hitch until 2018, when SAPOL officers received information about Romeo’s business arrangements. For three months, every conversation and interaction was either recorded or under surveillance. A co-ordinated series of raids conducted across Adelaide and Darwin in March 2018 seized 9kg of cannabis and over $70,000 in cash.
When his associates rolled on him, Romeo pled guilty when the case went to trial. He would admit to receiving nearly $2 million in cash and shipping over 300kg of cannabis over a twenty-one-month period. He was sentenced on January 20th, 2020 in the Northern Territory courts, where he received a nine year sentence with a non-parole period of six years, with the judge taking his guilty plea into account. Joe Romeo would apply for a transfer to a South Australian prison, so he could be closer to his family. By this point, his elderly mother Nazzarena was sick, and he wanted to be closer to her.
In the years that followed, the world would witness the historic bust that swept in criminals from all over the world, in the massive sting known as Operation Ironside. Amongst the numerous arrests includes a list of names of those arrested in South Australia in connection to the now-infamous ANOM app sting; Francesco Nirta, aged 51 of Hawthorn. Silvio Molinara, aged 54 of Stirling. Rocco Portolesi, aged 40 of Henley Beach. And Francesco Romeo, aged 49 of Ingle Farm. As each of the Operation Ironside cases continue to wind through the courts, the Romeo clan continues to operate across Australia.
Mafia in Australia 