yeah interesting out of 65 000 people that only 250 decided to take their drugs to be checked out this is costing 4.3 million dollars and pill testing will now be available at 15 events i'm keen to know moz what do the cops make of this we know drugs is a major issue in our society are police happy about this or are they just doing what the government says

officially they won't say anything once the policy's been made but i do know a lot of senior police and and those on the ground say that they don't think this is a great thing they think it's a terrible message it's basically saying well you can take drugs make sure it's okay you know the government says it's okay they're even going to test them for you now I've covered so many deaths, so many, over music festivals, going way back to Anna Wood.

And the big thing that has been driven home to me by police and from experience, nearly all of them were not because they took a bad pill.

It's polyuse.

You know, they'll take more than one pill or they'll mix it with cocaine.

And invariably, straightaway now you're saying, oh, gee, that pill's okay.

So what's, you know, and these are young people.

So how do you tell a young person, look, this is OK to take, or whatever language they use, to give them the green light to walk away with that illegal drug?

We need early intervention.

I even think, and I'm not an expert.

I've just been around a long time.

I just think we need to...

Everything from domestic violence to drug use, I think we need to really be quite realistic and start at the ages of five, letting the reality of what can happen.

And it can be done subtly.

I don't mean you go and show photos of people being bashed or anything like that to five or six girls, but start telling them, look, there are going to be situations where if somebody hurts you, it's wrong.

You could have got a PhD at Cambridge and been a...

It

is.

And, like, you know, for a long time people go, oh, it's the worst it's ever been.

And until recently I go, no, mate, I know that when they had rocket launches, they were going crazy, there were shootings everywhere.

But this is different.

I have never seen so many innocent people killed, so many houses shot up by mistake.

I mean, they don't even get reported.

So you're writing today in the Telegraph exclusively that, you know, the crims are paying and the inmates are paying, what, $20,000 to have this stuff smuggled into the prisons? That's at the top end

So you're writing today in the Telegraph exclusively that, you know, the crims are paying and the inmates are paying, what, $20,000 to have this stuff smuggled into the prisons? That's at the top end

for supermax.

Any other jail, $3,000 to $4,000 for what I call a cell phone because they use them in their cells.

They share them.

They'll put them on a little roster system.

You know, you have it that night.

I'll have it that night.

He's eligible for parole?

And the truth, that's correct.

Now, let's get into it because I know you're a busy man.

Saturday morning, 1 o'clock in the morning, guards hear this buzzing noise.

Anyway, a bit later, they've tracked and there's a drone which has dropped a package on the roof of Supermax.

which houses some of the most dangerous, scary people in this country.

And inside were four mobile phones, 14 SIMs, a set of Allen keys, USBs, earphones.

It was JB Hi-Fi.

us.

... well, how do they stop that?

Well, they're not allow- I mean, I'd imagine they'll have to start looking at maybe having some sort of radar.

But you got, then you've gotta have people watching it, and, and, uh, uh, they haven't really combated it.

And you've gotta...

Drones now, they're just an accessory for the criminal world.

They're almost as much as part as a gun.

They use drones to surveil targets that they're gonna kill.

Mm.

Mark, who are the crime gangs that are responsible for this one?

This one will be Pele.

This is the Coconut Cartel.

The leader, he's on the run.

He's also linked to a guy called Isaiah Utai, now whose father was also another innocent victim because they couldn't get to the person who they wanted to.

They go and shoot the innocent father.

So, I mean, he survived.

But what are they actually doing? What's the New South Wales and Australian government actually doing to try and stop all this sort of stuff? The New

There's a fair bit that we know already, but do police have an idea of which group is involved or do you have a feeling or is there a finger pointed at anyone at this stage?

At this stage, the initial theory is that it's the Coconut Cartel, again, which is rapidly becoming the main rival to the Alameddine crime family.

So that's the working theory at the moment and why this young man was targeted.

Well, he is a relative of Nala Madin's, even though he's not that heavily involved in, in crime at all.

I mean, he, he's got a criminal record, but he was into traffic offenses, not exactly, um, heavy criminal, uh, background like that.

So yeah, that's, that's the theory at the moment.

And this has been going on for about a year now.

Yeah, well, do you believe there's going to be retaliation for the back of this one that happened yesterday, Mark?

Daily Telegraph crime editor Mark Morri regards decriminalizing cocaine as pure fantasy

The argument for legalization, you know, of, well, we should go and get our own cocaine.

The only place that does it is South America, so who's going to be the negotiator with the cartels? And what if you don't get the right price? Are they going to start lopping off the heads of our, our whatever we...

Maybe we'll send our trade minister over there.

Mark Morri reckons Australia could do worse than consider setting up its own version of the US Drug Enforcement Administration

I think we almost need to establish like a, a, a national body.

Not like the feds need to...

We need to probably put a hundred and fifty state police for every state police in there every, you know, and turn them over every two years or something.

Yeah.

He, so his son was allegedly involved in, um, and there's a warrant out for him being involved in a murder Where somebody was killed on Woodville Road, right? Um, and he left the country about five days after that.

And so what we've found now is because all the major players are overseas, including the Alamadeens and this Coconut Cartel and the alleged members, they're going after innocent relatives, and Matt Utai was one of those, because they can't get to the main players.

Yeah.

And things went off the rails, something happened.

I don't know whether he got injured or anything, something.

But ...

And then, again, there was an attempted potential hit or kidnapping, allegedly, of, uh, rapper Ali Younes, who was watching a, uh, a football match.

Yeah.

He...

S- so his son was allegedly involved in, um...

Then there's a warrant out for he, being involved in a murder where somebody was killed on Woodville Road, right? Um, and he left the country about five days after that.

And so what we've found now is because all the major players are overseas, including the Alameddines and this Coconut Cartel and the alleged members, they're going after innocent relatives, and Matt Utai was one of those, 'cause they can't get to the main players.

Yeah

... who they're doing it for and, or why or who the target is.

And they're all getting caught 'cause they're, they're whacking it on social media, as we say, and that make...

That, that sounds-

And that, that was Josh's line.

But no, I mean, you can't make light of it.

But I'll, you know...

The whole way the world works now is totally different.

After Lorenzo Lamalu was killed, my phone pinged at about 3:30 in the morning, and it was a photo of Lamalu dead in Ho Chi Minh City from an unknown contact.

Yeah

... who they're doing it for and, or why or who the target is.

It's a relevant question for Australia.

Authorities are raising the alarm after new analysis found drug consumption in Australia is now the highest on record.

When did coke become the, the main- Party drug or the, you know, the most, uh, sought after drug in Sydney

I think it really kicked off around the 2000s, you know.

Really escalate.

Kings Cross, you know, Coca Cola sign is, you know, pretty ironic [laughs] 'cause that's where everyone, you know, coke blazing, you know, i- i- in neon lights, and, uh, that's where everybody was buying their coke at that stage.

It was huge

to uh to the the victim at all so in this case they're thinking all right well we're overseas we can contract this out and you describe it sophisticated methods putting layers between them organizing the jobs so it's very hard to trace it back to whoever was uh putting them up to it

that's right and half the time these people carrying it out don't know who the targets are don't know who would pay them and so when they get arrested they don't you know in the old days the people who were behind it would end up paying your legal fees, giving money to your family while you're inside.

They can't even have any of that sort of fallback anymore because they don't even know who they're doing it for.

And as you said, they're sitting there on their devices overseas, putting it into a kind of broker system on these encrypted devices saying, who wants part of $300,000 to do a hit? well, you know, who's going to do kidnapping? There was a shopping list I actually saw on there, and they advertised, said, well...

Firebomb house for $5,000.

Kidnap and extortion, $6,000 a day.

It's like a shopping list of what we'll do for you if you want it.

gun running uh tobacco's come into play as well so is is it possible to quantify specifically what they're arguing about

Now,

and he was also a chief suspect in the shooting of a King's Cross bouncer in 97 who got fired in the head while he sat in the car at Campsy.

Now, James Dallamangos was a suspect in that.

Nothing had been proven.

His brother dies.

They said that he became even more dangerous.

He, in some ways, blamed himself.

Yeah.

I mean, that's relatively new, but is it still the Alameddines and the so-called coconut cartel having a blue? Is that what's the essence of it?

That is the essence of it.

There's also an Asian crime gang involved, potentially.

And the police said this is dying common.

Sometimes other crime groups, when there's this sort of conflict going on between high profiles, they'll sneak in there and do one so that it looks like, You know, someone will think, oh, the Alameddines did it, and they'll go and hit back at them when it's really a common hero or something like that just stirring trouble up.

But it is those two main protagonists, and I just don't see it ending at the moment.

So the police, you read the police media report and it says this person is known to the police, so known to them, but obviously they've got to gather evidence and get them before a court and convict them of something, and that's obviously the hard bit, is it?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Quite extraordinary.

It is.

It's, it's been around for quite a while.

I've known this since, at the time, what police thought.

That's how he got away, that he went to a safe house straight away.

He was already a suspect in another murder of a, a Kings Cross bouncer in ninety-seven, and then this murder was so public in front of over two hundred people, uh, in the restaurant.

He was then put into a safe house by his supporters, and it's believed he made his way up to Yamba where he-- there were two cargo ships which supplied food and, and supplies to Lord Howe Island, which is, you know, considered one of the most beautiful islands.

Mm.

Thank you for correcting me, mate.

That's okay.

Now, and he was also a chief suspect in the shooting of a Kings Cross bouncer in '97 who got five in the head or while he sat in the car at Campsie.

Now, James Delamangas was a suspect in that.

Nothing had been proven.

His brother dies.

They said that he became even more dangerous.

Yeah.

Thank you for correcting me, mate.

That's okay.

Now, and he was also a chief suspect in the shooting of a Kings Cross bouncer in '97 who got five in the head or while he sat in the car at Campsie.

Now, James Delamangas was a suspect in that.

Nothing had been proven.

His brother dies.

They said that he became even more dangerous.

Yeah.

Just talk us through the search for this bloke over the last two decades or almost three decades.

Well, he's actually wanted at, uh, in relation to two murders.

The one you were talking about, um, in 1999, that was like a horrendous murder of a young father.

He tried to intervene in an argument at a restaurant and allegedly was stabbed by Dalhmanis.

But two years previously, he was also the prime suspect in the shooting of a Kings Cross bouncer by the name of Tim Vigouroux, I think you pronounce it, who was shot at Kamsy.

So now James Dalhmanis then fled the country.

Now, I believe he, he got out illegally by heading up north and then getting onto a, a, a vessel, um, is how it's believed that he got out.

I'm not sure if there's been a tip-off or something, but, uh, suddenly huge breakthrough.

Yeah

... you know, there weren't a lot of people that wanted to talk to us because they'd w- their, their, their idyllic little, little town had just been totally destroyed and put on the map for all the wrong reasons.

It was, it was quite surreal being down there and talking to people and, and seeing, and, and walking around Port Arthur.

I remember I woke up at about 5:30 one morning and walking around and it was, it was really eerie and there was scratch marks on a, on a tree where I'd been told that somebody had tried to scratch their way to climb up a tree to get away from him as well.

So, you know, as I said, it, it, it was one of those moments in, in, in Australian crime which i- it isn't even a crime, it's just a, a, an insane moment that took all those lives and, um, you know, I didn't reali- uh, 30...

I didn't know until I heard the news today that it was 30 years.

No.

Not at all.

Yeah

... you know, there weren't a lot of people that wanted to talk to us because they'd w- their, their, their idyllic little, little town had just been totally destroyed and put on the map for all the wrong reasons.

It was, it was quite surreal being down there and talking to people and, and seeing, and, and walking around Port Arthur.

I remember I woke up at about 5:30 one morning and walking around, and it was, it was really eerie and there was scratch marks on a, on a tree where I'd been told that somebody had tried to scratch their way to climb up a tree to get away from him as well.

So, you know, as I said, it, it, it was one of those moments in, in, in Australian crime, which it, it isn't even a crime, it's just a, a, an insane moment that took all those lives.

And, um, you know, I didn't real- at 30...

I didn't know until I heard the news today that it was 30 years.

No.

Yeah

... you know, there weren't a lot of people that wanted to talk to us because they'd w- their, their, their idyllic little, little town had just been totally destroyed and put on the map for all the wrong reasons.

It was, it was quite surreal being down there and talking to people and- And seeing and, and walking around Port Arthur, I mean, I woke up at about 5:30 one morning, walking around, and it was, it was really eerie and there was scratch marks on a, on a tree where I'd been told that somebody had tried to scratch their way, to climb up a tree to get away from him as well.

So, you know, as I said, it, it, it was one of those moments in, in, in Australian crime which i- it isn't even a crime.

It's just a, a- an insane moment that took all those lives.

And, um, you know, I didn't real- out of 30...

I didn't know until I heard the news today that it was 30 years.

No.

So these cases of mistaken identity, is it really unusual or is this a recent shift? And w- why is it happening?

It is more unusual than it, it ever has been.

I mean, there have been cases before, but not, not the amount that we've had.

It's because they're literally outsourcing.

They're just going into encrypted chat rooms that crooks are known to use and saying, "Hey, does anyone want to do this for 20,000?" I remember there was a shopping list that I saw that the police had intercepted and it was, you know, firebombing car 6,000, drive by 7,000, kidnap torture 6,000 a day, all sorts of things like that.

But they're being picked up by young men, obviously disenfranchised from their families, a lot of them, and they're just, they're doing it for notoriety for this gang thing.

So they have really no idea what they're doing.

So Mark, when you put all of this together, the money, the social media, younger, more amateur criminals, how would you describe how the underworld has changed? 'Cause you've been covering this for a very long time, so how do the players and the dynamics between all these different gangs, how do they compare to when you first started?