From running the streets to begging for death: Gaz Wright Pt. 1

The criminal underworld is a grubby place, it welcomes anyone willing to make bad choices. And Gaz Wright made plenty of them. In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary sits down with Gaz, a former gang leader, drug dealer, and serious violent offender from Melbourne’s western suburbs, who served almost a decade in prison, and who once called the police on himself hoping they’d shoot him dead. Then, the karma he'd accumulated finally caught up with him in the most brutal way possible. Still, Gaz found a way forward. Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=en Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  The criminal underworld is a grubby place. It welcomes anyone willing to make bad choices. And Gaz Wright made plenty of them. For decades, Gaz lived in a world where violence was a currency and where survival meant being the most dangerous person in the room. Gaz's criminal resume runs deep. Assaults, drug dealing, kidnappings, even allegations of murder. Then the karma he accumulated finally caught up with him in the most brutal way possible. Still, Gaz found a way forward. This is an ugly story about crime and its consequences. And perhaps a content warning is appropriate, given the subject matter.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Gary, Gaz Wright, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Gary, Gary Jubelin. Thank you.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Now, I've heard of you as Gaz Wright, Gary Wright. What do you prefer being referred to as?

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Gaz.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Gaz, okay.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was usually in trouble when people call me Gary. It's a little formal. What about yourself? Do you get Gaz or Gary?

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Gary when you're in the shit. And it's a bit of a funny name now, Gary, isn't it? You're a fucking Gary.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Have you got one or two R's?

• 1:51Speaker 00

  A one R.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Oh, two.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  All right, okay. Well, we'll get over being Garrys, but you can be Gaz for the episode.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Now, Gaz, in prepping for the podcast, and I've obviously heard about you and know about you, and a few mutual friends have steered me in your direction.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Danny, Glen, Glen Fisher, Danny Shannon, Geoffrey Morgan. All close friends of mine.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I know them well too, and they all speak highly of you.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  They're doing good things in the community as well.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  I love stories of redemption. And they're classics for it. But also giving people an understanding of what the world of crime is like. Because I think... People are fascinated by true crime.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  They are.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  But it's almost looking at the surface of it and glorifying it. You can see the cool things that happened in the crime. But speaking to people like you, I think it allows people to understand, well, you know, it can be a bit messy in the world of crime.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  I know part of your platform now is trying to help people and steer them away from it. And I think it's an important message.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  And we're doing a good job too.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Definitely doing a good job at pushing a positive message, as we would say, and helping others, you know, which is what it's all about. Because, let's be honest, you know, you've got to start somewhere, but some people get online and they say, I've been here and I've done that.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  And you shouldn't do it.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Like, that's great if people are going to listen, but what else have you got to offer? And, you know, and I think people like me, Danny, Glenn and Morgs, we're really getting our hands dirty in the community in a positive way, which I think is great.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  And demonstrating that that's possible and can be done for a time. I've also, you've mentioned karma a lot in interviews that you've done or when you're speaking to people. Do you believe in karma? Has karma come back to bite you in ways?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Got me a beauty.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Talk us through that.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Massive part of why I do what I do today.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, I don't, there was a lot of ups and downs in my life and then the downs ended up outweighing the ups. And I had to take accountability, you know, you create your own reality. Like, this is what we do. We are in charge of our destiny and life doesn't happen to us, it happens for us. And when I woke up to that, I was like, okay, well, this is all meant to be.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I'm only getting what I put out. And so, yeah, I thought, well, enough for being a bad guy. Let's start being a good guy.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Well, I think it's a good starting point. You've got to own it. Like, you can go through as a victim and there's a lot of people who've got some shit starts to life and you understand why they fall into that path. But at some point in time, to dig your way out, you really got to say, okay, well, that shit happened, but yeah, I can take control of my destiny.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  It's all about owning your shit, isn't it? I think that's a big part of where we're in the hill, we would say in the healing space, you know, and a big part of it is taking accountability, owning your shit, having a hard long look in.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  You know, addressing shame and guilt, but then on the back of shame and guilt is forgiveness, you know, you don't, no one wants to walk around with their head down for the rest of their life because of the things they've done wrong. So, you know, you need to find love in your heart for yourself, which is very important and forgive yourself. And then from there, you know, you can, you can only go up.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  I've, I've heard people, plenty of people have sat in that chair where, where you are and all people have come across in, in life and sometimes that forgiveness, you've got to be able to forgive yourself too.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  And I, I would imagine the lifestyle that you, uh, you lived, the, the gangster lifestyle that you lived, there'd be a lot that you've just got to go, okay, well, that was the old me, uh, I'm, I'm different now.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've forgiven people for things they've done to me and that, and that, that's, that's important. Um, it's not like, you know, I had to ring them and say, I forgive you because let's be honest, you know, if we can find forgiveness for people that have done wrong to us, it's not always because they deserve it.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  You know, but forgiving them for my peace is a no brainer. And then obviously more important than that is forgiving self, you know, we have to find love because forgiveness is love.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  And we have to find love for self before we find love for anybody else, I think.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  And, and forgiving others to find peace for yourself, I think is an interesting, interesting concept there. And it's hard, like there's people who have wronged me and I fucking hate them.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  But I've also learnt that

• 6:07Speaker 01

  You don't want to carry that.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  To hang on to that is just, it's, they're not sitting there thinking about, thinking about me. I'm, I'm destroying myself. So

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  I understand the forgiveness, uh, yeah, is for bringing peace to yourself.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Um, we, we're going to talk, talk about your life and, um, but most importantly, talk about what you're doing and the direction your life is heading in now and the, the good positive stuff that you're doing. I just want to give people a sense, but before we talk about your childhood, there was one, uh, one episode in your life that was, I think, significant, but it gives people a, uh, an understanding of how low your life was.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  I've called it in, in my notes, um, suicide by cop.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, the incident I, I'm, I'm talking about and, uh, we don't have to put it in context, what led up to it or, or what occurred after it. But just tell us about that incident because I think people will get a sense of how dark the world can be for, uh, people.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  So I'd come home from prison, I'll try and skim over, like you said before and the after. Um, I come home from prison with this mindset of I wanted to do the right thing. I'd had enough, had enough of that life. I was about, I was moving into my mid thirties. And, um, you know, by that stage, it had just been, I was an active criminal. Yep. Served over, just over seven years prison for obviously, you know, crimes that I've been caught for. You know, beat a really big case, I sat in front of the courts, you know, I would have been lucky to get fifteen if I was found guilty. Beat that, had to serve a little time on a lesser charge, come home and was like, well, I'm not doing this anymore. You know, what a shit career choice. This is, this is stuffed up. And there wasn't much, you know, there was a lot of drug activity, but I wasn't a user. Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  So I didn't, I was the guy in the area that sold drugs, I didn't take it. And, um, yeah, and I had this mindset of, I want to turn my life around and, um, got a, a good girl, as we would say from that life, a straight girl. Yeah. I shared a couple of kids, you know, uh, we were taking the kids to school and, you know, getting dinners done by six and I was in bed by ten thirty and all the, all the normal stuff. And I wasn't used to this normal life. Living like a citizen. Living like a, yeah, civilian, yeah, literally. And, um, it was totally new to me, like I'd never, ever done it. From the time I was a teenager, I was living, as we would say, free, doing whatever I want, whatever I want, whenever I wanted. And, um, it didn't work out too well. You know, there, there was some resistance along the way and, um,

• 8:30Speaker 01

  you had to learn the hard way. But anyway, so I, I, I just pushed through. And, um, little did I know that I had so much baggage from that old life. It was just, I was suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing. And one day, um, it just exploded. It just exploded. One morning I woke up in tears. Didn't know what was happening. Within fifteen minutes of that, um, you know, I tried to hang myself out the back

• 8:54Speaker 01

  under the bagola. And, um, yeah, it was just, it, it all happened really quick. And, um, I actually was not successful. I, I hit, hit the ground.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Sitting on my bum and I'm looking around and at that time, leaving that old life behind and then trying this new life, I can remember leading up to that morning in me head, I couldn't say anything, I couldn't talk to anybody about the way I felt. But in my head, I kept thinking, I can't do this. And I'll be honest, exactly what was going through me, I can't do this straight head shit. So every year, three, four times a day, it dawned on me, I can't do this straight head shit. But then I just kept pushing through and I decided I'm not gonna hurt anybody, I'm not gonna sell drugs, I'm gonna try and be a good guy. And I was trying and it just continued. Obviously, I feel like we suppress, we suppress, we suppress. The emotions are always gonna come to the surface and when they do, they explode, we have no control over them. And you know, we verbally or physically hurt someone around us, even worse than that, we verbally or physically hurt our loved ones.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  So can I, I just, at that particular point in time, just getting a sense of your mindset and your emotional stability at that point. You're trying, you want to live the straight life.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  You've still got inclination being drawn back to the life that you knew because it's an easier life for you or it's a life that you knew. You're struggling with the straight life and that was the type of emotions you're going through. Cause the straight life can be hard too, you know, like doing the right thing and looking after people.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Now I love it. I wouldn't, going back to that old life, I get anxiety just thinking about it.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  But the transition from that old life to where I am today, there was this bit in the middle that was, yeah, it was really, really hard. And people that have never lived an active, you know, criminal career or path, whatever you wanna call it, probably wouldn't understand. But if I was to say to someone that was a civilian, listen, we're gonna run around in cars that aren't registered in our name. We're gonna have houses that aren't registered in our name, we're gonna carry guns, we're gonna push drugs. If another team comes our way, we're gonna have to go to war with them. At any stage, if we slip up, the police can get us. We could do years. Also, if another team gets a leg up on us, we might be dead. This is what we're gonna do, this is how we live. It's easy money, it's fast money, we're gonna live in the fast lane, we live day to day and this is what we're gonna do, they have an anxiety attack.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Well, it was exactly the same for me when you said. You're gonna get up at seven in the morning, you're gonna be in bed by ten thirty. You're gonna, you, you, main thing you're probably gonna worry about is taking the bins out and making sure the lawns mode. You know, like, all that is just consumed me. It seems like it doesn't, when I even hear myself say it, it doesn't seem stressful. I suppose it'd be like a rock star lifestyle.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  And then someone's told, now you're just gonna live an everyday life, you're gonna have to make sure the bills are paid. They'll be like, what?

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it's, it's a, it's a different type of pressure, but the, the gangster lifestyle that you describe would be high anxiety. Uh, like, yeah, you enjoy the highs, but the lows can be at any moment, uh.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  It's all over.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  People like my, uh, ex mates could be kicking the door in and that, that's, uh.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  See you for the next twenty years.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  So, um, but the, the, the time that you, uh, you got that low, that, that sort of mindset you're in, where you got that low, that you actually called the cops on yourself.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, I, I, I fell down on my bum and I was looking around and at that time, I, I can remember feeling really hopeless. I thought. What was going through my head was you can't even take yourself out, you know, like, I was just, I, because it was obviously ego. Ego was, you know, I was trying to suppress that, but we're something special. We can do this, don't you know who I am, you know, all that mentality. And, um, you know, that's how I always thought I sat on a throne in my area. You know, it wasn't a joke on me because it was, you know, real downtime and, um. So I'm sitting on my bum, I, I'm looking out and I thought, you know, you can't even take yourself out, you know, I felt worthless, I really did.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Couldn't even succeed at that, let alone, you know, live a nine to five. And so I, I, from being really emotional, I got up that morning within like fifteen, twenty minutes of being up. Crying, tears are streaming, you know, anxiety's gone through the roof. I say, I can't do this, I'm tapping out. Tried what I tried, didn't work, and then sat on my bum, felt really down and worthless. From there, it went to anger. And I went, what, what, you think I'm a goose? Like, you know, that's why I started that mentality, what, you think I'm a dickhead? And, um, and I thought, I'll, I'll show everybody. And my mentality at that stage is tunnel vision was, well, I'll end up on the front page, shot by police.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  That's the easiest way out. And it's all finished like a gangster, you know, that was my mentality at that time. And I've gone out for bang, it's my last laugh, my last crack of the whip, my last hurrah, you know?

• 13:25Speaker 00

  And peo- people will be talking, talking about you going, oh, you went out, uh, guns blazing.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  That was my mentality. So I thought, yep, and I grabbed the police, I grabbed the phone, I rang the local police station. And I said, it's go right, you know, I said, I'm live this address, I'm a S V O, just a serious violent offender. I said, you wanna get here, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna hurt someone. There was no one in the house. It was just me. Um, Mrs. Gone to work, kids have gone to school. And um, yeah, and and the lady on the phone, so it was a lady obviously on the desk, did like, please stop cheating. And she said, excuse me, I said, you fucking heard what I said. So I'm only saying it once, and I hang up the phone. So give me my address, my name, all that. And thought now, I'm gonna, when they come here, I'm gonna grab a knife, I'm gonna run out the front. Bang, bang, bang. So.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  In that time, I'm pacing around and trying to, you know, and I can remember, it was almost like sitting off, I could see myself. Like going through the motions. And I can remember, like, you know, thinking, whoa, what are you doing? Like, this is huge. Like, you, you, you backed yourself into a corner. This is gonna be a really bad day. But the, the emotions have taken over, like the, the ball was rolling. There was no stopping me. But I can remember thinking, what are, what are you doing? But I'd already done what was gonna.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's hard, hard to unravel that.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, when they get here, I'll run out the front and that's it. And um. The roll within a couple of minutes of hopping off the phone and, and geeing myself up. Um, and waiting to, you know, for them to be out the front. I heard the roller door in the garage go up to the house. Had a look and it was my girlfriend. And um, she's come in and I'm like, oh, obviously I've ducked the knife. And she's like, are you okay? I said, I'm fine. And I couldn't tell her how I was feeling leading up to any of this, you know, it was my own dirty little secret, what was going on in my head. And um, she's like, what's the matter? I said, nothing's the matter, nothing's the matter. I said, I just can't, I've had enough, I just can't do this. She's like, what are you talking about? Like, you're all right? Like, you don't seem right. And so she sort of followed me around for the next few minutes, probably about five minutes or so.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  And um, talk to me. I said, I can't, just leave me alone. You're all right, you know? And I remember thinking in my head, I'm in shit now, because this has gone from. Suicide by cop to a hostage situation.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  You're digging yourself a deeper hole, aren't you?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Like, you know, and um.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Next minute, I've heard a bit of ruckus out the front and I've, I've, I've peeled the curtains back, had a look and it's obviously police everywhere, tactical gear. You know, the right van in the driveway and they started coaching me, you know, go right, evacuate all the stuff, hands up, all the usual. And um, and I said, well, I turned to her and I said, well, that's it now. I said, there's nothing I can do. She goes, what do you, and when she looked, she had a look.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  She's like, what have you done? The first thing she said, cause she knew my old life.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  But she, you know, she knew what I'd been up to, but she'd never seen that side of me. And um, she's like, what have you done now? You know, what have you gone and done? And she looked, probably looked like to her, I'd massacred the community because there's so many police.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Cops roll up, yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  And um, I said, well, I called them on myself. She said, what do you mean you called them on yourself? And I said, I can't do this. I said, I'm, I'm, I'm going out the front and they can, they can do me on the spot. I'm done. And um, and then she sort of like went white. She got what was happening.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  She dropped to her knees and she grabbed my hands and she said, I love you. She started crying. She said, you can't do this.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  You know, she said, I can't have you hurt yourself. I can't see you hurt. I love you, blah, blah. And you know, obviously that was my, I was. Now I look back on it, that whole morning was a cry for help. I just didn't know how to ask for help and I didn't know what was happening, you know? My emotions had exploded. And um, and when she said that to me, it gave me a reason to get out. It gave me an avenue to, now I don't, now I've got an excuse not to do what I was gonna do.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, see where you're coming from, yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  You know, be the love conquering evil, you know, be the light conquering dark. And um, and so I've said, all right, I'm gonna just go out and surrender. I threw the knife, um, opened the front door. Obviously they get on the ground, the usual. Uh, tactical operations is, um, you know, down there, we call them SOGs, um, they uh, cable tied me. You know, throwing me on the front line. Clear the house. Obviously you hear them go through and you've got to clear each bedroom. It goes quiet and it's like, get down, get down, please, please, please. And then it goes quiet again. Get down, please, please, please. They're clearing the house, making sure there's no one else in there. And then they hand me over to detectives once they've cleared the house. The detective they hand me over to, I'd known him for twenty years.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And um he he'd broken my balls, like it was cat and mouse, you know. I was an active criminal in the area. He knew me since I was a street kid on a push bike that grew up into, you know, one of the, as we'd say from my area, shot caller, you know, and um as I got older, you know, I was more good, better at what I did. It was harder for him to catch me.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  And it was real becoming cat and mouse. I wasn't gonna get caught, you know, slacking and um. And he said to me, you you know, and I remember there'd been times he'd kick my ass. You know, he'd um, they'd even, to be honest, they'd even rob me, you know, like, all right, we can't get you. We've got nothing, but you think this ten grand we found in your car, we're gonna stitch up for that. We'll just pocket it, you know.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  And all the usual. And so like, you know, that's you fight fire with fire, don't you? And um, and anyway, he pulled me to the side and he said to me, he goes, to, you know, his um his offside, as he said, put his handcuffs in the front and he goes, because they have to take cables off.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Tie cable ties off and put the handcuffs. He goes, put some handcuffs on, put them in the front, put them, put his handcuffs in the front and loosen them up.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And I was just like, this, never heard him usually that tight as possible, you know, arm tucked to the back of my head. And um, and then he's done that. And then he said to my my girlfriend, grab him a cigarette. And so I know something's, there's a shift here. He's never spoke to me like this. Something's going on. It's been a big morning and he pulls me to the side. I've got handcuffs in the front, you know, they're loosened up. I'm having a cigarette. And he pulls me to the side and he's just one on one. It's just me and him. He goes, listen, we're gonna drop the bad guy and good guy act today. He goes, Gary, you're not right in the head. He goes, I've known you since you were a kid.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  He goes, you're not, he goes, you're not okay. I said, I'm fucking fine, you know. He goes, no, you're not. He goes, how do you feel, how do you feel about me not taking you to prison today and we take you to hospital?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  And yeah, man, I mean, it hit me like a ton of bricks. When the enemy, you know, shows compassion.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  It just lands different.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Like we were literally, we hated each other.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can imagine the relationship you would have had.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and um, when he showed, and let's be honest, it felt like he was showing me a bit of love.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  He cared. And so that that rocked me and I said, well, okay then, he goes, because I think you need to be checked out. And then he finished it with um. He goes, I've, he goes, I've seen some shit in my time. He goes, I can only imagine what you've seen. He goes, I've spoke to someone. He goes, I'll take a pill in the morning.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  He goes, how about we go get your head checked out? And I said, all right, let's do that then. And it was the first time I'd accepted help, you know?

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Well, cut, a long story short, funny bit is, I end up, they've taken, put me in ambulance, take me to hospital, do the mental health act and all the stuff and. I'm in the back and I've got two, like, you know, one pip, you know, just fresh out of the academy escorting me. And I've said to them, it was a guy and a girl, and I've said to them, so what, what was your line of defence? What did you just have lined up for me? And they said, oh, you're in trouble, Gary. I said, what, what was the protocol, how he was gonna run it? And um, they said, well, the first, no, no one was to speak to you, especially apart from special operations, they're the only ones to communicate with you. Negotiate with you. And then um, from there, there was gonna, they were gonna send the dogs in first.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  And if you got past the dogs, then they were gonna send non-lethal rounds. So obviously being background with rubber bullets. And then after that, the third line was lethals.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  And then I, I sort of chuckled to myself because there was no way I was getting what I wanted. I would have got bitten by the first dog and screamed.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  And they're scary, those dogs.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would scream like a bitch. So it wasn't even happening going down the way I thought it was, you know?

• 21:18Speaker 00

  Well, a, a, a couple of things, and I, I just wanted to bring that out early in the, in the podcast. Yeah. This is how, how low it can go. And there, there's highs and lows and we'll talk our way through. But I think it's also good and it shows humanity and I, I'm sure you draw on that um, down the track. But here's your arch enemy, the cop that's been chasing you for twenty years in that cat and mouse game. And saying, hey, mate, you, you need help. This is not the time to, to kick you. This is the time to, to help you.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  And I suppose, you know, you probably like hearing, hearing me say this, and you know, I can say this now that I've, I've got a lot of growth. You know, we're all humans.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  You know, even a criminal or, you know, a guy with the badge. You know, at the end of the day, we're all human. No one's born bad.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  You know, no one's born bad.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  It's just our experiences in life that mould us into who we are, you know. And that was in a time where I was in a bad place and he could see that.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, and I, I know the life got worse for you after that. It wasn't the sort of the watershed moment that turned everything round.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  In the same regards, it could have gone a lot worse. If they turned up there and went hard at you and put the boot in and all that, you would have come out more angry and.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Okay, well, maybe you've become a worse person.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  It was a, it was a very ironic, you know, moment in my life. I, I mean, this, the synchronicities, you know, like I could have went either way. And, you know, when the enemy showed compassion, it, um, yeah, it just landed. And I suppose, you know, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go as far as thanking him for where I am today. Because I've had to put in the hard work, but it was definitely, it was a big point in my life because it could have went either way.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and sows a seed in your brain.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  And you think, okay, well, I've seen that before. Someone's actually done it for me. Let's, uh, let's talk about your, uh, your upbringing. Where, where'd you grow up and?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Uh, Melton.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Yep, which is a, compared to what sort of suburbs are we looking in the scenario?

• 23:11Speaker 01

  So it's out the western suburbs.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Uh, it's, it's out the west of the city in Melbourne, um, and it's, it's lower housing.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  So, you know, you want a cheapest house out the west, you'll go out towards Melton. You'll go, so lowest prices on housing, which therefore bring the riffraff. You know, you've got a lot of single mothers, you know, drug abuse, you know, domestic violence, all the things. And so, and it is a nice little community, um, you know, there's good things happening in every community. But there's also, you know, the undertone and in Melton, if you want to get in trouble, there's definitely plenty of spaces to get in trouble. And so. Yeah, I mean, that's where it all started. Mum's a really good person. Mum, mum's worked, so mum was a nurse.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  She worked for forty years with terminally ill kids, so you know, like the Wish Foundation.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  At the Royal Children's Hospital, um, you know, cystic fibrosis, cancer, leukemia, all those sort of kids that usually don't see her over the day of a teenager.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're talking about a tough gig.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, live in hospital, you know, mum. I can remember coming home and she'd look after kids for years on end. She'd say, oh, today, rah rah, passed away.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  You know, that's, that was her job. So she's a good member of the community. But um, if I can, you know, take mum's flowers away for any reason and I blame her.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  But maybe she had a bad choice in men.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  You know, um, our dads weren't good role models.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  When you say our dads.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yep, three boys.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  Different fathers.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Yep, different dads. You know, we're, we're a big gap apart. Mum tried three times to get it right.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  So we're all seven years apart.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  So mum tried with me, I'm the oldest, seven years old, she tried again with another man, seven years old, she tried again with another man. I'd only seen my mum ever with those three men.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Um, you know, it wasn't like she had guys coming in and out of the house, but yeah, she just, um, her dads didn't show up the way they should have.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  And at a young age, I didn't know that, you know, that you need a village to raise your family.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't understand that. I was just a kid. I'd seen mum work her ass off. And, you know, twenty bucks was ten bucks for ham sandwiches for school and the other ten bucks was petrol and then we were broke again. So, you know, I didn't understand that, you know, you need, you know, a family need to support.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Did, did you have any role models, like whether your father or the, the other men?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  My dad was my best mate, so he wasn't, he wasn't like, dad never told me what to do, never yelled at me, never smacked me. He never told me what I could and couldn't do. He'd just say, listen, you've got to work out life for yourself. My dad was an alcoholic.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  So he was a good man, um, but, you know, I didn't, I suppose I didn't get to see. What a child needs from their father.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Just a segue there about the father raising kids and all that. And I I say it to people and I I like to think this is how I learnt and I learnt from uh from my father. Your kids don't want their best mate to be their parent. They want a fucking parent.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  And I I see a lot of people make the mistake and yeah, sometimes when when I my son was growing up and my daughter, I was jealous of the relationships other parents seemed to have with their kids.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Cause they were their best mates.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  But I think the thing that a child needs most is a parent.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  A bit of discipline.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Set set the parameters, set the boundaries and keep people pointed pointed in the right direction.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And I I understand where my dad was coming from, cause I'd heard him say there's method to his madness. He liked to micromanage. So in his head, you know, he was like, if I'm his best mate, I'll find out what mum's not finding out.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, some logic there.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, and okay, and there was times he he used that into his, you know, played that into his hand. I remember once he um, you know, we had an episode and and um, and some shit went down anyway. I had a bunch of guns at my house first thing in the morning and that shouldn't be like that. They should be gone before daylight, you know, in case we get a visit. And um, but it's it just happened that there was a bag of guns there and um, and dad come over. And being my best mate, I said, dad, oh shit, you know, he give you, have a look what I've got, you know. Caught a couple of pistols and he was like, oh Jesus, eh, bit of trouble if you get caught with them. I watched him sort of scratching his head over the next twenty minutes, having to think about it. And he goes, how about um, he caught, cause dad was a drinker, he didn't um, drive, so he didn't have a licence.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  So he caught the train up. He goes, how about, he goes, cause I was waiting for a mate to come pick him up. He couldn't make it till lunchtime, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, how about I grab them? He goes, I'll just be another civilian on the train with a backpack, you know, he goes, I'll take it to my house. He goes, and when you need him, you come and get him.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  And I said, yeah, sweet dad, you know, so like he palmed him off to him and he shipped him over the other side of the city. And and they were safe there and they stuck them there for a few months. But um, and I suppose that's dad's way of protecting the train, you know, yeah. Probably not, probably not as um, as yeah, as clean cut as you would expect.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  For him, he was, he was, that was all love, you know.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  No, no one, no one gets it, no one gets it perfect. So, yeah, it's, uh, we try all different ways. But I, I just make the observation that I, I think it's important that kids want that, they want that restriction. So they want those things. You don't know it at the time. You hate the parent at the time, but that's probably the way to go. What, what attracted you to the life, life of crime? Like, was it people you're hanging around with or people you looked up to? What was it? And, and at what age did you go?

• 28:17Speaker 01

  You know, mid nineties, I was like fifteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. So in the mid nineties, you know, the whole hip hop thing was big.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  I was listening to Tupac and Biggie and, you know, Snoop Dogg and all that sort of stuff.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  So you're gonna be a gangster.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Oh, that was pretty cool. It was appealing. Um, it was the girls and the drugs and the gangs and so there was that. And then obviously the movies, I was watching, you know, all the movies, Scarface and all the stuff as attention did. I mean, I was a little, I was a high-stimulant little kid. So, um, I can remember being as young as five, six years old. And, um, kids jumping puddles and climbing trees and I'd get pretty bored with it.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And so I'd grab a, a, a bottle and smash it on a drain. Get a little buzz, you know? It's about as bad as it got. But then, you know, my environment, you know, mum working her ass off and, you know, uh, you know, uh, not having a role model in the home, not having money in the home. When I stepped out into the streets, you know, as a teenager, um, I'll be honest, you know, the kids with the Nikes and the gold chains and the lowered vehicles, you know, they looked appealing.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  They were the ones you're looking up to.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  That, that, that looked really cool.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  It looked like, you know, I can remember being in high school and the teacher's going, so what do you want to be when you grow up? And I'd say, miss, I'm gonna run my area.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  What a shit career choice, you know?

• 29:32Speaker 00

  And, and like you're talking and just, I, I think our listeners understand, but run your area, it wasn't sort of, you didn't want to be the local mayor. You wanted to be the local gangster, run, run in the corners and the area.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, run the streets, yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  I thought that was cool.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  So, okay, where, where did you, uh, uh, start stepping in the crime? When, when did you cross the line?

• 29:52Speaker 01

  You know, before I had hair on me balls, I was robbing stuff.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was getting out there.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Steal, stealing, breaking others?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Started off, yeah, fleecing cars.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  And stealing cars, and then it went on to, you know, backyard sheds.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Then it went on to houses, and then went on to shops. You know, uh, you know, by about fifteen, sixteen, we were doing smashing grabs, and then that moved on to roof jobs. So we were shimmering down, um, through, you know, people into the stor- storeroom. So we wouldn't set off alarms, shimmy everything back up. Yeah, that was, that was me teenage years through high school, and then I went to juvie.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  How, how was that experience for you?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Uh, um, I, I got, I slid through the cracks. I actually got to, I got to see someone in there that I'd known, um, from another area. We'd done some things together. It was a cousin.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  A fri- so a friend of mine's cousin, and, um, he was pretty, a bit of a heavy hitter in the juvie scene. So as soon as, I didn't recognise him when he first spotted me, because he'd put on so much weight.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  As people do in prison. And he goes, you remember me? Oh, here we go, I'm in some shittier. And he goes, I'm my, my cousin. I was like, oh, how you going, bro, you know? He goes, you're sweet in here. So, and they, they pretty much ran the unit. Yeah, and so like, I was just pulled under his wing, which, I was only a little guy, I've always been short.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  You know, um, so, yeah, that, that was handy, gave me time pretty easy, to be honest. You know, always cigarettes and, you know, hanging around with the cool kids and, you know. At the cool table, there's like, always like, in, in jail, there's hierarchy. So I, I, I lucked out there, in a sense, had no trouble come my way because of people I knew. Um, and then, yeah, I got out of juvie and, um, and I had the mentality is, I'm like, I'm, I'm over robbing. Straight away, I was like, I'm over robbing shit. Like, this is, this is shit. Because, yeah, every second weekend, the police were catching us with stolen goods. Like, we thought we were organised, but, you know, we were a bunch of kids on pushbikes, stealing cars, you know? Robbing anything that wasn't tied down. And, yeah, I thought, well, what am I gonna do now? And so I, I approached the old kids, and I, I remember them approaching me pretty much at the same time.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  It was like a no brainer. They were the older guys, they were twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

• 31:55Speaker 00

  How old were you?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  I would have been fifteen, going on to sixteen, yeah, about that. Yeah, around there, maybe even just turned sixteen. And, um, and said, listen, I wanna start pushing weight, you know? And they said, not a problem. So then the tick bill comes in, they give you a bunch of stuff, and they put you on the bill, and you're gonna sell that. Take you a little bit off the top and take them back their money. And that's how it started.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  What what drugs were you selling?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Um, that was weed and that time it was acid ecstasy.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Speed. There was no ice or heroin around.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  The mountain police did a really good job at um keeping heroin out of our town.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  So you had to go to the next towns down, which was Sunshine, Footscray, St Albans. And um yeah, because there was, you couldn't score heroin in in in mountain. It was like that for years on end. So the police really were adamant on not letting any people set up shop with heroin in mountain. Ice hadn't made its on the scene. We're probably a bit of a lower end of community to be on the coke. So it was um it was more the party stuff. It's the weekend prescriptions, as we call them, you know, the the acid, ecstasy.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  For the parties.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Bit of weed and um some speed. Yeah. The rave scene was big then. The techno scene was big in the mid nineties. Yeah, so it was all that.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  You had the the market there.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Looking back and you you and and we'll talk about it as we progress through your life and you became addicted to drugs and uh you know, you hit hit the bottom bottom as a junkie.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  You know the dangers. I'm not asking you now how you feel about selling the drugs. I I just want to get a sense of, did you care at that stage? Did you like the damage that's been done?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Let's be honest, Gary. Um, you know, what is the life of crime or, you know, the streets or gangs or, you know, drugs or whatever you want to talk talk about on that level, you know, just crime and criminals in general. It's it's powered by greed.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  It's all about money. You know, I know in Sydney, you've got Knox happening all over the joint, you know, those guys are dirty on a dollar.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  They're no one special. They're just getting paid to do someone else's dirty work.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  So uh so you're you're you're not at the time thinking, oh, I shouldn't be doing this. You're you're just.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Powered by greed.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  And intoxicated by power too? Would that be part of it?

• 34:05Speaker 01

  On the back of greed is power.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I can say it. I can say it how it is now, and that's exactly why it was driven by money.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  And and just we'll let people know that we're talking up. I'm asking you, what were the good points about it from your point of view? But you're looking back now and knowing that it's a putrid world, the world that you don't want to be in.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  It's filthy, but I had to go through trials and tribulations, you know, like I had to go my ups and downs to realise that, yeah. And I definitely have a whole different view on that life now. I look through a totally different lens, you know, generally. Doesn't interest me and I feel sorry for anybody that it does.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Well, that that's why I think people that have been there and speaking out, that's an important message to get out. It's not glorifying crime. You wanna find out what crime is like. This is, this is what's uh crime is. Your, your five minutes of fame and uh happiness is uh, yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Can I add too, you know, I hadn't seen no one work, you know, and reap the rewards from, from going to work every day, you know, of the week. So that played a big part. Now I know what I know. You know, I'm a young kid.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Why would I go get a job when mum was broke?

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  It made no sense to me. You know what I mean? She worked her ass off. For what? We, we, we had, we, you know, she, we, we had a house roof over our head and we had shoes on our feet and there was dinner on the table. But, you know, the other kids with the nice motorbikes or the fresh shoes and, you know, I didn't understand it was because their both parents were going to work. You know, we just had, mum had three boys, one wage, it's not enough. And um, and so like, yeah, I, I know what molded me. It was, if, you know, if we had had money in the home, it might have been a whole, maybe I would have dirt bikes for a living. Maybe I would have did combat sports for a living. Maybe I would have went to the military.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  I know it would have been something that was high paced, you know, definitely would need a little adrenaline dump. But, you know, being a drug dealer and an active gang member in my community made plenty of sense.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  It's um, it, it's, I've heard a lot of, it is sad and I've heard a lot of people say that, that, that they, they didn't see another pathway out than the, the role models and that. Do you think anyone could have made a difference if there's one person uh that could have made a difference at any stages in your life as you're progressing into that world?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Good question. Um, you know what? I, I, I'll be honest. I actually don't think there was anybody. And the reason being, I, I believe where I am today

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  is, is fate. I believe, you know, I had to go through all that in life. That was what I had to go through to set me up to where I am today. You know, we're doing big things in the community, man. We are helping thousands and thousands of people on a very high level. You know, this is, this is on a world level. Like, we are leading the way in our space in the world, not just in Australia. And so like, I think I needed to get the tools to set me up to where I am today. Um, and that was all part of it, you know, my journey was part of it. And it was dark, it was very dark. There was some dark days. Would I change it? No.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Not because I'm proud of it, because it built me into the man I am today.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I I can understand that. Sometimes life is about about the journey.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  It's a, it it would have been an easier journey if you took a different path.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Wouldn't be sitting here now, I don't think.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  No, you you might have been sitting here. I might have been sitting there. Who knows?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Well, it's a confusing place.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  I reckon ten years ago, neither of us would have thought we'd be sitting here like this. Not nor you'd, I'd be talking and you'd be going, no comment.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Or just staring back at me. That would be the way this interview would go. I'd walk out going, fuck you, and you'd be muttering under, under, yeah, but anyway.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  There's not nice things to say about you, I'm sure.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Nah, nah, I I'm sure we, it would have been a different, different environment. And you're free to leave at any time you want is another, another thing that would have been different. Yeah. Um, okay, the crimes, it started to escalate. Your, your career started to escalate. You, I'd, I'd describe you, yeah. You achieved your goal from school. You were starting to run your area and do things.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  And um, I, I'm at about the age of about eighteen.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Um, I stopped taking drugs, which was a key component into, you know, stepping into a leadership role. Sounds funny when you're a kid in the streets running a muck and, you know, but like I watched everybody else and they were, you know, getting high off their own supply.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  And I thought, how do I be better? And um, yeah, so I, I knocked everything on the head. I mean, as a kid, you know, gobbling heckies and snorting speed and smoking bongs and all the stuff. About the age of, it would have been around eighteen or nineteen, I said enough's enough. So I quit taking everything. So I could be more serious at what I did.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Motivated motivated to further your life of crime.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yes, a hundred percent. And then obviously then everything gets serious real quick because now. I get to profit on everything, you know, instead of, you know, putting a little bit aside and then ended up, you know, getting high off that. And um, and yeah, and then so, you know, the competition.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  You know, they're, they're going out on the weekends and, and getting high and I'm not.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm going to work, you know, in business.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  Literally.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally, yeah. And yeah, so I know it was about, it was about mid, mid twenties.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Caught a case, um.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  When you caught a case, an investigation.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  Cops coming after you.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Cops got, yeah, got on to me. Um, it was a bit of cat and mouse prior to that. You know, I always lived by the rule, never leave anything at home under the roof, you know, so. Never talk on phones, um, got caught with phone intercepts, it's ironic, but I wasn't one to talk on phones. But um, end up getting cornered through the phone. And um, yeah, so never, you know, always in the car, made sure there was a tissue box in the car and always touched the gear.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Um.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Uh, the bags of gear with the tissues and never left fingerprints and. DNA wasn't that big back then, it was starting to come in in the early two thousands, um, and yeah, so it would have been about two thousand, two thousand and five.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Um.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Um, I caught a pinch, um, so I was supplying a bouncer from a couple of towns away.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  He was supplying the clubs. They'd moved to undercover, so still police officers sent in as undercovers, two girls. And um, sent him into the club scene to, you know, clean up the drugs that were hovering around the drugs, uh, around the club scene. And um, they watched him do a transaction um, out the front of one of the clubs into a car.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  So they locked in on him. Um, yeah, narrowed over six, next six or seven weeks, they narrowed, narrowed me down as his supplier. You know, I, I, like I said, I didn't talk on the phone, but he used to ring me and say, oi, I've run out, can you come and see me? Yes, I, I'd usually load him up to get him through the weekend.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Um, he'd ring me on a Saturday, you know, afternoon, said, fucking, big night last night, can you come and see me? So I'd um, head up there and, and load him up for the next couple of nights and. Yeah, they had surveillance and, you know, they were wearing wires and they had the phone calls and they were buying off him.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  So over the, I think, six or seven week period, they bought um, seven thousand green Mitsubishi's. They bought a kilo of speed and two pounds of trough.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Well, that's a fair, fair bit.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then they narrowed me down as his supplier. And back then we got done with between dates. So remember the between dates, they'd say, they'd go, all right, so in.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  First of August.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, in eight weeks, you've, you've sold this amount, we're gonna break it up and call it a hundred pills every, whatever it is, you know? And at that time, we didn't know about between dates, it was very early, no one really set a precedence for it. And so we thought it sounded good, but um, you know, it sounded better than, you know, got to break it down. Better than one large commercial quantity, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And so, yeah, all the politics that goes on in court and um, I ended up taking a plea. I was gone, you know, there was no, when a jury in the land, it was gonna find me not guilty. And so I ended up taking a plea, I got a five with a three.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Five on top with a three on the bottom. I ended up doing all right, twelve months later on appeal, knocked six off the top, six off the bottom, which was good.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Okay, how, how, how was your prison time?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so um, you know, I was um, like they say, man, it was my apprenticeship was over now.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  You know, I, in that, in that life, you're always trying to prove something to yourself and others.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  You know, and when I got to prison, there was now, now's the big test, you know, now's the real test. Am I what I thought I was, you know, am I, you know, am I gonna make it through this and then come out the other side? And um, to be honest, you know, Bob, when I got pinched, I was driving around hundreds thousand dollar BMWs and Mercedes. I had hair salon, you know, we had Gainesville furniture, all the stuff, you know, thumping gold chains, all the the stuff that comes with that life. And um, so when I hit the yard, you know, I, I realised that I could talk the talk.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Um, you know, there was, you know, you know, I'm cutting laps with bank robbers, you know, importers, hitmen, you know, big drug dealers, you know, gang leaders, um, and, and I, I can hold my own, I know, I know how to speak the weight, I know how to speak guns, you know, I was actually, you know, a little heavy hitter from my area.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  You know, so, and that was a boost to my ego. I was like, yeah, and um, you know, I was in the know, so, you know, there's, there's a hierarchy there. Obviously wasn't, you know, the biggest guy in the yard, that's for sure, but definitely far from the littlest either as well, you know, so. You know, people's, their, their, their stature is, is on their crime and, and how much they earn outside and, you know, who they know and, you know, what they're capable of. And so, you know, yeah, I mean, I fell into a position where I thought, you know, fuck, I'm not bad at what I do.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  And so, to be honest, Gary, that's exactly what happened.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  So it, it, it didn't slow you down at all, you thought, okay.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  I was planning on making moves as soon as I got out.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was no backwards step, I, cause now I, and you get more connects in prison.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  You know, I just wanna pick, ISIS starting to make its, uh, its way on the scene.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  There's big money in that, you know, all the stuff and. When I got out, man, I picked up that day.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  You're.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Straight back into it.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, there wasn't, it was, it sounds crazy, doesn't it?

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Well.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  But I got out at what, twenty eight? I got out at twenty eight? Yeah, twenty eight.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Sounds crazy, but some people look at the bit of jail time, well, that's the price you pay. And.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  It's occupational hazard.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  And when you're talking about the gold chains, the expensive cars, the hairdressing salon and all that, you were.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Ten grand at strippers a night and all the things.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  But you're living off the grid too, weren't you?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  Like, you're not.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  There was no bank account.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  You're not paying tax.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, not paying tax.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  It's just, it's cash and.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, easy come, easy go.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Let the good times roll.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it all seemed, it seemed fun.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  You know, parking your car valet at the casino and going in and dropping a few thousand dollars on the tables, you know.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  You know, a kid from the area from, you know, I, I felt like this is, this is it, man. Look at me go. But it wasn't the joke on me because it all come down crashing hard.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  Well, it, it comes down big time on you. So you, you're out, you, you hit the streets again. You got a couple of the cases that are coming after you and I'm assuming this is when you, you've got out again.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  Um, kidnappings?

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, kidnappings, yeah. Alleged kidnappings.

• 44:43Speaker 00

  Okay, well, you were acquitted at court on it, but when you're involved in the drug world, there's a lot of kidnappings that go on that are reported, aren't reported and all sorts of shit that go down. And you're even suspected of a murder that.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Hmm, that's a technical one, yeah. It's, um, yeah, I was never interviewed.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and look, I, I'll clarify that because I don't want to sell, sell you out on that. It was a, a person that you're associated with died in a fire and the, the police looked at it.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Young bloke, he was only eighteen years old.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Uh, looked at it and stepped away.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  I was definitely a suspect.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, a suspect because they weren't sure whether it was a, a murder or a, yeah, a misadventure. But I think the coroner ruled the, the fire as a.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  An accident. I mean, they got my phone, my phone pinged far, far away from the incident and, um. And, uh, yeah, like they, they obviously did their homework. I mean, someone's died. I'm sure they give it all the resources they had.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, and look, I, I, I think the way that we'll, we'll deal with this or talk about this. There was charges that you were, uh, or charged, but you beat at court. I'm sure there's other things you've done that you haven't been charged, but.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  It's ironic that you say that. So sorry to cut you off, but you know, I, when I sat in front of the courts and you know, there was things brought up that I had nothing to do with.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  And then I was found innocent, you know, acquitted on um on the kidnappings um. And I was looking at a very long time if I was found guilty.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  You know, I never once whinged about the position I was in.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  And I'll be honest, because what about all the stuff I got away with?

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Mate, I probably owe him fifty years, to be honest.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  You know, and um and I and and so I I I took it on my chin. You know, I copped it and um I at at that stage, when I was sitting in the courts, you know, looking at down the barrel at a very long time. You know, um, I I lost two mates, you know, due due to that, um, one from drug addiction. He OD'd, another one committed suicide before we got the word in for.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  What with the pressure coming on with the trial?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he killed himself in the cells. Yeah, man, it was a hard, hard time and I I really, that's that's where I sat and thought. And yeah, in a split second, it was a lightbulb moment. I thought, what a fucking shit career choice.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  You know, I'm in my mid thirties, you know, um.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  And I I'm looking at the rest of my life in prison, you know, if I got them, yeah, lucky to get out from fifty, if not sixty. You know, and I thought, fucking man, what have I gone and done? Like, there was no amount of, like we talked about, for the chains, the cars, the girls.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  All the shit that comes with it, there was no amount um of that that was gonna outweigh me doing fifteen to twenty five years in prison.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Like, it's just that no matter who you are, when you get a whack like that, it it it's shit. Your life's just gone to shit, you know, and so like I was sitting there thinking, fuck. And um and I was found innocent. Now, I'm not stupid enough, you know, to go back to that life after that.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, that that that was the thing.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  The three with the five, the three years on the bottom with five on the top, that wasn't enough to deter me, but looking at fifteen to twenty five, I was done.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, you start to do your calculations, fuck, I'm gonna be fifty when I get out, or, yeah. Um, so in sequence of events, when when did you start using drugs? Was this, was that?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Pretty much after the attempted suicide, the death by cop.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Okay, so thi- this is before your last foray into into the world of crime was at the point where you uh had the charges for the kidnappings.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, that was it. I haven't made an illegal doll- an illegal dollar since that trial.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  Okay. In prison at the time, they would have been bail refused.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, yep. Oh, no, I I was remanded for eight months. Ended up getting bail.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Um, fought my cases from outside.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  And then when trial come, I got done on it. So there was a bunch of different cases, a bunch of kidnappings. And then there was also a fight. Um, we went to someone's house looking for another gang member.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  And he jumped the back fence. His parents come out the front.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  And his parents end up getting it.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, his dad ended up getting a bean and then they were civilians, you know.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Okay, how do you, how do you feel about that?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Like the, the, the person.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  How I feel now or how I felt then?

• 48:44Speaker 00

  No, how you feel now, I think.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  How I feel now, um, yeah, civilians don't deserve that, mate. You know, that we've got to keep it in the streets. When we were about them streets, it should have been kept in the streets. My mentality back then was if we can't get you, we'll get your family.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Now I think of that and, um, if that happened to my mother, you know what I mean? Well, like, that's, that's your worst nightmare.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  You know, um, yeah, man, I'm. I did, there definitely some shame and guilt for that. Let's be honest.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  I, I, well, there should be, I suppose. And that, the, where, where we talk, uh, talk karma, that not, might be how, how it kicked in with you. Because you, uh, you went from a period of time where you're the, you're, you're the man. You, you got the, the gold bling, you got the women, you got the, the money. You've, you've gone in the prison, but you've, uh, started using. And then you became, you slipped down the pecking order because you became the addict and that, that didn't go well for you, did it?

• 49:40Speaker 01

  No, not at all. So.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Tell us some of the stuff there, cause.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I ended up doing, yeah, I ended up doing, um, that little bit time, I got thirty three months and I ended up, um, pulling my parole. I said, bang the parole, I just want straight release.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  So I did, um, I got twenty on the bottom, twenty months on the bottom with thirteen months on top.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  And I ended up doing the whole thirty three, but I got the eight months remand as well.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  And anyway, so I did twenty five or whatever it was, twenty five months, got out. That was that stage in, in life where I, I, I, now I'm free. I've left a life of crime behind.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I'm over it. I've got to start doing the right thing.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Um, and that's when that morning I woke up, had the episode with the SOGs. And then, um, yeah, they went and sat and did some, some work with me, mental, you know, the, the, the mental health system, you know, did their work. Um, they identified the problem. There was no solution. The solution was going to be medication. I was medicated from a young age, from, um, you know, from being a troubled kid, you know, they threw me on medication. Um, I wasn't a fan of it. Never liked to feel, not myself. Um, that was the option. It was like, let's get you on the meds. And they just wanna numb me, you know, at that stage. They don't wanna, they don't wanna heal me. They're not, they're not to fix me. Or to, for me to find my true self, they're just gonna suppress everything with medication.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  So I went to the streets and, um, you know, ironic thing is that maybe I should have took their meds. It would have been maybe a lighter version, maybe not. But, um, so I went back to the streets and all I could do was really, uh, you know, self-medicate.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  And I, I can remember thinking, you know, I've got no reason not to get high anymore.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  I, I had no drive. I'd retired from that life. And so I started to consume drugs.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  There, there's an irony there, isn't there? You, you've gone from the drug dealer to the, uh, drug addict.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  And I've become a really, like, Gary, when I say drug addict, you know, I wasn't going out and snorting bags of coke, going to the clubs. I was literally unwashed, you know, starving.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And I've been wearing the same shoes for two years.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  You know, um, and I was, any, any drug I'd get my hands on, I was consuming, you know, I had an ice habit, a heroin habit, GHB, weed, alcohol, prescription pills, and anything I could get my hands on, really. And yeah, it was the lowest, darkest time in my life. But as we've talked about at the start, karma got me at its best. Um, and you know what? I wouldn't change it for the world because it was the death of my ego.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Okay, talk, talk us through that.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a massive shot to my ego. You know, I was sitting in trap houses. You know, we, they'd have a couple of couches in them.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  A TV on the wall, shitty little bed in the bedroom. And, um, and I was sitting in these houses and just consuming drugs over and over and over again. Surrounding myself with people that, you know, I would have, I didn't even, I never had contact with these people because my, my people, the people that are running my drugs for me, you know, would have to pass it three times down for it to catch these, you know, some people that are buying one little speck of gear to get them through the day. And so like, and next minute I'm rubbing shoulders with these people, you know.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  And, and the way, and uh, uh, look, everyone's got a story and there's a reason there, so.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  I probably deserved it, but to be honest.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I, I think that's why I started off with karma. Sometimes it, it, it comes, comes around. Cause I, I, I believe in karma too, that, uh, yeah, it, it can come back to, come back, come back to bite you. But I, I suppose, and you know, we've all heard the term, the lowlife junkies and, you know, the, the bottom dwellers and, yeah, I say that with the respect.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  And I had no compassion for them, but I do now.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And that's why I'm, I'm clarifying here. I, I know a lot of people, people that you wouldn't expect for whatever reason can find themselves there. But the you that was, yeah, the alpha gangster in the era is now hanging out with the, uh, the, the people that are getting fed the breadcrumbs. And are just addicted with all, with all the horrors that come with addiction and, uh, living a life like that.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  And then you had, you know, my old, that old life, I used to have a lot of enemies from the, from the old life of being an active gang member and drug dealer, you know, um. You know, there's a lot of people we, you know, stood on their toes because they were in our area and they didn't do as they were told. That's, that was the mentality. Um, guess what? They come back to haunt me, didn't they?

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  You know, the art of war is kicking enemy when they're, they're down, you know, attack them at their weakest. Well, I was at my weakest. So, you know, touche for them. Well played.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  You know, but multiple drive bys on locations I was staying at, you know, stabbed. It, it was just, it was relentless, you know, and all I had was my own two feet. I didn't have no boys anymore.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  I had nothing to offer anybody.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Tell us about the stabbing, what happened there?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, got in a fight and, um, yeah, I got hit with, um, with a, a steak knife.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  They actually left the steak knife, um, in my ribs. So when I look, I had no T-shirt on.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  So when I looked down, all I could see was the handle sticking out of my ribs. Yeah, man, this was the, this was the life I was living, you know, that, that's where I'd got to. You know, I was getting stabbed up by people that, um, that once upon a time probably would have respected. You know, my word had weight.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  It had no weight anymore, you know, and it was, it was their time to get me back.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  Payback retribution for things that you've done to them.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Yep, of course it was, yeah, that's what it was all about. It was all about them getting, um, them getting hold of me and, um, and, and squaring up. And that, and the, and the perfect time was while I was fucking high on drugs. I didn't have a dollar to my name, had no respect, no power, had no friends, didn't even have a car to get in, you know, yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, I, I think this is a lesson for everyone too, because when you're, you're flying high with your, you're running your criminal, criminal group. Everyone wants to be your friend. They can get on if they hang out with you and, uh, yeah, you're the man to be seen with and, uh, all that. How quickly they abandon you when, uh, things are not going well. So it's a, it's a wake up in life, isn't it? Who, who your friends are. You've got plenty of friends when, uh, life's going good for you.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  But, uh.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  And that life is, man, it's a treacherous life, you know, like it's, it's, to people in that life, they call you brothers or, you know, all the rest of it.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  But when, you know, your brother will put a, you know, one in the back of your head for the right price.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  You know, like it, it happens over and over again, you know. Yeah, mates, you've, you've spent your whole life with back to back and next minute they turn on you in the police station.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Oh, well, uh, uh.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  You know, it's just, this is what that life is, or lay up with your girl, you know, like it just happens over and over again because it's a dog eat dog world.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  You know, so there's, there's no honor amongst thieves.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  Well, there, there's the code that, yeah, people say they live by, but I, I can say, looking from a police point of view, the amount of people that were supposedly staunch. That, uh, weren't because it was self-serving to what, that what they needed to do.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  You're out for yourself, aren't you?

• 56:31Speaker 00

  Well, that that's what that's what it comes down to, but it's an eye opener, but you learn you learn as life goes through, don't you?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if they haven't worked it out yet, they will.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  They will, you know?

• 56:43Speaker 00

  I I thought, yeah, I had people in the police were rock solid with with me and it was you could have heard echoes when the police came after me.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  That I was saying, you really see who your true friends are when shit hits the fan, don't you?

• 56:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, and and the ones that stand up mean so much and they're friends for life, the others that just disappear because it doesn't benefit them by being associated, but.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I hear you.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Well, look, we've taken you into a dark place for the first first part of the podcast, but I can assure people that when we get back, there is a there is light at the end of the tunnel. I appreciate how open and honest you you've been.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  And the stuff that you're doing now is is having an impact. And just the way that we we haven't even got you turning your life around, but I will, I want you to tell us how you turned your life around because, yeah, you've let let's just look at your situation, done time in jail, addicted to addicted to drugs big time. You got no you got no history as far as society's concerned, you've never had a licence, you.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  No bank account, nothing in my name.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so, yeah, at a low point, that's pretty low, but we're going to talk in part two, how how you turn your life around, so I encourage people to listen to that, so.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  This is the good bit, you know?

• 57:59Speaker 00

  This is a good bit.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  This is the bit I like to talk about, you know, this is this is my true passion.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I can see it just on your face, that you're lighting up there, the other shit that we've been talking about, yeah, yeah, did that, did that, but we're going to talk about the good stuff after, so that'll be back in part two. Cheers.