Did the mafia get away with assassinating a top police officer? | Under Investigation with Liz Hayes

foreign [Music] in six seconds on a quiet Suburban Street one of Australia's highest ranking cops lies dead good God second most senior police officer in Australia has just been assassinated it doesn't get any more serious than that tonight we'll reopen the case of murdered assistant federal police commissioner Colin Winchester the key question is not who killed him the key question is who ordered the killing and explore the disturbing but the very real possibility I used to call him my Jack in the pack that his execution was a mafia hit no person would betrays the mafia stays alive good evening I'm Liz Hayes and this is under investigation joining me Terry O'Donnell a former ACT public defender who brings with him tonight an exclusive Trove of documents and information there was one shot to the back of the head and one shot to the side of the cheek Jim Slade former detective with the Queensland Bureau of Criminal intelligence who's analyzed this case can you imagine being called to the scene of a crime where your boss and your friend has been murdered Jeffrey Watson SC leading Sydney Barrister who's calling for a royal commission into the killing this is ridiculous this is a high-profile assassination where we don't know the basic facts it's ever been properly investigated it's about time it happens and in Europe Professor Anna Sergi a specialist in Italian organized crime who's testified in Australian Mafia cases it did look like a Target date he was killed from behind the way in which betrayal is punished this is a mafia hit because of the way it was killed on the 10th of January 1989 the Assassin struck as Colin Winchester was pulling up to his home in Canberra summer evening it was just after dusk a lot of people in Canberra were watching The End of the World Series cricket [Music] the whole thing was very quick and no one was ever seen coming or going with the whole just there were just no eyewitnesses Hitmen call it a double tap two shots fired at close range it was 9 30 last night when the gunman opened fire in a leafy tree-lined Street in Deacon one of canberra's oldest suburbs political leaders and organized crime experts immediately assumed it was a mafia hit his recent career saw him involved in successful and impending prosecutions in major drug cases there's immense speculation it was a contract hit the likeness to a professional killing has been has been noted Jeffrey we had the New South Wales Premier pointing it to it as being a mafia hit we have the Attorney General at the time pointing to it as a mafia hit it seemed that was the go-to well everything about it suggests that it was an organized execution by somebody skilled in the area of murdering other human beings they Two Shots within seconds of each other right to lethal zones of the head it's a planned hit typically Under Suspicion the calabrian Mafia the andrangida which was already believed responsible for the murder of anti-drugs campaigner Donald McKay in the New South Wales Country Town of Griffith 12 years on the execution of Colin Winchester carried parallels that seemed eerie and obvious everyone considered the mafia heaters are real possibility but there was a massive problem with the mafia Theory which is that by that time authorities weren't exactly sure of the extent of the nrangata and that probably is where everything collapsed because there wasn't an understanding of how the mafia worked at that time in that specific area [Music] the investigation of Winchester's murder was given to his close local police friends and colleagues and their grief led to some terrible mistakes there before them dead in the car was their friend and their and their boss and I understand that one person was in tears a senior officer and that just about everybody was was seriously upset and the mistake started from there some police at the scene ignored base basically losing vital forensic evidence I mean those guys instead of taping it off and having a register in place immediately there was one of their mates that were murdered so grief took over and those initial responses of a police officer at the scene of the crime were stood aside someone had already searched and Disturbed Mr Winchester's body in the car and other police were going through the grunt Gardens of houses in the street so the whole crime scene was already trampled I mean friends investigating the murder of their friend it just blews all of your judgment there should have been somebody who said stand back we're going to call in independent people from Interstate with the highest skills chaos is the right word it was a confronting high-profile crime for the Canberra officers who'd worked in a city that in the 1980s averaged fewer than five murders a year what we've got to remember is the Australian Capital territory was just like a big country town like they just didn't have the crime that would give detectives the experiences needed to address a crime like this or a murder like this and I imagine if this was a mafia hit you don't leave too much behind though well it does seem like a very professional way of conducting and predicting also the chaos that will follow so in my case this all speaks to the professionalism of this whoever it was as will show early suspicions of a mafia hit seem to have been lost as local police concentrated on local suspect David Eastman a former Ducks of Canberra Grammar Eastman was a gifted Economist who also happened to have a hair trigger temperament and a habit of making personal threats which he'd done during a tense meeting with Winchester in the days before the murder he had made threats around the town he threatened everybody I think he's written the Attorney General he threatened by some of his lawyers he's threatened the ombudsman Terry O'Donnell was one of the many lawyers who represented Eastman and was aware he suffered mental health issues he was the easy Target and it was never going to change I think he called confirmation bias confirmation bias yes people who have formed a view work on information that confirms that view and excludes evidence to the contrary and this is exactly what happened they concentrated on the hometown suspect wish was Eastman but another significant motive had been voiced from the very start involving the mafia investigating police would learn Colin Winchester had been part of an undercover AFP operation involving the calabrian mafia and we've obtained a previously top-secret report linking the mafia to the assistant commissioner's murder a report the team leader Commander Richard ninnes rejected saying he was satisfied no further investigations into the subject of the report were required the point is that almost immediately a tunnel vision formed in most investigating this offense perhaps because Winchester was their close friend they put off the table the issues of Winchester's involvement with Mafia undercover operation that should never have been pushed away but it was and there was a mistake [Music] the pursuit of Eastman was relentless lasting more than three years and police would later be criticized during a Judicial inquiry into the case for crossing the line taunting him trying to get him to you know make statements they had listening devices in physical contact between police and him at various places like shopping centers and on the side of the road absolute desperation by police to try and get you know the cuffs on him and some of their other tactics were extraordinary from hiding in amongst the shrubs while Eastman walked through canberra's Botanic Gardens to setting a Honey Trap at the local swimming pool The Drug Squad set one of their better looking young ladies to go swimming at the swimming pool and she put her beats down next to Eastman and then they formed a relationship over about 10 days where they went out for lunch and Eastman had no idea she was an undercover police officer and all that does is confirm that the police were looking at one person to the exclusion of other reasonable Avenues of Investigation righteous primer Federal crimer on November the 3rd 1995 six years after Colin Winchester's murder and an epic 85-day trial much of it built on circumstantial evidence Eastman was found guilty he was sentenced to life in prison knowing David Eastman we can't dismiss the element of tragedy he suffered terribly I feel nothing but compassion for the man through it all Eastman never stopped proclaiming his innocence and after multiple attempts to appeal his conviction David Eastman always claimed he was innocent and today a 12-member jury agreed in 2018 Eastman was acquitted and paid more than seven million dollars in compensation for his time in jail the judicial inquiry quashing Eastman's original conviction accepted there were reasons to have nagging doubts about his guilt and acknowledged there was other information to be considered which involved the mafia but that was and still is not the belief of investigators to this day the Australian federal police says it has no evidence to believe the mafia was involved in Colin Winchester's murder and that the case is not under review but tonight we are reviewing the case and we believe there are still important questions to be raised the key question is who order the killing the other question to ask is anyone here interested in protecting someone else and these questions weren't asked and these questions would have been the ones that are mature investigation into Mafia would have needed at the very very beginning coming up a breakthrough for police Gene Franco dezoni rolled over spills trouble for the Mafia the most successful operation against nandrakula ever run in Australia and for Colin Winchester one man specifically it come from Italy to take care of Winchester that's next on under investigation [Music] assistant commissioner Colin Winchester is the highest ranking police officer ever assassinated in Australian history and his murder in January 1989 has all the Hallmarks of a professional hit an assistant commissioner is giving grief to the local Italians and he will get his his recent career saw him involved in successful and impending prosecutions in major drug cases Winchester was involved in an undercover drug operation and right from the beginning there were suspicions the mafia had ordered his execution I think that there was more fear about what Winchester could have done so I think the key Point here is can we get away with this it's not can we kill him because obviously they can kill him but can we actually get away with this Manchester's first contact with the mafia came in October 1980. when he met Mafia associate Giuseppe baducci who approached the police with an extraordinary idea [Music] codenamed operation Seville the dangerous liaison between the police and the mafia began when verducci offered to grow a crop of marijuana in bangondal not far from Canberra baducci's offered to help expose the mafia came at a time when Winchester was part of the Canberra force that was caught up in internal politics over the newly formed Australian federal police Colin Winchester could see this as an opportunity to be able to have something on ecv that was going to compete with Commonwealth police and the narcotics Bureau and also so you think that was part of his motivation oh no doubt about it because he came from a police force that had none of that experience whatsoever but it's the dangerous business I guess of getting into bed if you like with the mafia even for the right reasons before you know it you can find yourself in a very precarious position Winchester wouldn't have had much training in those kind of undercover operations and it's very very clear that it was very poorly conducted and because it was fully managed he lost control of it Colin Winchester may have hoped operations Seville would be his crowning achievement but ultimately it was not verducci it would be revealed was unreliable possibly with a personal agenda and working way outside and drungada rules at that time was forbidden to have any contact with the police so there is actually in the code of honor of the narangeta not to talk to the police so this leads me actually to consider that there is something a little bit more in this verducci situation including the fact that there might have been a feud across families that led some families to try and get an advantage on others Anna Sergi believes verducci may have been using Colin Winchester to enhance his own position in the eyes of one of the mafia factions the faction that he was representing chose this way including you know trying to get to the police somehow to get the protection of the police to basically get an advantage on the others and the others might have been not happy with that do you think Winchester had the wherewithal to deal with the verducci Winchester and verducci were had quite a friendly relationship and that was a problem verducci almost certainly was playing both sides criminals that I'd worked with they had used to have this saying and it went right across the board if you were able to get a friendly police officer they used to call him my Jack in the pack verducci would have been able to go and say well I've got my Jack in the pack let's go this was really the intention to get a Jack in the pack either verducci was a newcomer and it was just someone who was way too ambitious in the organization which something that definitely the others wouldn't not liked so my view is that everyone was running a riskier definitely Winchester was by putting himself with someone who was clearly linked to the Mob and verducci because again the weak link here is him it's not Winchester because no person betrays the mafia stays alive so to me the person difficult game here is definitely verducci if verducci was at risk then telling the mafia of his secret liaison also meant police were at risk it put Colin Winchester in a dangerous position because of what verducci told them that Mafia believed Winchester was corrupt and protecting their interests yes they believed he was corrupt and but they went they believed he was on the payroll yes there was a police share of both cannabis and money that's right that verducci said to his co-cultivators that they were giving to the police and in fact verducci gave 23 000 to the police which eventually went into Consolidated revenue and 40 kilograms of cannabis which was eventually destroyed it's spread around his compost in the in the tibin Villa National Park operations Seville itself was clumsy and poorly run but yielded one extraordinary outcome neither Colin Winchester nor his Mafia contact Giuseppe verducci could have ever foreseen it's the night of March 31st 1982. Giuseppe verducci has delivered 100 kilos of marijuana from Winchester's police approved drug crop at bangandor to Tony Barbaro and gianfranco to Zoni driving a gold Mercedes Barbaro and tazoni head for Melbourne with the hall Victorian police planned to tail the Mercedes but fearing they'll lose it decide to pull it over with this bust police are handed an incredible and unexpected breakthrough in the greatest unsolved Mafia hit in Australian history the murder of Donald McKay assistant commissioner Winchester had led a joint operation with New South Wales drugs officers which netted geofranco to Zoni a man who turned informant gianfranco tazoni is desperate to avoid prison Gene Franco dezoni the driver of the gold Mercedes rolled over and spoke about a number of things but importantly he nominated those who were at the meeting to sanction the murder of Donald McKay drugs can Griffith was the victim of a mafia hit police now had the names of those who tozoni alleged had ordered McKay's murder this is one of those moments when you get an unexpected result exactly right and it was just pure luck this moment would not only spell trouble for the mafia but also Winchester we know from Italian sources that the Italian carabineri said that one man specifically had come from Italy to take care of Winchester and obviously coming from calabrak a very very important thing because it means it comes really from my above coming up the mafia's deadly expectations Winchester is now somebody that's costing them definitely so may have led to Colin Winchester's moment of Reckoning you've got the motive you've got retaliation you've had a reason why they would order a hit on him that's next on under investigation [Music] as our investigation tonight continues the mafia believes Australian federal police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester is their man their Jack in the pack they believed he was corrupt and they believed he was on the payroll yes in 1980 Winchester has taken on an undercover drug operation Winchester wouldn't have had much training in those kind of undercover operations and because it was poorly managed he lost control of it when two are arrested with marijuana from his operation the Godfather's press for Action everyone was running a riskier definitely Winchester was no person who betrays the mafia stays alive [Music] Winchester's Mafia middleman Giuseppe verducci is told to get those who'd been arrested out of trouble I think the verducci is on very thin ice was already in very thin ice because he was exposing himself to The Rage of the more conservative members of the narangeta that would not be happy to learn that someone was playing the double game with the police [Music] Chester of course fails to respond Jeffrey it's clear now isn't it the Winchester from the mafia's point of view is failing he's not there Jack in the pack he's not doing what he's supposed to do the leaders of the androgator were told that Winchester was corrupt that he was being given money to afford them protection and they were not getting their protection immediately you've got the motive you've got retaliation give it a reason why they would order a hit on him but the mafia is nervous they've already attracted unwanted attention following their hit on anti-drugs campaigner Donald McKay in 1977. it had put the mafia in a spotlight they'd never experienced before so to kill again needed some thought probably after making ahead really did not want any more attention so I think the key Point here is can we get away with this I think that's the key point it's not can we kill him because obviously they can kill him that's the easy part in a way to find someone to send them actually from Calabria to Australia to kill him that's the easy part but can we actually get away with this are we sure that if we do this it's not gonna come back to us the mafia's dislike of Winchester is destined to worsen when it mistakenly believes the assistant commissioner is involved in other anti-drug police operations the Italians believe that Winchester was responsible for a group of people that were identifying Italians in Australia who were purchasing rural properties and every one of those Persons of Interest that purchased those properties were rated and most of them had cannabis growing on them Winchester and the AFP had no involvement in these raids they were separate undercover operations carried out by the New South Wales Bureau of criminal investigation and the National Crime Authority these operations cost the mafia an estimated half a billion dollars over a three year period the New South Wales police were responsible for raiding 63 plantations under the control of the Italian criminals five seizures of property and 98 persons arrested with 40 tons of marijuana totaling over 400 000 cannabis plants being seized are lost to the nundrakada of over 450 million dollars in retail value now that is an incredible result that's a big hit too isn't it yeah a big hit what I consider at that particular time the most successful operation against nandrakada ever run in Australia and it was absolutely incredible at no thanks to the ICT police yeah and would you agree Terry absolutely they basically got to all the major players in the indrangada in Sydney and surveilled them quite intensively for a period of 18 months to two years our experts believe the mafia now rattled continues to wrongly blame Winchester does that square with you Anna that Winchester is now somebody that's costing them definitely so Professor Anna Sergi believes that it also means the Godfathers would have considered Winchester a threat to Future operations I think that to me makes more sense that the killing was preventative rather than out of Vengeance I think that there was more fear about what Winchester could have done rather than what Winchester wasn't doing if you know what I mean in 1988 Redding himself for retirement it's almost certain Colin Winchester was unaware he may have become the deadly focus of the mafia and around the same time according to documents we've cited a senior politician was making curious inquiries that man was the former Minister for immigration algresby grasby was known to have the warm support of Mafia figures in Griffith where his political rival anti-drugs campaigner Donald McKay was murdered Jim algrasby's name has come up in the McKay case and now we learn that he's also got some interest in this case I think we we can say that Al grazby was a person of opportunity and whenever any opportunity came along he took it so that doesn't surprise me that he would have been making inquiries for or one of his friends which we have found he had many of our information is that on June the 16th 1988 Al grass B met with a former New South Wales policeman seeking the location of Colin Winchester's Mafia contact Giuseppe verducci certainly I take the view that the the request for whereabouts of verducci was Sinister and those conversations that we believe gresby had how do you view those well I believe that he was seeking information for people that had asked him to actually make those inquiries yeah this would be textbook I mean this is textbooks in the sense that in local areas in local places small places like could be Griffith Enclave for the calabrians who lived there a local politician or a politician that started locally and then went up is definitely the best friend to have Mafia expert Professor Anna Sergi believes grasby had already exposed his close connections when he visited the andrungada's Italian hometown of platy there are videos of the time when he was basking in the in the glory of people from platy this to me sounds very very we're talking about dangerous a very dangerous position in the sense that clearly shows way too much entrenchment and by the way at that time the head of dendrangeta in plati was the brother of the head of the nrangeta in Griffith so it's a very tight operation that they're running between the two towns the reason for graspi's inquiries has not been established and there is nothing to suggest that he knew why he was making them but our information suggests Colin Winchester was soon to become a Marked Man a high-level Mafia meeting we believe was held in late 1988. its purpose to finally sanction the murder of assistant commissioner Colin Winchester is not something that they that anyone would do lightly and the fact that they met it just confirms that this was a serious premeditated hit and this thing needed to be done in a certain way to ask help from um back home coming up do you need approval for these things they need to give approval orders from the motherland Winchester had to meet certain aspects of the trial for an excellent Murder One Man specifically had come from Italy to take care of Winchester that's next on under investigation foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] 1988 four months before the assassination of federal police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester but our information suggests that murder is a foot and it's believed to have been ordered at the highest level two men arrive in Australia from Italy and according to Italian police they have been sent by the calabrian Mafia the andrungada we know from Italian sources the Italian carabineri said that one man specifically had come from Italy to take care of Winchester Professor anusuji is an international expert on the andrangada and is calabrian herself she says a Hitman being sent directly from Italy would be a mark of how important the intended victim is so someone coming from Italy to kill specifically Winchester and coming from Club is a very very important thing because it means it comes really from my above we've revealed that Winchester's Mafia middleman Giuseppe verducci may have convinced the Godfathers that the assistant commissioner is on their payroll the leaders of the andragonal were told that Winchester was corrupt that he was being given money to afford them protection and they were not getting their protection immediately you've got the motive you've got retaliation you've had a reason why they would order a hit on him we believe a high-level Mafia meeting was held to decide Colin Winchester's fate if this was a mafia hit would a meeting had to have taken place to get the approval do you need approval for those things yes absolutely I mean if this is something that comes from the heads of the nirangata the they need to give approval and what form would that meeting have taken to make the decision to assassinate Winchester I would expect something very of probably out in a farm in someone's house a dinner according to Anna Sergi the andrungada's hierarchy in Italy would also be represented and everybody would have to agree so the locales which is what effectively runs Griffith and that was actually recognized by the Royal commission after Donald McKay's murder runs through uh five families so this forms the local it forms the structure active there that's the rule of the narangeta at least at that stage so you would expect from five to seven men one of which in Calabria to have agreed to this would I have had certain parameters that Winchester had to meet certain aspects of the trial or some reason why they would have to assassinate him I think the reasons we're mounting up so probably it was just you know someone's proposal that then was vouched by the others and eventually measured up with risks and results so I think the key Point here is can we get away with this had already killed in the past so the question to me was are we sure that if we do this is not gonna come back to us the execution of a senior policeman is a serious and very big decision Italian caribbeanieri General Vincenzo Santos says it would be what the mafia calls an excellent murder [Music] excellent murders we in Italy unfortunately define as the murders of public figures or those important in Authority these are strategic killings and if the mafia decided Colin Winchester had to go the timing May well have been said to the trial of those arrested for their part in Winchester's police sanctioned marijuana crop a court case the media called the bungendor 11. two weeks before the trial is due to start Colin Winchester is assassinated [Music] The Murder By Mafia has to make a statement there is a message there and the message has very much to do with timing of things to happen Jeffrey when Colin Winchester was gunned down just before that trial it did impact that trial well the timing it's just compelling can't be coincidence do you think it absolutely had to be part of the planning it was timed to Perfection [Music] as an indemnified police informant verducci was required to testify in the trial of the bangador 11. but after Winchester was murdered verducci refused to give evidence as he was fearful for his own life and the case collapsed I'm forced by the national Comm Authority the Australian federal police to refuse to give evidence I believe that baducci got a benefit from The Murder full stop and the bangondore 11 because they used the murder to say for duty to say I am too scared to give evidence that he used the phrase in the court he used the phrase mince mate coming up two men two executions we don't have a guilty person in the case of Winchester in the case of McKay we have no trial and nobody will there finally be Justice they've been able to operate in darkness for so long that we're shining the light on it the Australian people need to know history needs to be corrected that's next on under investigation foreign [Music] Winchester's killing had the Hallmarks of a mafia murder and to this day a Italian authorities firmly believe it was so does the United Stack Up these events are 33 years old it's time for us to get to the truth Barrister Jeffrey Watson SC believes there should be a public inquiry into a case that has never fully explained the role of the mafia if you think about it now we have no clear idea about who did it and that's wrong because a lot of people need to know at a personal level but also the Australian people need to know history needs to be corrected we believe we have about 51 Italian organized crime Clans in Australia and to date we have confirmed at least 14 of these has been Andrade which we believe have thousands of members in Australia last year the Australian federal police announced operation Ironside the biggest organized crime investigation in its history with the calabrian Mafia the andrungada firmly within its site Ian dragada and not just an Australian problem they are a global problem and the threat was clearly Spilled Out they are responsible for 70 to 80 percent of the world's cocaine and they are flooding Australia with illicit drugs as was the acknowledgment that the mafia's tight grip on crime has lasted decades I think what what we're actually doing here is that they've been able to operate in darkness for so long that we're shining the light on it but it seems the light will not be shining on the past despite Colin Winchester's dangerous undercover operation with the mafia his execution has not been solved and the AFP says the case is closed the AFP today says no review report intelligence is there to suggest Mafia is responsible there is no open investigation to this matter it is not under review they should be ashamed to put out a notice like that the matter is not under review when their second most senior officer was assassinated outside his home they should be ashamed brightest primer completely innocent Federal Kramer and there's been no further investigation ever since the man they believed killed Winchester David Eastman was acquitted and paid compensation of more than seven million dollars for having spent 19 years behind bars the whole time spent looking at easement and Prosecuting him was time which could have been spent on finding who actually did it you would agree with that too yes and I think that knowing David Eastman well you can't dismiss the element of tragedy too he suffered terribly it is hard to understand why authorities are wanting to vigorously investigate today's Mafia but not the Godfathers who came before them given the two high-profile assassinations remain unsold Donald McKay in 1977 whose murder warned the public the mafia walks Among Us and sparked a royal Commission and the afp's own man Colin Winchester two men two executions both of whom were fighting the mafia and a Sergey it's clear that the the mafia is still a massive problem around the world and here in Australia what should we be doing differently I think if anything uh the Winchester case proves that the first basic thing is not been done in Australia which is a database it's information authorities in Italy have made a point of compiling for their own Mafia records and has led to the capture and trials of high-level Mafia leaders a database that from 1992 up until now runs all the time and consistently keeps together everything that has ever been done on mafias every investigation every person has ever been stopped in the street on the suspicion which is very difficult to do but it's the first step and the cases of Donald McKay and Colin Winchester are good reasons to keep propelling this investigation into the mafia in Australia absolutely in one case we don't have a guilty person in the case of Winchester in the case of McKay we have no trial and nobody so if you have any information that could finally bring these cases to Justice or if you believe you have seen signs of organized criminal activity please call Crime Stoppers on 1-800 Triple Three triple zero or contact us on our confidential email under investigation at nine.com dot a u . thank you very much for your conversation and thank you for joining us I'm Liz Hayes good night hello I'm Liz Hayes and thank you for watching under investigation subscribe to our Channel 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Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 267,726

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Tom Steinfort, 60Mins, #60Mins, Amelia Adams, UI, UInvestigate, Under Investigation, Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, mafia, police killing, murder, assassination, is this the mafia?, Colin Winchester

Id: HukObjIrHXo

Length: 44min 41sec (2681 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2023