UNDER PRESSURE, UNDER COVER
The “test” came when in early February, Rosario Trimboli had been experiencing some issues renewing his driver’s licence for Victoria. He had asked to use Cole Goodwin’s address on the renewal form to get it sent there. Cole, of course, acquiesced. Shortly later, Ross Trimbole’s new licence was delivered to the Melbourne apartment. On February 24th, 1994, McLaren and Marrett were invited to Griffith to drop off the licence, as well as attend a party Antonio was hosting. The undercover cops started the six-hour journey early in the morning. McLaren focused on going over every single aspect of the operation as it stood. Marrett himself admits to being somewhat nonchalant regarding possible risks.
When they arrived, the pair learned that the Griffith crew had booked accommodation for their “friends” at the Astra Motel, a small but neat building on Banna Street, Griffith. This was odd; it was the first time their Griffith-based friends had organised something like this on their behalf. But it was accepted in stride; Tony Romeo was throwing a party, after all.
They entered their rooms and unpacked. McLaren later recounted how his co-operative’s attitude towards the targets was becoming tiresome and frustrating to him. Even Marrett admits to “…being a smart-arse…”, making pointed jokes about the intelligence of the Griffith crew and making fun of their fashion sense. This set McLaren on edge, but he dealt with the situation with typical calmness and self-control, ignoring Marrett’s jokes. It wasn’t until he received a call from one of his handlers that McLaren snapped at Marrett. Vito the translator had apparently heard that their arrival at the motel had begun a flurry of calls between the targets, especially Rosario and Antonio. A recounted conversation caught on a wiretap involved discussions on whether these “brothers” might be informants. More alarmingly, Vito advised McLaren that there was actually a listening device concealed in the motels main room.
McLaren took a rough hold of Marrett just as the latter was cracking another joke about their “greasy wog mates”. A stunned Marrett went silent as McLaren pulled him violently close enough to whisper; “…shut the fuck up. They’re listening to us…”.
A stunned Marrett perhaps finally conceded that stakes were higher than he’d first assumed with the Griffith crew. After a few moments reflecting on the situation, Ben “sobered up” and loudly conceded that Tony and Ross were, in fact, great connections to have. The pair were now muttering on how their Calabrian mates had done them a solid with the accommodation, and they discussed the “plan” to move all the weed and turn the $20k they still had with them into $40k. The rest of the conversation outlined how they stood to make a lot of money with the group, now that Cole had been able to source a pilot, an old mate named “Ziggy”. Ben assented, and the brothers to nap in preparation for the party Ross and Tony had put on for the pair.
Later that evening, Ross and Rocco collected the brothers for their dinner invitation. The pair were ferried to a restaurant Antonio Romeo apparently co-owned; he had a piece of several legitimate endeavours, a journeyman of taxable investments. Cole and Ben were greeted by the extended crew of cousins and brothers. Both Rocco “Fifi” Romeo and Rocco “Roy, aka Little Rocco” Trimbole were there, joined by Rosario “Ross, aka Aussie Ross” and his Melbourne-based cousin Domenic “Aussie Dom” Trimboli. A few others previously unknown were present, a couple more Romeo and Trimboli but also a couple Sergi, Taliano and Barbaro that were in the restaurant that night.
Marrett sat next to Domenic and introduced himself in his usual flippant, but friendly, manner. McLaren recounts a certain “cool” atmosphere at the start of this dinner party, where they felt like there were one hundred eyes on them. They went in confidently, comforted by the ease that getting the premises swarmed by 50 taskforce cops and SERT teams if required was only ever a phone-call away. It was however the ‘90s, so the phone McLaren lugged around was their Erickson Twist-style mobile phones, brick-like phone receivers. Also loaded up with the ability bug conversations and stay in touch with their handlers.
Soon McLaren was in deep conversation and Marrett was successfully getting some laughs from the group down the other end of the table. The brothers were split up, Cole up with Ross and Ben with the cousins. He settled in as he was properly introduced to the people at the table he had not yet met. He also accepted a beer and started chatting with the group.
In fact, Marrett had not yet met the leader of this ‘ndrina, Antonio “Tony” Romeo. It was the better part of an hour before Romeo made his entrance and sat at the head of the table with his nineteen-year-old girlfriend. McLaren properly introduced Tony to “Brother Ben”, who’s charming manner and third beer had already managed to win over the crew. Tony was the capo of the cell with Ross acting as mastro/right-hand or street-boss.
It was a night spent enjoying a hearty Calabrian meal over several hours and several bottles of wine, beers and spirits. The phone buzz in his pocket induced McLaren to excuse himself to use the bathroom. Ben chatted with Tony and Ross.
The police handlers had learned that while the pair were at the restaurant, their handlers had observed someone entering their room, obviously searching it for anything that would suggest the pair were not what they were claiming to be. This actually had the effect of calming McLaren, who knew how thorough his team was with their documentation and effects; there was nothing in the room that would imply Cole Goodwin was anything but a half-crooked art-dealer visiting Griffith with his smart-arsed little brother, who had a penchant for dealing dope. The operatives were confident in each other’s ability to stick to their cover story.
McLaren returned to the table and made the diversion. He rejoined the table and ate the pub meal on offer. The pair relaxed into the meal, chatting with Tony, Ross, and their cousins. Every time one of the brothers mentioned drugs, they were shushed and told that that part would be discussed later. For now, they eat and they laugh. They eventually returned to their motel later that night, conscious of the fact that their belongings had been rifled through but refusing to acknowledge anything out loud. The next month kept the operatives on their toes.
As their team of handlers surveyed the Griffith groups phone calls and locations, it became obvious that the group had taken to following the operatives as they went about their undercover lives in Melbourne. Countless cousins, nephews, and brothers. Their cover was impeccable, though. Any searches would turn up little but official IDs identifying the pair and their socks, jocks, and clothing. Also, there was the $20k cash in the blue Adidas duffle-bag. The pair pretended not to notice that their accommodation was being rifled through. For their part, the handlers reported no other pressing concerns going on over the phones.
Finally, around the 20th to the 22nd of March, the brothers were invited back to Griffith for another meeting. This time, the pair were invited to the palatial estate that was the home of Tony Romeo and his family, located at Hanwood, a suburb just outside of Griffith. The meeting was arranged around a family barbecue, and the pair were given a tour of the gardens, the acres of farmland and the local homesteads. Apparently, they also visited Tony’s father-in-law, Giovanni Sergi’s house on one occasion.
The atmosphere was friendlier now. The pair seemed to be getting closer to the inner workings of the ‘ndrina, as well as on better terms. In his recollection, Marrett describes Rosario telling him to take a walk with him. There was something he wanted to show Ben. He walked him away from Cole. They followed a path that meandered through-out Romeo’s citrus orchid. Marrett described as they walked further and further away from the main party, as well as Marrett’s partner. McLaren was the one with the phone to call for back-up after all. In his memoir, he describes intrusive thoughts suggesting that Ross could have a weapon, and he was being led away for execution.
They got to the end of the path, and Rosario told Marrett to kneel and look. Marret recounts a flash of fear at this moment, wondering if Rosario was about to put a bullet behind his ear. He knelt, looking between some trees. He finally glanced what he had been taken to see; three large garbage bags, stuffed with buds.
“…twelve pounds, Brother Ben. Like we said. Are you okay to drive it back to Melbourne?” Of course Marrett was, and later that day the grass was loaded into their car’s boot, along with baskets of oranges, peaches, olive oil and wine. The dope was received back in Melbourne and finally, the operatives were starting to build a proper case.
POPPERSH AND WEIRD SCHECKS
The last test would come just a few days later, the brothers were back with more marked cash. On the March 25th, the brothers were invited to a party hosted by Ross in a Griffith hotel room. It seemed an odd choice for a party, but it was soon apparent that there was a method to the Griffith crew’s actions. The party was attended by all the men involved, and it was abundantly clear that the pair were heavily outnumbered. As they talked shit with their usual crew, Tony and Ross greeted two prostitutes at the door to the party. There was an amount of cocaine on the table, laid out on a plate with a straw and business card. The crew dissipated as Tony Romeo himself stood outside on the balcony, casting an odd glare towards Cole and Ben. Trimbole was standing next to him as Romeo whispered in his ear. Rosario nodded and walked towards the brothers, introducing the girls to the brothers, now that all the cousins and other family had begun to leave the hotel-room.
“It’s a gift for you boys! Enjoy yourselves!”
As Tony smiled at the operatives, the Griffith crew filed out, leaving only the brothers, the prostitutes and the cocaine. As soon as all the Griffith crew had left, the sex-workers began engaging the pair, striking up conversations and offering them cocaine as the girls themselves both snorted up large racks. After some time spent doing coke with these working girls, each brother retired to his room with one of them. They then reportedly had sex with the prostitutes and possibly ingested more cocaine. It was deemed as too big a risk to not partake of the “party” that had been thrown for them. It was obvious that Romeo’s crew was testing them and they decided to lean on the relevant legislature to justify the risk of having their cover broken. It didn’t help that the girls had been obviously insistent on the pair sampling the cocaine Tony could get them, as well as peppering each with thinly disguised questions digging into their relevant backstories.
Much would be made of this event in later court dates. The operatives were obviously at risk of blowing their cover and over a year’s work in infiltrating the cell if they couldn’t pass this test. As both men would later recount, they had sex with the prostitutes and chatted with them as they ingested the cocaine. This was the final test Tony Romeo and Ross Trimbole had for the pair. Operating under the assumption that police were strictly forbidden from engaging in certain acts, and that by ingesting the drugs they had proven themselves as implicit in the criminal scheme.
Obviously unbeknownst to Romeo was the relevant legislation in place for Covert Police Operations in both New South Wales and Victoria. Rigorously updated, these laws recognised the risks involved in such long-term, deep cover operations, such as this one. It specifically granted officers a measure of freedom when faced with these exact situations. If they had refused the offers, they risked losing their connection to the Romeo-Trimboli ‘ndrina and the insider information relating to drug trafficking that they were gathering. Even more severe was the possibility that they would be killed. So they had more than enough agency to decide that their actions were necessary. For their part, the handlers had noticed Domenic Trimboli acting suspiciously around the apartments, and they suspected the group of possibly planting more recording devices.
This was the watershed moment in the operation, however. The pair “enjoyed” the party that had been put on by their friends. All night, the girls peppered the brothers with questions, trying to get them tripped up over their stories. The officers held down their cover remarkably well, given the circumstances.
When the morning came, Cole and Ben would awaken to sleeping ladies, and decided to go to the hotel’s restaurant for a large, greasy breakfast to help recover from the previous night. When they got back to their room, they noticed the door was sitting ajar. When they entered, they caught Roy Trimbole quickly standing up from a position near the small bar fridge. He had been kneeling there while he was recovering something, and as he stood quickly and warmly greeted the pair, he surreptitiously placed something in his pocket. It was obviously a listening device that had recorded some of the events of the night before. When Roy explained that he had been filling their bar-fridge with beer, they didn’t challenge They chatted briefly, asking Roy what the plan was for the day. Roy Trimboli responded by informing the pair that “…Antonio wants to talk about the plane now.”
Within the hour, Rosario arrived with Fifi Romeo and Domenic Trimboli. Antonio Romeo would arrive last, also the one to pick up the girls. He took them outside and the three chatted quietly for a period. Eventually, he organised a taxi for the girls and gave them a wad of cash for their services. Eventually, Romeo returned to the living room with the brothers. His demeanour was notably warm. The operatives had successfully jumped the final hurdle, and now Romeo, Trimbole and their cousins alike seemed once again warm towards the pair. After all, what sort of copper snorts coke and bangs prostitutes, right?
Unspoken at the time was the significant trauma this event had caused these two police men. The girls had asked so many questions that night, and between the drugs and the sex there would be a lasting effect on the psyches of McLaren and Marrett both. There was also a considerable level of blow-back from senior level police, and they suffered the scorn of the office Superintendents and Inspectors. With the legislation on their side, however, there were also squad commanders vouching for the operation. Still, there were lingering resentments between how they were treated and how there was no after-support from the police services that acknowledged the traumas from that night. As McLaren bitterly recounts in his book, “…I only wished those criticising could have been in our shoes that night.”
This is the point in the operation that McLaren would later imply Marrett lost his nerve. McLaren would explain, in his writings and podcasting, that as they went forward, Marret fell into a bad mental space and became somewhat of a burden. In his own memoir, Marret very much accepts that the events of that night combined, with the intensity of the operation, had caused him a mental health crisis characterised as anxiety and depression. Marrett resents being left to deal with his mental health issues alone, without any support from police services. At this point, however, Marrett claims that he was still very much committed to his role, compartmentalising his poor mental health for now, and worked on actively gaining more rapport with the Griffith crew, particularly Rosario Trimboli.
McLaren had begun trying to isolate Marrett from certain meetings and activities; he recounts a time where the group were studying nautical maps of Cape York and the islands of the Torres Strait for their flight path. McLaren sent Marrett on an errand to buy some beer for the group. This became a typical scenario, being made an errand boy, which Marret would very much resent. What’s clear is that whatever friendship there had been between the pair was broken; in later years, their differing accounts would clearly indicate a level of resentment each officer held towards his partner, and the police service. Many things still clearly seem left unresolved.
But for now, they were focused on finishing up the operation. With this newly gained level of trust, they were finally accepted into the inner circle, proper. Cole, tasked with finding a pilot for the drug-import plan, had managed to recruit his pilot mate Ziggy, who was ready to fly at a few days’ notice. The plan was moving to its conclusion.
THE PLANE, THE DOPE & THE COPS
The group started to firm up on the plan to import a tonne of weed from PNG. Sergi family relative was husband Pat Agresta, married to one of Winery Tony Sergi’s sisters. He was also a prime investor in the import scheme, alongside Tony Romeo and Ross Trimboli. It was known that crews of the Calabrian clans regularly smuggled in tonnes of drugs on illegal black-flight import schemes, depositing shipments at countless random off-chart landing strips. Cole had finally managed to track down his pilot mate Ziggy, who was of course another police officer. They were ready to fly.
Unused to working undercover, the fact that Ziggy held a pilot’s licence had placed him as the only candidate who could step into the role on such notice. But their Ziggy was not at all comfortable in his position, as he’d never worked undercover, was in uniform most days. He spent some time growing his hair and beard out and cultivated a detached sort of attention. He was there to fly the plane, not socialise. He’d just finished a flight and had more flights later.
After Antonio Romeo supplied them with $15,000 to be used for the process of hiring out the plane, compensating Ziggy, as well as covering other labour expenses related to the endeavour. The Griffith crew already had the location sorted; Horn Island, called Ngurupai by locals. It was a tiny island in the archipelago of the Torres Strait, a nine-hour flight from Brisbane, but only two-hours from Cairns. McLaren and Ziggy got to work, organising a Piper PA-31 Chieftain Navajo, a fourteen-seater plane with a flight range of 690 Nautical Miles, or about 1200 kilometres.
Victoria Police would remove most of the seats, to ensure there would be room for the planned shipment. The entire plane was also outfitted with recording devices and cameras. For whatever reason, perhaps that there was the noise of a goddamn jet in the background, there was no usable audio recorded. Luckily, the cameras worked fine and would result in several famous surveillance pics of the affair that Marrett and McLaren would use in their respective publications.
The Griffith crew had also been active; they already had the organised use of a private air-strip near Cairns, as well as another private-strip at Cohuna, in Victoria’s rural north, that would be the final destination of as the place where the massive shipment of drugs was to arrive to be distributed throughout Griffith and Melbourne. In an eerie example of coincidence, the day that Col and Ziggy had officially signed out and received the intended aircraft was March 2nd, 1994. The very day that the NCA building in Adelaide had been mail-bombed, with a parcel addressed to Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen rigged with explosives being delivered to his office.
It had exploded in his face, blowing off limbs, scorching skin and inflicting severe facial and chest trauma. The blast also ended up maiming a colleague that had been in the office with Bowen at the time, literally sitting across the desk. Bowen was declared dead during the ambulance ride to the hospital. The colleague would later testify at numerous trials with parts of his face blown off, ugly scars and short an eyeball.
This event would have rattled the undercover operatives. They, however, continued to cultivate the connection, working on the final preparations for what would be a trial run of the scheme to import a planeload of weed from Papua New Guinea.
Late on March 3rd, Marret and Ziggy would begin flying the tiny aircraft up to Cairns from Victoria, stopping to refuel a few times on the fourteen-hour journey.
Meanwhile, by March 4th, McLaren would arrive at Cairns International Airport. There, he would meet Ross Trimboli, who had also met another two friends there. Described by McLaren in his memoir, a “Calabrian tough” implied to be known associate of Sydney ‘ndranghetisti, a man linked to the Sergi-Romeo-Trimboli clans named Ignazio Alfonso.
The other friend was the contact from Papua New Guinea, nicknamed “Harley” by McLaren in his account. Trimbole ordered that no one was to use any of their mobile phones for the next few hours. They all switched off while they undertook the dummy run, and the crew all switched off their phones.
They took a taxi to their privately-owned airstrip, where Ben and Ziggy were making final preparations. As the groups were introduced to each other, an echo of concern flashed through Marret; in his memoir, he recounts the fear that he somehow knew Trimboli’s associate Ignazio from somewhere, but was unable to remember where, how or in what capacity. He describes being unsure whether he knew the man from a previous operation or some other time in his life. That he’d possibly gone to school with Alfonso was even a concerning possibility for Marrett. He even started accepting that his fear could be completely unfounded. In any case, the man’s presence was concerning to him.
Once the group embarked, Ziggy took off, and the crew settled into their two-hour flight. There was silence as they took-off and until the plane reached its low cruising altitude. Marrett cracked a joke, and soon there was chat about their plots and schemes. Marrett had ended up seated directly across from Alfonso. In a quick-thinking attempt to alter his appearance, he loudly declared how fucking hot it was in the aircraft and removed his t-shirt, placing in under his hat so it hung down around his head. Marrett laughs at his “crap disguise” in his book, but it served to put him more at ease with Alfonso.
As the group made their flight, the first hour passed with this quiet chatter. So the operatives began digging a little deeper into Rosario Trimbole. Both operatives later recall Ross as beginning to drop his guard a little around them. They asked how Alfonso knew Trimbole. They were related; Alfonso had married into Ross’s family. He was also regarded as an important business contact and colleague from Sydney’s Western Suburbs.
They pried into the relationship between Romeo and Trimbole. There was the implicit fact that Romeo was in-charge of this operation. In Marret’s view, Trimboli was self-conscious regarding his position with Tony Romeo. Though Romeo operated in a different role, Trimbole insisted that he and Romeo were, in fact, equals in this group, their ‘ndrina. It was these conversations, which both operatives later recalled in sworn statements (as mentioned, listening devices turned out to be mostly useless during the flight).
The conversation offered some insight into the mindset of an Australian ‘ndranghetista. Trimboli spoke about his contacts in Calabria, who supplied him with high-grade cocaine. There was currently a plan to import 100kg of the drug, implying that these arrangements had been priorly successful. These drugs were getting moved through Calabria to Canada, before arriving in Australia. A cousin from Plati was scheduled to visit the country soon.
He spoke about a trip back to Plati, where he had met one of the most senior bosses he knew; high-level members of the Barbaro clan that oversaw the Australian locali. Ross described it as one of the best experiences of his life. McLaren finally asked if Ross, Romeo and his other Calabrian relatives were “the mafia”. Trimboli responded quickly, describing “mafia” as a “…bad word…”, that no one in their group was allowed to use.
He would speak at length, describing it as “…family. All we are is family. We’re a group of people who get together to do things like this…we don’t call it mafia.”
Marrett pressed on, asking why, why was it a bad thing? Trimbole went on; “…mafia is a very bad word. The minute you say mafia, you know, very bad.” Ross wanted to make the point that, in his view, a group of cousins and brothers came together to do business, made some money and gone back to their regular grinds. But he also went on, describing the persecution that came with being known as a “mafia family”.
“…we are family…look after each other…like that man in Adelaide, the police building.” This must have set the operatives on high-alert.
McLaren pressed on this time, asked what Trimbole was referring to, what was that about the NCA offices in Adelaide? Trimboli’s response was telling; “..that guy that got hit, he hit one of our guys hard…it’s only revenge…[he hit] one of our guys in Adelaide…only one [dead]…the guy that hit our guy.”
CONFESSIONS IN THE CARGO-HOLD; OPERATION AFGHAN WRAPS
Some extremely telling info would be dutifully recorded in the respective police diaries of each of the undercover officers. Having spoken for a period now, Trimbole indicated that he was done with conversation for now. The flight was shortly arriving, and it wasn’t long before Ziggy shouted from the cockpit; Horn Island was in sight, prepare for landing. They all sat down again, holding onto their chairs.
It was shortly after this that the group disembarked onto what McLaren calls “…the smallest airport imaginable”. The weather was extremely humid, and the group sweat as they quickly went to work establishing the plan. Harley and Ignazio walked around with the others, pointing out to Ross where Harley and his mates would be bringing a tonne of marijuana. Harley showed them how it was to be ferried from boat and quickly packed into the aircraft. After some discussion, it was decided that in order to keep to their return schedule, they’d need to ensure the aircraft wasn’t accidentally overloaded. The import would become three quarters of tonne, 750kg of 90s skunk. By 5am on the day of the import, Harley and his crew would be arriving on the island via motorboat, ready to help load the drugs. While everything was being explained and the group returned to the Piper Chieftain; Ziggy had spent the downtime refuelling the plane. The group flew back to Cairns, this time with a more reserved atmosphere. They arrived back at the airstrip and the group broke up. Rosario, Ignazio and Marrett took flights back to Griffith and Melbourne, respectively. McLaren and Ziggy would spend the next couple of days flying back to Melbourne.
Back in Melbourne, things now began to speed up. A few weeks after the dummy-run, McLaren and Marrett drove to Griffith to purchase 6kg of weed from their Calabrian contacts. The $50,000 purchase came to them in plastic tubs that had been dug up from Rosario Trimboli’s backyard. Shortly after, McLaren met a group associated with Agresta and Romeo, arranging a buy of nearly $200,000 in cocaine. The cash being used had been marked and photographed by police, used later in trials when the serial numbers of the notes were found to be in the possession of their targets.
Over the next few weeks, Cole and Brother Ben would make contact with several other crews of associates, relatives of the Sergi-Romeo-Trimboli group. The undercover operatives were by now being offered amounts of up to 100kg of marijuana on total consignment, for wholesale prices. The pair bought more and ordered what they could, arguing with controllers from senior command to be allowed the cash. While funds were successfully released several times, eventually it was decided there was more than enough proof of drug transactions by this point in the investigation. More funds were denied, according to McLaren. It didn’t matter, ultimately. By June of 1994, the importation plan was ready.
THE PNG BUST: OPERATION AFGHAN CLOSES
The undercover pair met with Ross Trimbole on June 17th, 1994. Trimbole arrived at their Melbourne apartment at 3.30am with Fifi Romeo. The two had arrived holding firearms intended for their contact in Papua New Guinea; McLaren was to ensure that Harley received them. The plan was revised, and Trimbole revealed the final detail.
McLaren would in fact be flying to Horn Island with the Ross’s mate, Lindsay, the PNG contact Harley’s brother-in-law. Lindsay also happened to be a close associate of the Romeo-Trimboli ‘ndrina. Lindsay William Boram, born in 1958, was known to police as a Griffith gangster and petty dealer, with links to Calabrians in Griffith and Sydney that he occasionally acted as muscle for. If it was intended as a final test for the pair, it was received without much care. The undercover cops were very much looking forward to putting this whole operation to bed. As it turned out on the flight, McLaren and Boram actually took to each other. As they made their way to Cairns, McLaren got comfortable and talked shit with this knockabout with intriguing links to the drug importers. At a stop in Weipa, Boram phoned Harley and confirmed that everything was ready.
On June 19th, McLaren, Ziggy and Boram took off from Cairns. When they arrived at Horn Island, the group disembarked, looking around for Harley and his group. They listened for the motorboat Harley should hve been arriving in and heard silence. They waited longer; soon Boram was getting visibly anxious. He started pacing around the tarmac, muttering curses. Boram went to take a leak just a way off the airstrip when a curious thing happened; a group of men decked out in camo-gear arose from the foliage around the group.
Instead of being met with a quarter tonne of weed, they were met with a heavily armed police tactical group. As is routine in cases involving undercover operatives, they were arrested by the group of screaming police, taken into custody and whisked away from the targets. The operation was a wrap. They hadn’t gotten the drugs, but they had evidence of the conspiracy. In McLaren’s book, he recounts that only moments prior to this, they had heard the sound of a motorboat approaching the island. It’s likelier that fishing vessels spotted the tactical squad ensconcing themselves on the island and contacted Harley’s group, who had cancelled the delivery. With Boram en-route in the aircraft, he was unable to be contacted during the final leg of the journey. It was the end, and the undercover cops had everything but the load of grass.
Meanwhile, a series of raids had occurred in Griffith and Melbourne. At Ross Trimboli’s Griffith property, police found 420 grams of marijuana and 55 grams of cocaine. At his brother Domenic’s house, police seized documents and a small amount of cash. Ignazio Alfonso’s property netted police some firearms, mainly rifles, as well as ammunition, 23 grams of marijuana and $3600. Antonio Romeo’s Hanwood property yielded little for police besides a very small amount of marijuana, likely a sample intended to facilitate some deal.
At Pat Agresta’s house in Melbourne, police seized undetermined amounts of marijuana, cocaine, cannabis seeds and $6000 in cash. When police raided the home of Rocco “Fifi” Romeo, the house was found to contain six pounds of marijuana, as well as scales and plastic baggies that indicated Romeo was drug-dealing. Police also seized firearms, ammunition and $3600 cash.
Rocco “Roy” Romeo was unaccounted for and wasn’t located until he handed himself into police a few days later. Rocco Virgara, another associate of the Romeo-Trimboli ‘ndrina, was also located shortly after.
All nine men were taken into custody, charged with conspiring to import the marijuana and other drug offences. Five of the men, Tony Romeo, the Trimboli brothers, Agresta and his cousin Fifi Romeo, were also facing charges for trafficking cocaine. Several were now facing charges for unlawful possession of firearms discovered during the raids.
After a year in remand and a six-week committal hearing, they went to trial in late 1995. Romeo and Trimboli were finally face-to-face with their “friends”, the undercover police officers. Both Marrett and McLaren spent lengthy amounts of time in the witness box for the prosecution, outlining the crimes that the group had committed during the operation.
The courthouse was filled with the families of the accused, as well as journalists from all the major mastheads. All were there to cover this unheard of, elaborate undercover operation, which had run for over a year.
Wives and mothers wept loudly, but Marrett and McLaren were met with hard glares from the Calabrian crew that, a year earlier, had been sharing feasts with them, at their own houses no-less. McLaren’s testimony ran for hundreds of pages, and the trial detailed countless recordings, conversations, and drug transactions. During Marrett’s time on the stand, he likewise relayed the numerous conversations he’d had with the men in the dock.
Barristers for the defence tried their best to whittle away at the pair’s credibility, but it was of little effect. The group was being charged with evidence that, in many cases, had come from their own mouths.
During Marrett’s time giving his testimony, Antonio Romeo glared at him and made a throat-slitting motion; it was noted by the judge and taken into the court account. As the recordings were being played, it was punctuated by sobbing the wives. Rosario was on tape talking about the various women he had been keeping on the side, and it had come out that Antonio Romeo had been cheating on his wife, Old Joe’s daughter Maria.
When the time came for the men charged to enter pleas, all nine pled guilty. The two principals of the syndicate, Antonio Romeo and Rosario Trimboli, each received a sentence of ten years. The others received sentences of between three and four years. Operation Afghan had finally come to close, and Marrett and McLaren both were thankful.
ROMEO MUST DIE
On May 20th, 2002, after engaging in a work release program at a farm in Shepparton, Antonio Romeo was released from prison. He returned to Griffith and went about putting his house in order and restoring his assets. On that very same day, a white Toyota Prado was stolen from a property in Griffith.
On July 1st, 2002, Romeo was working out in his orchid. As he was pruning a peach tree, he was shot once in the back, a bullet lodging into his shoulder. He collapsed to the ground. It was sometime shortly later that an ambulance arrived and police were called. Despite there being nearly forty people working in the orchid at the time of the murder, each denied having seen, heard or even noticed a thing. Romeo had simply been found dead under the peach tree he’d been working on.
Police would later link the stolen Toyota Prado to the murder. Apparently, it had been sighted in the area just prior to the hit. The vehicle had later been found burned out in bushland outside of Griffth. Besides this, police would find no more leads, would charge no suspects, and the murder remains unsolved.
At first glance, it’s easy to assume that Romeo’s murder was punishment for his lapse in judgement. By bringing undercover police into the circle of ‘ndrine, he had heaped shame and dishonour on his name. While this stands as a fair assumption, there are also some other things to consider. Firstly, by 1996 it was known that Romeo had been cheating on his wife Maria with a woman named Jennifer Jollife. She was actually the wife of his brother-in-law, Young Tony Sergi.
There was some precedent to this. The last time, Jennifer Jollife had been discovered to be having an affair with Rocco Barbaro, of the Canberra Barbaro clan (that included his brothers Antonio, Francesco, and the murdered Pasquale). Roy Barbaro had conducted an affair with Young Tony’s wife, and it had earned him his nickname, Kneecap Roy Barbaro.
In this event, Giovanni Sergi had sanctioned an attack on Barbaro, intended to restore something of his son’s, and the family’s, honour. Young Tony and another man had visited Barbaro’s property, where witnesses recounted some loud yelling and angry conversation. Barbaro had acquiesced and accepted a shot in the back of the knee. Paramedics were called to take him to hospital. The leg was ultimately removed from the knee down. When later questioned by police, he would state that he’d had an accident with his shotgun and had shot his own leg off by accident.
Regarding the murder of Tony Romeo, it was also known that he had been in conflict with Tomato Tins Pat Barbaro, the son of Little Trees Frank. Both operated a drug network in the Riverina that stretched out to capital cities. At the time, they were two princes of the mafia; both scions of powerful clans, aging into their own roles in the organizational structure of the Griffith locale’. There was some overlap in the networks, and Barbaro had accused Romeo of stealing his customers, undercutting him on prices. This was during the time that Romeo was ascending to his peak at the right hand of Old Johnny Sergi in the early to mid-1990s. At the time, his position afforded him a level of protection from Pat Barbaro’s complaints.
It becomes a bit more clear when we consider the whole picture;
- He’d cheated on his wife, the daughter of the boss (Fonsey Muratore had been killed for similar reasons).
- There was already bad blood between him and the Barbaro clan.
- Above all this, he had overseen an ‘ndrina that had allowed literal police-officers into its circle.
This could have potentially caused massive damage to not just his own operation, but the operations of all Griffith ‘ndranghetisti. There are several layers of conflict at play, in the heartland of the Australian ‘ndrangheta clans no-less. In this particular case, it would seem the only option left to a group that based identity on notions of respect and honour. His death would have helped the clan reclaim their honour in the eyes of the clans across Australia, as well as back in Italy.
Over twenty years later, in 2024, the murder remains unsolved.
Despite the significance of Operation Afghan, their had actually been prior police operations delving into the poorly understood machinations of the Calabrian organised-crime syndicates who were ramping up their massive marijuana grows up and down the East Coast of the country. In his definitive account of the saga of entrenched corruption in the ranks of the Queensland Police, Matthew Condon details the early investigations into the shadowy operations of the Calabrian syndicates in Far North Queensland in his series of books titled the Three Crooked Kings series. Jim Slade, a QPS Detective who had made contact with Medici, Furina and Barbaro when they were moving crops in the 1980s. Kneecap Roy Barbaro may have helped the formation of a new ‘ndrine based in the country Queensland town of Mareeba.
In 1978, Detective John Conner of the Queensland Police, based out of Mareeba, had reported to his seniors that he had managed to turn an informant who would be able to outline a massive drug conspiracy that linked back to Griffith. He was found dead on October 15th of that year, apparently having shot himself with his own service revolver.
Also, Roman Quaedvlieg spent some time amongst the crop-sitters. But McLaren and Marrett reap the “glory” of the infiltration.
Mafia in Australia 