Dimitros "Jimmy" Samsonidis

Dimitros "Jimmy" Samsonidis has been referred to in the press as an underworld heavyweight.

Although born in Greece, he spent most of his adult life in Melbourne and was jailed in Victoria for manslaughter in the 1970s.

Police intelligence files list Samsonidis as one of Australia's most prolific heroin dealers during the late 1980s.

He allegedly used to own Carlton's Woolpack Hotel.

Samsonidis was a close associate of drug gang patriarch Lewis Moran, his son Jason and stepson Mark and also had many illegal dealings with convicted cocaine smuggler Tony Mokbel.

Police received intelligence several years ago that he helped teach Mokbel the art of turning various chemicals into speed and speed tablets.

Ironically, Samsonidis is now in the same high security Athens prison as Mokbel.

In March 2006 an undercover US DEA officer posing as a drug dealer made contact with Samsonidis.

They struck a deal whereby Samsonidis would give the undercover officer 400,000 ecstasy tablets in exchange for a tonne of ephedrine, a precursor chemical used in the manufacture of amphetamine-type substances.

Samsonidis had intended shipping the tonne of ephedrine to Melbourne, where it would have been turned into ice and an estimated 80 million speed tablets.

He planned to replace the murdered Moran drug family as Melbourne's Mr Big of speed.

The Samsonidis gang had already imported the first 100,000 of the 400,000 ecstasy tablets from Amsterdam and was negotiating with the undercover DEA agent to swap them for the first 250kg of ephedrine.

The agent was given 10 of the ecstasy tablets, which bore a shark logo, so he could test them for quality.

Samsonidis had made a trip back to Melbourne at the time the negotiations with the undercover American agent were coming to conclusion.

Another gang member was given a sample of the ephedrine to test and reported back to the DEA agent that it was "bloody good".

Former Sydney drug dealer Konstantinos Skouras rang Samsonidis from Greece on March 2, 2006, very soon after obtaining the ephedrine sample.

AFP bugs secretly recorded the pair.

"I have good news. I have 1000 in my hands from the Americans and I am telling you this so that you can do what have to on your side," Skouras told Samsonidis.

Samsonidis replied that he would set things in place in Australia and then come to Greece. He flew to Athens soon afterwards.

By May the joint operation had gathered enough evidence to arrest Samsonidis and two of his associates.

Samsonidis and Skouras were allegedly running the company in charge of reviewing security at Greece's largest port at the time of their arrest in May 2006.

This gave them intimate knowledge of how to get around security measures at the port of Piraeus, from where the drugs were to be shipped.

DEA agent John Livanis said Samsonidis and Skouras were principals of the global drug gang.

He said the DEA and the AFP had jointly investigated Samsonidis since 2005 after receiving information about his drug dealing and money laundering.

"The information was about a network that was trafficking various kinds of drugs, based in Greece, but was in Australia in various places, in Western Europe, but also in Latin America," Mr Livanis said.

He said the investigation established that Samsonidis, Skouras and another man, Andreas Stathopoulos, were the heads of the network and that all three had extensive police records relating to drug trafficking and violence.

"During this time I met individuals from the Australian authorities in Athens who informed me they had information that Samsonidis and his network were preparing, or had prepared, a factory in Australia for the production of synthetic drugs such as amphetamines and methamphetamines," Mr Livanis said.

Samsonidis had been living the high-life in the Athens seaside resort of Lagonisi.

Greek police seized a Porsche Cayenne and property and cash worth millions of dollars from him.

When police raided Samsonidis' mansion they found a sub-machinegun, a pistol and a large amount of ammunition.

"It was a superb example of the AFP's willingness to take the fight against drugs offshore," AFP assistant commissioner Tim Morris told the Herald Sun.

"By co-operating with the DEA and Hellenic Police we have dismantled a major syndicate which was responsible for smuggling, and planning to smuggle, huge amounts of drugs around the world.

"A lot of those drugs were destined to come to Australia. This operation stopped that."

While the AFP was concentrating its efforts on the gang's money laundering, the DEA and Greek police were setting up a sting operation in relation to its drug dealing.

In November 2007 Samsonidis, then 53, was jailed for life in Athens over a plot to push ice and speed worth $4 billion on to Melbourne's streets.

In the same month the Greek Supreme Court ordered an investigation into how Samsonidis and Skouras' company, European Security, was given the government contract to review port security.

Samsonidis was nabbed in while attempting to smuggle a tonne of ephedrine into Australia.

He was in the process of setting up a factory in Melbourne to turn the ephedrine into the deadly drug ice and an estimated 80 million speed tablets.

Also given life sentences were gang members Skouras, 56, and Stathopoulos, 55, who has also spent time in Australia.

The jailing of Samsonidis enabled the Herald Sun to reveal details for the first time of his grandiose scheme to become Australia's new "Mr Big" of speed tablets.

A three-year investigation by Australian Federal Police, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Greek police foiled Samsonidis' plan to flood Australia with amphetamine products.

It also smashed an international syndicate that was operating out of Greece and sending drugs to Australia, Latin America and several European countries.

The Greek Supreme Court is examining the role of a former Greek MP who used to be married to Skouras' sister and is now managing director of European Security.

Samsonidis was brought down by a lowly Greek clerk who became suspicious about the high number of similar money transfers from Australia.

They were all for amounts just under $10,000.

That's the amount at which transactions have to be reported to Austrac, Australia's financial intelligence unit.

The Greek bank worker thought the sheer volume of transfers for just under the $10,000 mark warranted investigation and he told his boss.

His boss told Austrac's Greek equivalent, which told Austrac and Austrac alerted the Australian Federal Police in early 2005.

The AFP followed the paper trail and identified more than 280 bank drafts sent from Melbourne to Greece over a two-year period.

They discovered Greek and Australian citizen Samsonidis was the recipient of the bank drafts, which totalled more than $3 million.

The AFP became aware that the US Drug Enforcement Agency also had an interest in Samsonidis.

They joined forces and, with the help of police in Greece, ended up arresting Samsonidis, several of his associates and smashing an international drug gang.