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| NEWS > 05 March 2007 |
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Officials release proposal to
St. Paul, Minn. — Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion has released a proposal to create an oversight board and install video cameras in police squad cars, in response to alleged misconduct by the now-defunct Metro Gang Strike Force.
Commissioner Michael Campion released the proposed strategy on Wednesday, following concerns by the Legislative Auditor and the Metro Gang Strike Force Review Panel.
The proposal calls for the establishment of a Metropolitan Policy and Oversight Board made up of criminal justice representatives at the federal and state level... Read more
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NEWS.com.au - Australia
05 March 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Lover 'hid' fugitive cocaine s
FUGITIVE drug criminal Tony Mokbel narrowly escaped Australia because one of his lovers hid him in suburban Melbourne for several days, police believe.
Police identified the woman just too late to confirm intelligence she had hidden Mokbel in the outer suburbs before he fled overseas.
"There is credible information Mokbel was there and that we missed him by about a week," a source close to the investigation told the Herald Sun.
Mokbel, who reaped tens of millions from large-scale drug dealing, fled Australia a year ago. Police have no idea where he is hiding.
An investigation by the Herald Sun into Mokbel has discovered:
One of Mokbel's right-hand men paid thousands of dollars to try to bribe three High Court judges.
The Office of Police Integrity is believed to be investigating several serving and former Victoria Police officers who it suspects had long-term corrupt dealings with Mokbel.
Victoria Police's Ethical Standards Department has been told a sacked corrupt officer teamed up with a prominent Melbourne lawyer to try to bribe detectives who arrested Mokbel.
A Police sergeant allegedly corrupted by Mokbel tried to transfer into the taskforce investigating him. He resigned after ESD began investigating his links with Mokbel.
The Victoria Police Mokbel taskforce was moved to more secure offices after Mokbel threatened to kill detectives on it.
Federal police agents have evidence of Mokbel spreading the word in the underworld that he was prepared to pay $1 million for a copy of the police evidence against him in a cocaine smuggling case dubbed Operation Plutonium.
Supreme Court judge Murray Kellam said he was satisfied Mokbel told a trusted associate he could influence police and that it was arguable some police were susceptible.
Police have tapes of Mokbel admitting that one of his co-accused might have to be killed as he was a weak link who might be tempted to testify against him.
Mokbel was secretly taped saying he was attempting to bribe a scientist at the Victoria Police laboratory to tamper with drug exhibits so prosecutions would fail.
Police bugs captured Mokbel claiming he was "in sweet" with corrupt former drug squad detective Stephen Paton and that he had paid $200,000 to police to help him with court cases.
THE AFP believes it foiled a plan by Mokbel to form a long-term relationship with the notorious Arellano-Felix Organisation so he could arrange weekly deliveries of cocaine from the Mexico-based cartel to Melbourne.
Police secretly taped Mokbel in 2005 as he was trying to buy a tonne of MDMA powder to make ecstasy tablets.
Mokbel was also taped admitting to driving into the Victorian bush and hiding 500kg of chemicals capable of making amphetamines with a street value of $2 billion. Like Mokbel, they haven't been found.
The woman suspected of harbouring Mokbel before he fled last March is not his long-term girlfriend, Danielle McGuire, or his former lawyer, Zarah Garde-Wilson, who was named in court as one of Mokbel's lovers.
She is a former girlfriend of one of Mokbel's brothers, but police have been told she also had a fling with Mokbel.
Federal police agents interviewed the woman, but she denied having seen Mokbel. There have been no confirmed sightings of Mokbel since he disappeared on March 19 last year.
Police don't know where Mokbel is or even if he is still alive.
The AFP believes high-profile gangland lawyer George Defteros and a solicitor tried to talk a crucial witness out of testifying against Mokbel at Mokbel's cocaine smuggling trial.
Mr Defteros was charged in 2004 with inciting murder and conspiracy to murder. The charges were dropped in 2005.
The key witness told the AFP he sought advice separately from Mr Defteros and the solicitor after he was arrested in 2000 over his role in helping Mokbel import nearly 2kg of pure cocaine into Melbourne from Mexico.
He claimed to the AFP that both lawyers advised him to plead guilty and also told him not to talk to police about Mokbel's involvement in the cocaine deal.
The witness also told the AFP Mr Defteros and the solicitor warned him Mokbel might kill him if he thought he was going to become a police informer.
Mr Defteros and the solicitor both deny the allegations made by the witness, whose name has been suppressed.
But AFP agent Jarrod Ragg, who led the investigation into Mokbel's cocaine smuggling, told the Supreme Court he believed the witness's version.
Agent Ragg said the witness told him Mr Defteros and the solicitor warned him that if he became an informer he was going against the ethics of criminals.
The witness gave evidence in the Supreme Court in which he alleged Mr Defteros told him he wouldn't survive in jail if he broke the criminal code and testified against Mokbel.
He said Mr Defteros warned him: "You'll get sticked . . . as in stabbed."
Mokbel's lawyer, Con Heliotis, QC, told the court both Mr Defteros and the solicitor had filed affidavits in which they strenuously denied the allegations made by the witness.
The witness entered the witness protection program and gave evidence against Mokbel in 2006. His damning testimony helped get Mokbel convicted.
Mokbel disappeared a few days before his cocaine trial finished. He was later sentenced in his absence to serve at least nine years in jail.
Mokbel was last week charged with the 2004 murder of gangland patriarch Lewis Moran.
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