Middle to late evening in July of 1993. A few men amble into the Griffith RSL and glimpse a group out of the corner of their eyes. An older man and several younger ones. All reasonably well-dressed, but one in particular seeming to stand out more. The cut of his clothes, his posture. As the man passed more coins into the machine, he watched the group sitting down at some side-tables. While they were not loud, they exuded a presence in the din of the busy ex-servicemen’s club. The better-dressed character of the group, sat down in a chair closest to the oldest man, was deep in conversation. Another sat closer, taking in the conversation but occasionally glancing at women. The rest of the group seemed involved in throwing glances around the club, at other patrons, at the women, at each other. The man who had noticed this group moved to a row of poker-machines.
Surreptitiously, he watched a female barfly approach the table to chat with the group. One of them handed her a note, and she ran off to buy them a round of beers. She did this a few times through-out the night, going back and forth between the bar and their table, keeping the change and at one stage, seating flirtatiously in the older man’s lap. The old man stopped the conversation to smilingly chat with the woman, before handing her a handful of coins. She promptly got up and hurried over to the rows of poker-machines. Seeing that the machine next to hers was not in use, he quickly moved to it and started feeding in coins. He began to chat to the woman nonchalantly. He signalled to a woman to approach, who he identified as his girlfriend, and introduced himself an Cole, an art-dealer from Melbourne. He and his girlfriend invited the woman out to a meal and some further drinks.
A few more days passed when Cole and his girlfriend returned to the club and quickly found the same woman. Striking up conversation again, this time she was more open about some of the people she knew Pulling on Cole’s arm, she asked him, “…do you want to meet the Godfather?”. She took them over towards the same table of men that Cole had quietly observed some nights ago. He nodded in affirmation, but casually, being careful not to seem too interested. But he was, in fact, very much interested. Because Cole was an undercover police officer, who had been tasked with infiltrating the Griffith Mafia. And here was an ‘ndrina, on the periphery of several, but solid in the sights of the double agency investigation.
The elderly man was Giovanni Sergi, aka “Old Joe” (born February 8th, 1927) father of “Young Tony” Sergi (born February 4th, 1950). Young Tony had been named in the Woodward Royal Commission as an active player in the production side of the endeavour and through his father was related to Winery Tony Sergi as a cousin; their fathers were brothers. The younger man speaking to him at the table, however, was one of his son-in-laws, Antonio Romeo. Born in Plati, he had arrived in Australia with his family in September of 1974, and had married Young Tony’s sister, Maria Sergi in 1977. Going by the nickname Tony, Romeo was identified by investigators as a natural leader and headed this small ‘ndrina. Also observed with them that night was a man who’s surname had become ubiquitous regarding Australian ‘ndrangheta, even if the family’s role has been inflated in the past; that man was Rosario Trimbole.
The group of gangsters sitting in the Working Mans RSL were represented mainly by these three men; Giovanni aka Old Joe Sergi, Antonio “Tony” Romeo and Rosario “Ross” Trimbole. Ross was a literal nephew of Aussie Bob’s and tasked with carrying that ubiquitous surname that does a lot of heavy lifting in the public mindset. Antonio, called Tony by his mates, had married one of Joe’s daughters, Maria. His brother-in-law was Young Tony Sergi (Old Joe’s son) and that patch of the great Barbaro-Sergi ‘ndrine of Griffith now also included Tony Romeo as one of it’s bosses. A capo in the LCN tradition would be an easier way of describing it, but there are more complex factors in play on account of the great “traditions” and intricate command chains and heirarchies already decades in place, now operating in the early to mid-1990s in Australia.
Old Joe, occasionally called Old Johnny, had been born in 1927, in Platì. During the 1970s he had been named by Justice Woodward as one of the key investors in the Griffith drug trade at the time of Donald Mackay’s murder. He was one of several men either observed out of town or loudly attending a pub dinners and local restaurant during several crucial hours. They all had rock-solid alibies that excluded them from direct charges that night. In his Royal Commission, Justice Woodward would name Giovanni Sergi as having been one of the men most likely responsible for the “disappearance” of Mr. Mackay.
Rosario bore the name of Australia’s most notorious Calabrian gangster, even though Aussie Bob Trimbole had, in his later years, directed just as much effort towards disavowing his associations with the ‘ndrangheta clans of Griffith as he did evading capture by the AFP and Interpol.
In any case, Rosario was every bit the piccioto, the loyal soldier and tied to Tony Romeo’s operations intricately. Rosario and his brother, Domenic were key-players in the drug gang that Romeo was heading.
Much has been made of the fact that several Australian police have, over the years, infiltrated some of these small groups or cells. One hundred news articles and several books proclaim how Colin McLaren cleverly deceived two ‘ndrine into allowing police officers to get close enough to be personally involved in gathering charges, intelligence and investigations into “…the highest echelon of the mafia in Australia…” or “….the boss of [Griffith/Adelaide].”
Without diminishing the achievements these VICPOL, SAPOL, NCA & AFP officers, the reality is mirrored in the literal findings of all these cases and investigations that comprised Operation Cerberus; “These syndicates appear to be entrepreneurial, often temporary in nature, a members are generally drawn from a series of interconnected, socio-economic and socio-cultural networks which extend across all states and territories”.
And so Marret and McLaren infiltrated the Sergi-Romeo-Trimboli endeavour that “spoke for” Romeo’s ‘ndrina. Romeo was freshly promoted to his position, eager to make money and continue to deal drugs.
Following his “in” through the bar-fly local to Tony and Ross, McLaren would spend the next six to seven months slowly gaining the trust of Tony Romeo. Cole, the “dodgy art-dealer” that McLaren has described himself as, had begun over conversations regarding the methods of money-laundering working in the art industry offered. This naturally led to some controlled buys of cocaine and marijuana. With Cole based in Melbourne, it also afforded Tony Romeo a connect to the Melbourne market, which Pasquale Barbaro, son of Little Trees Frank and “golden boy” of the Griffith ‘ndrine.
Pat Barbaro had, even then, serious convictions for drug trafficking and also dominated the drug trade between the Griffith and the Melbourne clans.
There was some friction between McLaren and Marret, illustrated in their own writings, regarding, how they described each other and various vague insults and dismissals. McLaren referred to Marret as “useless” during his monologues on a podcast dedicated to his career, “The Sting”. Marret simply wrote two books on own career and his perspective on the Griffith operation, and his writings are also very telling. In any case, it’s part of why in with this articles companion pieces, I have used both versions of their conversation with Rosario Trimboli in the hull of a drug smuggling plane.
In any case, following their fortunate introductions, McLaren and his offsider, posing as his love interest, would spend the rest of 1993 ingratiating themselves with the Calabrian crew. In a somewhat more sexist era of policing, once their conversations turned to drug trafficking, McLaren’s female partner would be steadily removed from the equation, to be replaced by Marrett, posing as McLaren’s younger brother, a surfer-type with a penchant for drug-dealing named Ben.
It was a slow process, with Romeo and his crew only tentatively moving forward deal by deal. There were several “trials” the Calabrians would force upon the undercover agents, in the mistaken belief that police officers were forbidden to use drugs or engage with the services of prostitutes. While technically correct, the letter of the law regarding undercover work in fact extended to legislation that covered these very issues; when put in positions that might otherwise compromise their operations, police were in fact legally allowed to engage in some forms of criminal behaviour, within reason. And so began one of the most intricate active police investigations into the mafia.
So what led to this seminal event in Australian ‘ndrangheta history? The quiet announcement of Operation Cerberus certainly played a part. All around the country, state police were working closely with the National Crime Authority to ask the question; what is the mafia, and how deeply entrenched has it become in the country?
McLAREN AND THE TEAM: THE LEAD UP
As a part of the Victoria Police Drug Squad, Detective Sergeant Colin McLaren was, by the 1990s, a veteran undercover operative with scores of busts, seizures and arrests to his name.
He had been chosen by senior police to play a prominent role in an investigation that had grown out of Cerberus. As he was undertaking his task, there were countless other inquiries and investigations going on around Australia. Their particular briefing involved members of the Griffith mafia, an ‘ndrangheta locale’ also known as the Plati Group, which was by far the most well-known incarnation of the mafia in Australia. When Australian’s think of the word mafia, after The Godfather, Goodfellas and Casino, Griffith was right there.
Prior to their introductions, McLaren and his team had embarked on a fact-finding mission, scouring old police and intelligence files across multiple agencies and had put together a “hit-list: of active players in the ‘ndrina they were focused on. Antonio Romeo, invariably described as handsome and erudite, had been identified as one of the new leaders in Griffith, a position he had attained by marrying the daughter of Old Joe, aka Giovanni Sergi.
Old Joe had been one of the central figures listed in the Woodward Reports. Born February 8th, 1927 in Plati, had had arrived in Australia in 1949 with his brothers Francesco, Bruno, Rocco and Giuseppe, the latter of which was the father of the infamous “Winery Tony” Sergi. His wife Giuseppina Barbaro, born January 29th, 1932, had migrated with him, and together they had four children; his two sons were Antonio (born February 4th, 1950), (July 31st, 1954) Pasquale (June 5th, 1958).
During the Royal Commission, information had been provided that outlined his sudden rise in wealth during the 1970s, gaining assets including four farms in Griffith and a block of flats in Fairfield. Giovanni had been charged for failing to answer questions put to him by Justice Woodward during the hearings, for which he plead guilty and was given probation. Besides that, there were a handful of drunk-driving offences, he would be disqualified from driving in 1996.
But make no mistakes; Giovanni Sergi was close to mafia royalty in Australia, through his marriage into the Barbaro clan and the prominent role his son, dubbed “Young Tony”, would come to play, alongside that of his cousin, Domenico, who would get the nickname “Little Mick”.
Little Mick Sergi would make a strategic marriage to Elisabetta Agresta in Melbourne, 1963, thus linking another important clan from another part of the country into the Barbaro-Sergi ‘ndrine of Griffith. Elisabetta’s brother, Pasquale Agresta, was highly active in the marijuana cultivation that saw these families become millionaires, linked to the infamous Coleambally crops and numerous others. He too would come to play a prominent role, getting caught up in the net cast by the undercover operation.
For a period, Little Mick Sergi served as one of the main conduits to the Old Country, accompanying ‘Ntoni Italiano, a powerbroker leader of the Italiano ‘ndrina of Delianuova who had visited Australia in the late 1980s. This indicated links to the Alvaro clan, who worked closely with the Italiano from their Sinopoli base and their Australian one.
In July of 1990, Little Mick would even travel to Calabria for a meeting in Ardore, R.C, where he would represent Australian interests at a meeting with leaders from Canada, Belgium and the home-grown Calabrian bosses.
This was the family that Tony Romeo had married into, and it definitely represented a huge leg up for him. It gave him a chance to shine as one of the third generation ‘ndranghetisti. His peer, Pat Barbaro, son of Little Trees and the man later made famous for his role in the “Tomato Tins” case, was, technically, his equal. Interestingly, it would seem their was some animosity between the two men, which would perhaps play a role in later events. For now, Tony Romeo was moving up in his world.
Antonio Romeo was born January 21st, 1956, in Platí, Reggio Calabria. His family settled in Griffith, his father a cousin to Bruno the Fox, from a lesser branch of the far-flung Romeo family. By marrying the daughter of Giovanni Sergi, he considerably upped his reputation. By the early 1990s, his main source of taxable income came from a restaurant he owned on Mackay Avenue, Griffith’s main street. He also owned, with his family, an orange orchid, which sprawled across the family estate in Hanwood, just outside of Griffith. It was, of course, one of the very typical “grass castles” made famous in Griffith.
Rosario “Ross” Trimboli bore the name the for many Australian’s was ubiquitous with the mafia. Ironically, the Trimboli family were historically linked to the Sergi-Barbaro clan and traditionally acted in a more subservient role than many would assume, given the notoriety Aussie Bob gathered to his name. Rosario, born in 1960, was the son of Joe Trimboli, Aussie Bob’s elder, and only, brother.
The investigation that would become Operation Afghan grew out of the probes that began with Cerberus, the national, multi-agency look into ‘ndrangheta clans operating in Australia. Working with the NCA, the Victoria Police Drug Squad were looking closely as Pasquale Agresta. Agresta, born January 18th, 1958, had also featured prominently in the Woodward Royal Commission, named as being a member of the grow operations. His sister was married to Little Mick Sergi, which made him a close affiliate of the Sergi-Barbaro ‘ndrine.
Agresta had come into focus as one of the main targets of Italian organised-crime in Victoria and by 1993 he was under close surveillance by the Drug Squad. As Damian Marrett points out in his memoir, Agresta was often witnessed meeting with notable criminal identities over coffee in Lygon Street. It was while he was under surveillance that Drug Squad officers had tailed him across state lines, all the way to the Riverina. Agresta was observed paying a visit to the Griffith RSL where this story of infiltration began. By the time the operation had launched, the NCA and Victoria Police had placed intercepts on the telephone lines of Agresta and his circle. The group usually spoke in dense Calabrian dialect, which had precipitated the import of a translator from Rome, fluent in several Italian dialects and English. Nicknamed in the memoirs as “Vito”, this gave investigators an edge over the plans in motion.
Mafia in Australia 