Carl Williams

Williams was raised in Broadmeadows and lived with his parents until he married at the age of 31.

At Broadmeadows West Tech he didn't make it through year 11 and once appeared in the Children's Court connected with the sexual assault of another student.

But a former teacher at the school said his role was to guard the door for a co-offender.

"He was generally pretty quiet. He really did not leave much of an impression, apart from the fact that he always seemed half-asleep," the former teacher said.

After leaving school Williams stacked shelves at a supermarket.

He then discovered that running bets for bookies at race tracks for commissions was much more palatable work.

His mother later said that he was a mummy's boy who hates bullies and once wanted to be a policeman. 

Barbara Williams told The Bulletin magazine her son was "very well-mannered, always did what he was told, and never back-answered his parents".

"Anyone bullying anyone, he will want it stopped straight away," she said.

"He said he couldn't stand bullies, he (says) live and let live."

Mrs Williams told The Bulletin her son wanted to be a policeman until he was mistreated by police because of his heroin-addicted brother, Shane.

"The police were harassing him, taking him into the station and just because he was Shane's brother, he was getting victimised ... they would take him in and question him and hit him over the head with a phone book," she said.

"He used to want to grow up and be a policeman, but then he started being treated like that and he thought, 'I don't want to do that'."

He earned his first conviction in 1990.

Aged 20, Williams was found guilty of handling stolen property.

He was jailed for at least 10 months. The court of Appeal knocked the term down to six months.

"There are grounds appearing from the material before us to suggest that he has excellent prospects of rehabilitation," three judges said.

Police at the time agreed he was probably not of major concern to them.

In 1997 Williams, who is very close to his family, lost his brother to a drug overdose. He was 31.

An old school mate went with him to choose a coffin for "Pear", so dubbed "because he was shaped like one".

His former friend to the Herald Sun he and Williams ran with members of the Moran family who were around their age and from the same neighbourhood, playing footy against each other and later dealing drugs together.

Williams, with his plump, pleasant face, his shorts and T-shirts, did not look like an influential crime boss who could order a death with a phone call.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he flew just under the police radar until he became the most dangerous gangster in Australia.

Police knew he was part of his family's drug business but they assumed he was a worker and not the foreman.

Like the Moran family, police underestimated Williams and his power base.

He was ruthless, cashed-up and had recruited a loyal gang of reckless young drug dealers driven by drug money, wild dreams and illegal chemicals.

His team seemed to move from underworld try-hards to big players in a matter of months. Guns, drugs and rivers of cash can do that.

Police say Williams was certainly connected to 10 underworld murders and would have kept killing if he had not finally been jailed.

He will never face charges over many of the murders he arranged after cutting a deal with police that gives him some chance of release one day. His only remaining hope is that he will die a free old man.

Carl Williams' wife Roberta had a traumatic childhood.

"Her father, a truck driver, was burnt to death in a trucking accident when she was eight months old," her barrister, Con Heliotis, QC later told the Supreme Court.

"Her mother was clearly unable to cope with eight children and found little time for any of them.

"The mother's two de facto partners following her husband's death were both physically violent to Roberta Williams and her siblings.

"Roberta (one of eight children) was left to roam the streets from about the age of eight.

"By the time she was 11, her mother packed her belongings and put them out in the street, literally, and she was then made a ward of the state.

"At 16 years of age she formed a relationship with her first boyfriend, who became her first husband. By 17 she had given birth to her first child, Tye, to her husband, Dean (Stephens)."

By the time she was 18 she had made her first appearance in a Magistrates' Court.

When she was 19, she served three months' imprisonment for trafficking amphetamines."

She was also convicted of possession of ecstasy and cocaine in November 2000.

After living together for 10 years, Roberta and Dean married in 1995. They had three children.

"They separated in 1997 following the last of frequent and extreme bouts of physical violence perpetrated on her by her first husband.

"On the separation from her husband, she moved to the Essendon area with the children and that is where she met Carl Williams in 1998.

Melbourne's bloodiest underworld war began in at the tiny Barrington Crescent park, no bigger than two suburban blocks and surrounded by brick veneer homes on three sides, in the outer-western suburb of Gladstone Park on October 13, 1999.

It was Carl Williams' birthday. He had just turned 29.

Gunman, drug dealer and hot-head Jason Moran (left) and his half-brother Mark had arranged to meet amphetamine manufacturer Williams to discuss their mutual business interests.

Williams talked in parks and public places to avoid police listening devices, and the Morans were happy to meet in an open space where they believed they could not be ambushed.

The Williams and Moran families had trafficked drugs for years and while they were sometimes associates, they were never friends.

While they often did deals and begrudgingly co-operated when it suited, they were also competitors for a slice of the incredibly lucrative illegal pill market.

While there were many reasons for their hostility, none were big enough to go to war — business was booming. Demand had increased 10-fold as amphetamines became a mainstream leisure activity. All dealers had to do was keep a low profile, source their pills and count the cash.

But the niggles remained and the Morans, always quick to take offence, began to stew. At first it was a simple domestic matter: Carl Williams' wife Roberta had previously been married to Dean Stephens, a friend of the Morans.

The next was competition. Williams was undercutting his rivals, selling his pills for $8 compared with the Morans' $15.

The third was business. Williams had supplied the Morans with a load of pills. But he had not used enough binding material and they were crumbling before they could be sold.

The fourth niggle was greed. The Morans claimed ownership of a pill press and said Williams owed them $400,000. Carl disagreed.

The problems could have been settled but the Morans, notorious for their short tempers and long memories, often relied on unreasonable violence to achieve what they wanted.

The meeting provided the Moran brothers with the perfect opportunity to remind Williams where he stood — before they shot him off his feet.

Williams would likely have felt in danger — the mid-week meeting was to be held in the afternoon in the open. Soon after they arrived Jason Moran pulled a gun, a .22 Derringer. A woman nearby heard a man cry out, "No Jason", and then a single shot.

Williams' ample supply of blubber prevented the bullet penetrating too deeply and saved his life.

The gunman showed uncustomary restraint. Mark Moran urged his half-brother to finish the job but Jason replied that they needed the big man alive if they were ever to get their money.

The decision not to kill Williams would destroy the Moran clan, and many who were close to them.

If they had killed Williams, the case would almost certainly have remained unsolved. Instead, Williams became an underworld serial killer determined to exterminate every real or imagined rival he could find.

Williams, who prided himself on being an old-school crook, refused to co-operate with police after he was ambushed. When detectives interviewed him in hospital, Williams said he had felt a pain in his stomach as he was walking, and only then realised he had been shot.

Williams refused to name the shooter to police or other crooks.

His wife, Roberta, gave more away in a later conversation with The Age, but denied the shooting was drug related. "Mark was yelling 'Shoot him in the head', and Jason then shot him in the stomach," she said.

Roberta's barrister, Con Heliotis, QC later said in the Supreme Court:

"Part of the police intelligence includes the fact that Carl Williams was shot and it was suggested by one Jason Moran.

"I am told that the police documentation put together in that brief includes a belief that the shooting was at the behest of her (Roberta Williams') former husband."

If the Morans thought that shooting Williams would frighten him, they were horribly wrong.

The wound soon healed and the drug dealer began planning his revenge, setting off a very public underworld war that would leave police, the legal system and politicians struggling to cope.

"(He) was a very kind person before he was shot. However his whole demeanor changed after that happened. Most of the people who knew him could see that."

His wound may have dented his ego, but barely put a scratch on his determination to keep making and selling amphetamines.

Years later, Bulletin journalist Adam Shand received a call from Carl's old schoolmate who assisted in the purchase of Shane Williams' coffin.

He was trying to sell a picture of Carl and Dad George, Jason Moran and others in Fulham Prison "in happier days" before the 1999 feud erupted.

Shand wrote that those at The Bulletin were mildly interested but as usual impecunious and not wishing to boost a trade in gangster memorabilia.

"Anyway, the bloke then went on to tell me his story for free and it was worth a lot more than the picture.

"It seems this bloke, let's call him Paco (Spanish for peace), had grown up with Williams in Broadmeadows and had attended the same high school.

"Paco and "Skinny" Williams had been very close.

"It was eerie speaking to Paco because he sounded just like Carl, it was like he was channelling him.

"In the mid-1990s, Paco served 15 months in a Canadian jail after being caught with 6 kilos of coke, (seems a touch lenient, doesn't it? Maybe Tony Mokbel should have set up there).

"But the Williams family did not forget Paco, sending him cards and magazines and keeping his spirits up.

"But when he got home, Paco fell in love with one of the Moran women and the trouble began.

"We know that in October 1999, Jason shot Carl in Gladstone Park.

"What we didn't know was that, a few weeks later, someone shot Paco in the shoulder as he got into his car to go for a meeting.

"A second shot shattered the side window, but Paco got away with (as they say in the movies) a flesh wound.

"He was interviewed in hospital by police and, like Carl, never seemed to have any idea who had shot him or why.

"But he suspected Carl and began to place his own surveillance on the Williams team.

"The Williams believed that Paco had helped set Carl up for his shooting.

"Soon after the first attempt, Paco narrowly escaped being shot by an assassin hiding up a tree.

"This game of battleships went on for a while with neither side scoring any direct hits.

"Eventually, Paco decamped the state to safety.

"But then Paco, missing Carl and their shared love of fast food and cocaine, got to thinking about the night he was shot in 1999.

"He remembered a telephone call from Jason Moran that afternoon. Jason had reminded Paco that he should not miss the appointment and that he should not be late.

"He told Jason he would be there as he had nothing else on that day, so in theory Jason knew when Paco would be getting in his car.

"Setting up mates was a favourite trick of the Morans. Like the time Mark had set up another mate, let's call him Stevo, with a large quantity of speed.

"Stevo took the speed only to be raided by the Drug Squad the following morning.

"They turned Stevo's house over looking for the speed but failed to locate it.

"But they did find some hashish and busted Stevo. When asked how did the cops learn Stevo had the gear, one walloper replied: "Remember the last person you spoke to last night?."

"And that was Mark Moran.

"Anyway Paco starts putting this together in his head and concludes he's been used.

"Maybe, this was one time Carl was innocent of trying to murder someone.

"It dawned on Paco that perhaps Jason had been trying to dupe him into killing Carl.

"And while others, like Andrew Veniamin, were on a golden promise to kill Carl, Paco would be paid in lead.

"The Morans learnt their skills from their relatives the Kanes who ruled Melbourne in the 1970s and 80s.

"Back then, the best way to pay off a successful contract killer was to knock him and that's how Paco would have finished up had he killed Carl, he believes.

On November 25, 1999, five weeks after the shooting, Carl Williams was in bed wearing a Mambo shirt, pants and runners when police raided a home he was visiting in Katandra Crescent, Broadmeadows.

For Broadmeadows police it began as a low-level fraud investigation. The fraud involved a local family accruing credit card debts with no intention of repaying, then changing their names to obtain new cards to repeat the scam.

Police had arrived to serve related arrest warrants, but no one was home.

Later that day Detective Sergeant Andrew Balsillie was passing, and noticed two cars at the house.

He recalled his team to issue the warrants.

A detective who heard loud music and a whirring machine as he approached the home.

After bursting in, police found a pill press, 30,000 tablets (almost certainly the Moran pills that had been returned to be re-pressed) and nearly seven kilograms of speed valued at $20 million.

Williams was found hiding in a bed upstairs.

Local police rightly chose to run it by the book and called the amphetamine experts from the drug squad.

They were not to know that the two detectives, Malcolm Rosenes and Stephen Paton, were corrupt and would later be jailed.

Mr Williams father, George Leslie Williams (left) was found hiding in another room, in which a loaded Glock semi-automatic pistol was later found.

Sgt Andrew Balsillie told the court forensic analysis of the Mambo shirt showed traces of drugs used to make amphetamines.

Carl Williams fingerprints were also found on buckets and bowls holding tablets and several kilos of powders, Sgt Balsillie said.

Williams faced three drug charges from the raid, including a manufacturing charge.

While there was no suggestion Rosenes and Paton interfered with the investigation, the Supreme Court later decided that several drug cases, including Williams', should be delayed until the detectives' prosecutions were completed.

It was while Williams was on bail for those (and other) drug charges that he organised the underworld murders.

If the drug cases had not been delayed, Williams would have been jailed for at least four years, unable to carry out a homicidal vendetta.

While inside jail for nearly two months on remand, Williams began planning his first attack, and recruiting his team.

One of the first to join was Andrew "Benji" Veniamin, the former kickboxer and gunman who once idolised Carlton identity Mick Gatto.

Williams saw Gatto, who was affiliated with the Morans but not involved in the squabble over drugs, as a potentially powerful enemy.

Williams thought that if he killed the Moran brothers, established underworld figures, including Gatto, would seek revenge. He decided his best chance of survival was not to jump at shadows but cast a bigger one, so launched a hostile takeover.

Initially, Williams was outnumbered and in no position to take on the Moran brothers, let alone contemplate plans for gangland domination.

Williams was finally bailed on his drug charges on January 22, 2000.

Three days later Jason Moran was jailed for affray and sentenced to 20 months' jail. Mark Moran had lost his closest ally and was now hopelessly exposed.

On Thursday June 15, 2000, Mark Moran was shot dead.

Mark was murdered outside his luxury home in Combermere St, Aberfeldie, near Essendon, at 8.30pm, seconds after pulling up in his white Commodore ute.

A neighbour who heard four loud bangs looked out of her window to see him slumped on the front seats of his car.

He had been shot twice in the chest. 

Williams was the gunman and his getaway driver would later be implicated in another three murders.

Police later established that Williams had only been waiting 10 minutes when Moran returned. It smelled of an ambush.

Police suspected Williams from the start, so much so that his house was raided the next day.

But internal police politics terminally damaged the investigation.

Members of the drug squad, who had worked on the Morans for years, deliberately concealed information from the homicide squad because they believed their investigation was more important than a murder probe they thought would fail.

Their prediction was self-fulfilling.

In the days after shooting it became apparent that the Morans believed that George and Carl Williams were responsible for killing Mark. 

There were reports of shots being fired around the North Fitzroy home of the major suspects shortly after his death.

Shots were heard in Rae Street Brunswick on the night of June 20, 2000 and a car was damaged by gun fire in Brunswick Street near Rae St on the night of Marks funeral (June 22).

On July 15, 2000, notorious western suburbs criminal Rocco Arico was driving a car involved in a minor accident in Taylors Lakes which resulted in the victim being shot five times.

In the company of his friend and fellow gangster, Dino Dibra, the pair were driving cars which cut off another vehicle.

In the ensuing argument, Arico shot the man several times with an automatic pistol.

The road rage shooting victim had been offered cash to say that he'd incorrectly identified Arico, senior-detective Darren Dean later said when he opposed Arico's bail.

Arico was subsequently arrested at Tullamarine Airport in the company of Carl Williams at whose home the vehicle involved in the shooting was subsequently located by the police.

A fired cartridge case was found in the front passenger door pocket of this vehicle.

In an interview with the ABC's Jonathon Holmes, Williams claimed that in May 2001 he was subjected to death threats by a Drug Squad detective.

"I'm taken from there past the police station down to a park, where I'm told I'm gonna be killed."

"This is where you're gonna die, be killed."

" There was a big shipping container next to where they were pointing at."

In the same interview George Williams complained that the Drug Squad stole thousands of dollars from his home.

"They was invited into my house. They're supposed to be upholding the law and they can rob your house. The money was there. And when the police left, the money weren't there. Now, I don't know if Casper the Ghost came and got it, but...someone got it."

Lewis and Jason Moran arranged to kill rival Carl Williams in front of scores of guests at his three month old daughter Dakota's christening in May 2001.

The planned public bloodbath was foiled at the last minute when police secretly stepped in to save Williams.

Detectives set up a sting operation in which Williams was arrested and jailed just hours before the scheduled hit.

A person deep within drug boss Tony Mokbel's gang tipped off police that Williams was about to be murdered at his six-week-old daughter Dhakota's christening.

The informer told a detective the Morans had hired two Sydney hitmen to gun down Williams at a Keilor reception centre during the christening party.

Williams was shocked when police told him about the sickening plan.

"But then Carl showed some grudging respect for the plan, saying it wasn't a bad one as he would have had his guard down at his daughter's christening," a police source said.

Detectives believe the foiled plot prompted Williams to come up with his own plan to murder Jason Moran when he least expected it.

The Morans had put a contract on Williams in 2001 after he shot dead Mark Moran.

They wanted to deliver a strong message and decided killing Williams in front of family and friends at his daughter's christening was a very public way of proving that point.

Police discovered the plot only three days before it was due to be carried out.

An emergency meeting of senior officers was called to discuss how to thwart the attack.

They decided that staking out the christening party in the hope of identifying and catching the hitmen was too dangerous.

A plan to put a booze bus outside the christening to deter the execution was considered.

However the meeting decided getting Williams behind bars was the safest option.

Williams was on bail awaiting trial over a $20 million drug operation, so another arrest would guarantee to put him behind bars and out of reach of the hired killers.

Police command agreed to provide $100,000 to detectives so they could set up a sting involving an undercover officer buying drugs from Williams.

An undercover officer had recently made contact with drug dealer Walter Foletti.

He was the principal target of Victoria Police's Operation Granger and was selling large amounts of cocaine and ecstasy in the western suburbs.

Evidence suggested that Foletti was getting his drugs from Williams.

Detectives planned to use the $100,000 to get proof that Williams was Foletti's supplier.

Police bugs recorded the undercover officer asking Foletti on May 18, 2001, if he could provide a large quantity of ecstasy tablets in a hurry.

Later that day, Foletti told the undercover officer he had spoken to the supplier's wife, Roberta Williams.

She said would confirm the deal the next day.

Foletti rang the Williams home at 10.20am on May 19 and asked to speak to Carl, but was told by Roberta that her husband was still in bed.

He asked her if her husband was "organising that thing for me" and that "the bloke is going to ring me up after 12".

Roberta Williams told him the deal was set for that day.

The undercover officer rang Foletti at noon and arranged to meet at the McDonald's car park in Sydenham about 2pm.

He arranged to buy 8000 ecstasy tablets for $100,000.

Detectives photocopied the notes which made up the $100,000 before putting them in a green shoebox and giving them to the undercover officer.

Foletti arrived at the car park with his nephew, Pablo Foletti, and parked his white Jeep near the undercover officer's car.

Foletti gave a shopping bag containing 8000 ecstasy tablets embossed with the letters XTC to the undercover officer, who handed over the shoe box stuffed with $100,000.

As this was happening, Carl Williams rang Roberta and was recorded asking her if the deal had been done yet.

Roberta told him she hadn't heard, but expected to soon.

Foletti rang her at 3.13pm and she told him to "bring what you've got now", but Foletti told her it would be better if she came to him.

Roberta Williams immediately got in her dark BMW coupe and drove to Foletti's house in the suburb of Hillside.

Surveillance police watched her leave Foletti's house three minutes later. She was carrying a blue shopping bag.

Other surveillance police saw Carl Williams arriving home at 3.24pm in his white Mitsubishi Lancer.

He took a call from his wife on his mobile and she told him she was at the Watergardens shopping centre in Sydenham.

Police followed as he drove there and watched as Carl and Roberta Williams met. After walking round the shops, they got into Carl's car.

Heavily armed members of the special operations group swooped as soon as Carl, who was found looking inside the bag at the money, and Roberta got in the vehicle.

Carl Williams was found with the $100,000 cash that the undercover operative had used to pay Foletti in his lap and he and Roberta were jailed that day.

Roberta was granted bail 48 hours later, but it was 14 months before Carl got out.

On the same day police raided the Hillside home of Walter Foletti and Pablo Foletti after they made a deal to sell a further 19,500 tablets for $200,000.

Pistols, cannabis, amphetamines and 20,000 ecstasy pills were discovered during the raid.

It later emerged that in secretly recorded phone conversations, Carl Williams and Walter Foletti had discussed the supply of "soccer balls", a codename for ounces of cocaine.

The day before the police swooped, the undercover operative had ordered 10 "soccer balls" from Foletti.

Foletti was also asked to supply the 27,500 ecstasy tablets.

The following day, Walter's wife, Olivian, admitted that her husband sold drugs for Williams and she lived off the profits.

She was later charged with trafficking.

The Herald Sun later said six key figures of Melbourne's underworld were in Port Phillip Prison's Swallow unit in 2001, led by a man called the Octopus (who we now know was millionaire businessman and amphetamine king pin, Tony Mokbel).

The story said the Octopus joined forces in prison with men such as the junior member of 'Steptoe and Son, a father and son team dealing amphetamines.

Steptoe Junior was "into everything" but presented himself as a model prisoner, a jail source said.

Dhakota's christening was rescheduled for December 2003 after her father was released.

Carl and Roberta were keen to portray themselves as a loving and law-abiding family.

They invited the ABC's Four Corners to film the christening at Crown casino's plush Palladium Room. They chose Crown because is had the best security in Victoria.

Among the 120 guests was Greg Domaszewicz -- the babysitter who was acquitted over the 1997 murder of Moe toddler Jaidyn Leskie.

State Labor MP, Telmo Languiller, who later became a parliamentary secretary to Premier Steve Bracks, gave character evidence in Walter and Pablo Foletti's bail hearing when they appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on May 25, 2001.

During Foletti's hearing, Mr Languiller, the member for Sunshine, told the court he and Walter Foletti migrated from Uruguay in the mid-1970s and both later played on the same soccer team in the 1980s.

Mr Languiller had known Walter Foletti since they were teenagers.

The MP told the court that both men had good reputations in the Uruguayan community and were good family men.

But Pablo Foletti was a well-known heroin user and already had two criminal convictions for drug trafficking, as well as convictions for drug possession and theft.

The Age later reported that Mr Languiller went ahead with his evidence despite being warned by police not to do so, and that Walter and Pablo Foletti, had already confessed to their crimes.

A week before Mr Languiller supported their release, Walter and Pablo had confessed to involvement in massive ecstasy trafficking with Carl Williams.

An investigation by The Age revealed that a police officer approached him in 2001, advising him not to testify for the Folettis.

Police sources said they were shocked that Mr Languiller went ahead and gave evidence for the men during the bail application.

The revelations threw doubt on Mr Languiller's claims that if he had known the Folettis were criminals, he "probably wouldn't have gotten involved".

They were also an embarrassment to Premier Steve Bracks, who defended Mr Languiller on the grounds that the references were given before the men were found guilty.

The Age later revealed it had learned that Languiller gave testimony for a third accused dealer seven years earlier.

In 1994 Mr Languiller gave a reference for suspected Chilean drug courier Francisco Pozo, as a favour to Pozo's mother.

A co-accused in that case, Rene Mora, has alleged that Mr Languiller, then an adviser to deputy prime minister Brian Howe, did not know Pozo, who was accused of smuggling almost $300,000 worth of cocaine into Australia.

On May 28, 2001, Walter and Pablo Foletti were refused bail.

In the Melbourne Magistrates Court, magistrate John Hardy said evidence from the police undercover operation provided a "strong prosecution case".

Mr Hardy refused bail to the pair despite character evidence given the previous week from Mr Languiller, that Walter and his nephew had good reputations in Melbourne's Uruguayan community.

The court heard the pair had sold a semi-automatic pistol to an undercover agent for $600 and later 8,000 ecstasy tablets for $100,000.

Walter Foletti, who was facing 11 guns and drugs charges, and Pablo Foletti, who was facing two drugs charges, were remanded to reappear in court on July 30.

On June 29, 2001, Olivian Foletti, 31, of Avondale Heights, was charged with drug trafficking and firearms offences.

She faced five charges, including trafficking ecstasy, before she was bailed with a $100,000 surety in Melbourne Magistrates Court.

The Walter Foletti case did not reach the Supreme Court until 2004 because of the investigations into police corruption.

Foletti pleaded guilty to trafficking ecstasy and cocaine that he got from Williams.

He was jailed for five years and six months, with a minimum of four years on two counts of trafficking.

In sentencing, Justice Murray Kellam said Williams and Foletti were under police surveillance when they were arrested.

Police and the underworld expected that when Jason Moran was released from prison he would go after Williams to avenge his brothers' killing.

But when he was freed on September 5, 2001, Williams was back inside on remand.

The parole board let Moran go overseas because of fears for his life, while Williams continued to recruit from a small area filled with potential killers — Port Phillip Prison.

Once the man known as the Runner decided to accept Carl Williams' offer to join his band of hitmen, they celebrated with a quiet drink inside the prison's Swallow Unit.

According to the Runner, it was there that Williams first asked him to kill Jason Moran.

When Williams popped the question the Runner did not hesitate.

"I said yes to show him my loyalty. I was aware of Carl's hatred of the Moran family. Carl told me about an incident in 1999 where Carl was shot by Jason Moran."

Williams was not content with one hit team and continued to recruit inside and out of prison.

He looked to relatives, close friends and hardened gunmen whose loyalty he thought he could demand, or at least buy.

Williams knew that the Runner, no pin-up boy for prisoner rehabilitation programs, was soon to be released after serving his sentence for armed robbery. He was good with guns, and ruthless.

On January 8, 2002, Ivan Conabere was shot dead by Thomas Ivanovic, 29 - member of Carl Williams crew.

The shooting took place outside Ivanovic's Cornwall Street, West Brunswick home and was recorded on a camera mounted on the house.

Ivanovic was later found guilty of murder.

Justice Phillip Cummins said Mr Conabere remonstrated with Ivanovic about a driving incident.

A videotape from a home security system showed Thomas Ivanovic, 28, walk confidently and without fear towards Conabere.

Ivanovic was pushed to the ground, then shot Mr Conabere twice with an illegal, pistol he was carrying, the judge said.

The court heard that Mr Conabere and a friend had followed Mr Ivanovic, who was driving a silver Mercedes, to his house after a road incident in Coburg.

Mr Ivanovic's friend, Rocco Arico, who arrived at the scene after the shooting, said Mr Ivanovic had told him Mr Conabere had tried to kill him and he feared he might also harm his family.

He said Mr Ivanovic appeared stunned and nervous.

Before imposing a 15-year minimum jail term, he told Ivanovic: "Life is not cheap, nor should it ever be."

Ivanovic had told others, including his mother, that he was grabbed around the neck or throat before firing the shots and that he had been in fear.

It was later claimed that drug squad detective, Paul Dale, sacked from the force amid accusations of drug trafficking in 2004, had "assisted" Ivanovic in mid-2003

Dale was one of the controllers of informant, Terrence Hodson who was spying on several suspected drug traffickers (including Mokbel and Williams) and their associates.

Hodson and his wife were murdered in March 2004.

On July 12, 2002, the Herald Sun reported that police feared drug squad corruption claims could end up reigniting an underworld feud over the murder of Mark Moran.

Both had previously been granted bail.

Carl Williams, his wife Roberta, 33, and Walter, Pablo and Olivian Foletti faced separate charges.

The charges related to ecstasy worth $1.5 million.

On November 3, 2002, Robert Slusarczyk, died in an ultralight aircraft crash.

The dead pilot had worked as an amphetamines cook for Williams when he was supplying Mark Moran.

He also made corruption allegations against former Victoria Police drug squad detectives, which were still being investigated.

After his arrest in 1999, Mr Slusarczyk accused a number of drug squad members of corruption.

His trial was one of about a dozen prosecutions put on hold pending a police ethical standards department investigation into allegations of corruption against the drug squad.

The Australian Ultralight Federation and the State Coroner investigated the crash.

The Herald Sun later discovered it was Mr Slusarczyk who was rewarded for leading police to wanted gunman Pavel "Mad Max" Marinof in 1986.

Although it had previously been made public that an informer was paid a $50,000 reward for revealing where Mad Max was hiding, the identity of the informer has remained secret.

Mad Max shot and injured four police officers in June, 1985 at Noble Park. Police intercepted his panel van on the Hume Highway at Kalkallo in February, 1986.

There was then a gunfight in which Mad Max died and two police were wounded.

Investigators ruled out foul play in the death of Slusarczyk.

An investigation by the Australian Ultralight Federation found nothing suspicious about the fatal crash.

A report sent to the Coroner's office found Mr Slusarczyk was flying too low in gusty conditions.

In December 2002 the Runner was released from jail and within weeks he was going out with Roberta Williams' sister, Michelle Mircieca.

The Runner and Carl Williams met daily, and Williams asked his new right-hand man to find Jason Moran.

He said Moran was aware he was being hunted and had gone to ground.

"Carl told me that he still wanted Jason dead and that he wanted me to locate Jason so he could kill him. We did not discuss money at this point but I was to start surveillance on Jason Moran."

Williams' ambitions and his desire for revenge were growing. No longer did he just want to kill Jason. "Carl developed a deep-seated hatred of the Moran family … there is no doubt it was an obsession with him. Carl told me on numerous occasions that he wanted everyone connected with the Moran family dead."

The Runner began to track Moran.

With every report Williams would peel off between $500 and $1000 for the information.

His former prison buddy was also paid to deliver drugs and collect money, and set up in a Southgate apartment that Williams sometimes used as a secret bachelor pad.

The Runner would tell police that he was not the only one spying on Moran.

Williams also received information from millionaire drug trafficker Tony Mokbel, and soon-to-be-deceased crime middleweight, Willie Thompson.

Williams and the Runner began stalking Moran, and discussing how they would kill him.

Their schemes ranged from the imaginative to the idiotic.

One was to hide in the boot of Moran's silver BMW, remove the lock and spring out to kill him.

A simpler version involved lying beneath shrubs outside the house where Moran was believed to be staying.

Williams considered hiding in the rubbish bin next to Moran's car, then popping out to shoot him.

Another plan was to lure him to a park and the Runner, dressed as a woman and pushing a pram, would walk past and shoot him.

He and Williams bought a shoulder-length brown wig before abandoning the plan.

But finding Moran proved more difficult than first believed.

Moran was an expert in counter-surveillance and teamed with a man who appeared to be a bodyguard. He ditched his flamboyant lifestyle, rented a modest house in Moonee Ponds and kept on the move.

Also, the Runner had never met Moran and Williams did not provide him with a picture.

Once the Runner saw a man matching the description leaving Moran's brother-in-law's home in Gladstone Park. "I am pretty sure (it) was Jason."

They finally spotted him in late February 2003 at a Red Rooster outlet in Gladstone Park.

Williams was not armed. They followed him and an unidentified female who was driving a small black sedan.

As a surveillance operative Carl made a good drug dealer. He grabbed a tyre lever and a screwdriver from inside his car and followed at a distance of only 20 metres. According to the Runner, "about 40 or 50 metres down this road (Johnson Street) the rear of the hatch of the car opened up and Jason shot several shots at us from the back of the car."

Williams lost interest, saying "we will get him another time".

Williams and the Runner went to pubs and clubs where they might find Moran.

They came up empty. They thought about a hit at the docks where Moran was said to occasionally work, but terrorist fears had resulted in a massive security upgrade that made it impossible.

Williams started to get desperate.

If he couldn't get to Jason he would kill those close to him. He told the Runner to start surveillance on Moran's oldest family friend, Graham Kinniburgh, and another associate Steve (Fat Albert) Collins.

Kinniburgh was a legendary, semi-retired gangster, one of those rare, successful criminals hardly known outside police and underworld circles.

But he was a close friend of Jason's father, Lewis Moran.

Williams knew Nik "The Bulgarian" Radev (right), who was shot dead on Queens Street, Coburg, on April 15, 2003.

It has become accepted as fact that Andrew Veniamin was the shooter.