The Melbourne gangland killings were the murders of 36 underworld figures in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Australia, between January 1998 and August 2010. The murders were retributive killings involving underworld groups. The deaths caused a power vacuum within Melbourne's criminal community, and rival factions fought for control and influence. Many of the murders remain unsolved, although detectives from the Purana Taskforce believe that Carl Williams was responsible for at least 10 of them. The period culminated in the arrest of Williams, who pleaded guilty on 28 February 2007 to three of the murders.
Her Majesty's Prison Pentridge was an Australian prison that was first established in 1851 in Coburg, Victoria. The first prisoners arrived in 1851. The prison officially closed on 1 May 1997.
HM Prison Barwon or informally Barwon Prison, an Australian high risk and maximum security prison for males, is located 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the township of Lara, near Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The facility is operated by Corrections Victoria, part of the Department of Justice & Community Safety of the Government of Victoria. The prison provides accommodation and services for remand and sentenced prisoners detained under Victorian and Commonwealth legislation.
Joseph Theodore Leslie "Squizzy" Taylor was an Australian gangster from Melbourne. He appeared repeatedly and sometimes prominently in Melbourne news media because of suspicions, formal accusations and some convictions related to a 1919 gang war, to his absconding from bail and hiding from the police in 1921–22, and to his involvement in a robbery where a bank manager was murdered in 1923.
Jason Matthew Patrick Moran was an Australian criminal from Melbourne, and one of the leaders of the Moran family, notable for its involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings. He sported a 12 cm scar on the side of his face.
Lewis Moran was an Australian organized crime figure and patriarch of the infamous Moran family of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Notable for his involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings, Moran was shot dead in The Brunswick Club Hotel in Melbourne on 31 March 2004. His murder occurred one week after the funeral of fellow Melbourne underworld criminal and suspected hitman Andrew Veniamin.
Carl Anthony Williams was an Australian convicted murderer and drug trafficker from Melbourne, Victoria. He was the central figure in the Melbourne gangland killings as well as their final victim.
The Moran family is an infamous Melbourne, Australia-based criminal family of Irish ancestry, notable for their involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings. Family matriarch Judy Moran lost two sons, Jason and Mark, estranged husband Lewis, and brother-in-law Des to an underworld feud that resulted in the deaths of over 30 criminals.
Peter Norris Dupas is an Australian serial killer, currently serving three life sentences without parole for murder and primarily for being a serious habitual offender. He has a very significant criminal history involving serious sexual and violent offences, with his violent criminal history spanning more than three decades, and with every release from prison has been known to commit further crimes against women with increasing levels of violence. His criminal signature is to remove the breasts of his female victims.
Antonios Sajih Mokbel is an Australian criminal who has been convicted for a number of offences, most prominently commercial drug trafficking. He has spent most of his life in Melbourne, Australia. Operation Purana alleged that he is the mastermind behind the Melbourne amphetamines trade. He has been linked to Carl Williams, and charged but not convicted of two murders in the Melbourne gangland war. He disappeared from Melbourne while on trial in March 2006, and was arrested by Greek police in Athens on 5 June 2007. Since being brought back to Australia he has remained incarcerated.
Zarah Garde-Wilson is an Australian solicitor in Victoria who rose to prominence after she acted for many persons under investigation by Victoria Police in relation to the Melbourne gangland killings of 1998–2006.
Underbelly, the first series of Australian crime television drama series Underbelly. The thirteen-part series originally aired from 13 February 2008 to 7 May 2008 on the Nine Network and is loosely based on the real events of the 1995–2004 gangland war in Melbourne. It depicts the key players in Melbourne's criminal underworld, including the Carlton Crew and their rival, Carl Williams. The series is based on the book Leadbelly: Inside Australia's Underworld, by journalists John Silvester and Andrew Rule, and borrows its name from the successful Underbelly true crime anthology book series also authored by Silvester and Rule. An alternative and significantly updated tie-in novel, Underbelly: The Gangland War, was released as their 13th book in the series. The series is produced by the Australian Film Finance Corporation, in association with Film Victoria. The executive producers are Des Monaghan and Jo Horsburgh.
Gregory John 'Bluey' Brazel is a convicted Australian serial killer, arsonist, and armed robber currently serving three consecutive life sentences for the murders of sex workers Sharon Taylor and Roslyn Hayward in 1990, and the murder of Mordialloc hardware store owner Mildred Hanmer during an armed robbery in 1982 to which he confessed some eighteen years later.
Judith Maryanne Moran is the matriarch of the Moran criminal family of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, involved in the Melbourne gangland killings.
The Carlton Crew is a criminal organisation based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which was formed in the late 1970s and named after the Melbourne suburb in which it is based, Lygon Street, Carlton, commonly called "Little Italy". The organisation was a fierce rival to the Honoured Society and the Calabrese Family, both of which were Calabrian 'Ndrangheta groups also based in Melbourne, and were additionally allies of the mostly Irish Moran family. The Carlton Crew had a strong role in the infamous Melbourne gangland killings.
Evangelos "Ange" Goussis is an Australian former boxer and kickboxer from Geelong, Victoria, and is a multiple murderer, guilty of the murders of two victims of the Melbourne gangland killings.
Lewis Caine was an Australian organised crime figure who was murdered on 8 May 2004 during the Melbourne gangland killings.
Life imprisonment is the most severe criminal sentence available to the State and Territory Supreme Courts in Australia. Most cases attracting the sentence are murder. It is also imposed, albeit rarely, for sexual assault, manufacturing and trafficking commercial quantities of illicit drugs, and offences against the justice system and government security.
Norman Bruhn was a notorious and violent Australian dockworker, armed robber and standover man with links to the criminal underworld in both Melbourne and Sydney. In September 1926 Bruhn relocated with his family from Melbourne to Sydney, where he attained a brief ascendancy by targeting the underworld vice trade, using violence and intimidation against cocaine traffickers, prostitutes and thieves. Bruhn’s criminal gang used the straight razor as a weapon of terror and are attributed as Australia’s first 'razor gang', at the beginning of a period of gang violence in Sydney in the late-1920s known as the 'razor gang wars'. His period of domination of the inner-city vice economy was opposed by the more established criminal networks in Sydney. In June 1927 Bruhn was shot twice in the abdomen in an inner-city laneway in Darlinghurst. He died in Sydney Hospital the following morning, refusing to name his assailant.
