For 20 years Sydney had its own Underbelly. We just didn't realise it, until now. For the first time Michael Duffy reveals the full story of the Perish crime bosses, their violent associates and the biggest murder inquiry in NSW history.
ANTHONY and Andrew Perish terrify people, literally. In the September trial that convicted them of the murder of drug manufacturer and police informant Terry Falconer, the media could not name eight of the people on the witness list, some of them hardened criminals themselves. This was not enough for the main Crown witness, who when he got into the box refused to give any useful evidence.
Despite this, and despite the outcome of the trial, we will never be able to reveal his name. The continuing influence of the Perish brothers is considered just too great.
The jury in the murder trial was not told that Anthony, 42, and Andrew, 40, had sought to intimidate another of the protected witnesses at the committal hearing last year. The brothers were finally convicted of that last week, so their story can now be told for the first time.
Death of a witness
Another incident the jury was not told about was the 2001 disappearance of barman Ian Draper, who had been unfortunate enough to be a witness when Andrew Perish killed a man in a hotel. In fact, the jury had no idea the Perishes were two of the state's most violent and effective criminals, who had avoided prison almost completely in criminal careers lasting two decades.
Set up in 2001 after pieces of 52-year-old Terry Falconer were found in the Hastings River on the NSW north coast, Strike Force Tuno (which would evolve into Tuno 2) became the biggest murder investigation in the state's history.
While pursuing Anthony and Andrew, and their associates, the police discovered connections with more than a dozen other killings.
Usually every murder in NSW has its own strike force. But because of all the links between these killings, Tuno pursued all of them.
The network
In many countries, most major crime is conducted by tightly organised groups, such as the Mafia or drug cartels. Australia has always been different, with serious criminal activity often done by fluctuating alliances around a small number of strong individuals.
Even the exceptions to this - such as the Moran crime family and bikie clubs - are less rigid and permanent than many foreign crime groups. This looser form of organisation makes it difficult for outsiders to understand a great deal of criminal activity. By pursuing the Perishes and those they dealt with so remorselessly over the past decade, Strike Force Tuno built up an unprecedented picture of a modern Sydney criminal network.
It says much about the advantage to criminals of this fluid organisation that the Perishes and their associates, despite their organisation, success and ruthlessness, are almost unknown to the public. Unlike their Melbourne counterparts, they just got on with their jobs as underworld bosses and spurned the spotlight for 20 years.
The brothers
Anthony and Andrew Perish and their four siblings grew up in semi-rural Leppington in south-western Sydney, the grandchildren of Croatian immigrants.
Their father, Albert, ran the family's egg business.
In 1993, their elderly grandparents were shot dead in their home, a crime that remains unsolved. By then Anthony was on the run after a warrant was issued for his arrest the year before for supplying amphetamines, which he'd been cooking in a shed on the family property. He was 23 at the time and spent the next 14 years hiding out at various places, including Turramurra, Queensland, a property at Girvan (between Bulahdelah and Scone in the Hunter Valley) and South Australia, where he had connections with the Gypsy Jokers and the major amphetamine manufacturer and disgraced solicitor Justin Birk Hill.
Andrew joined the Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Club and in 1994 was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture amphetamines. In those less punitive times, he received a fine of $2500. The next year, Kai Dempsey
At the trial in 1998, Andrew was found not guilty and witness Draper subsequently disappeared. His car was found outside the Rebels' clubhouse in Leppington.
Black ops
An important figure in the Perish network was Sean Waygood, 41. Waygood was in the army reserve and worked as a security guard at hotels and nightspots. Interviewed by The Sydney Morning Herald in 1996, he said the job required him to be ''emotionally detached and have a lot of self-discipline''. Sadly though, he reflected, ''Australians have still got a hang-up about authority. You come face to face with that every Saturday night.''
A young man named Keith Payne befriended Waygood in 1998 when both were on the door at the Bourbon and Beefsteak in Kings Cross. Waygood started his own security company but it soon went broke and he told Payne he was unhappy the skills he'd learnt in the army were going to waste, and he was considering branching out into ''black ops''. Before long, the pair was committing armed robberies, often of premises Waygood had once been paid to protect.
The gang expanded to include Michael Christiansen and Jeremy Postlewaight, and soon Waygood was also working for Anthony Perish, assisting him with his large-scale drug manufacturing and distribution business.
This involved a range of activities, including intimidation, murder, and money collection.
In 2001, Anthony had Waygood wound a man named Gary Mack, who he said owed Andrew money.
The attack occurred outside the Peakhurst Inn. Waygood was supposed to shoot Mack in the buttocks, but the shot went high and hit him in the back.
Death of an informant
In 2001, Andrew Perish established an apparently thriving business, South Western Produce, in Camden, with a turnover of several million dollars a year. In the same year, he helped set up the murder of Falconer, which was carried out by Anthony and his driver Matthew Lawton, now 45. One motive seems to have been Andrew's belief (having been told this by Falconer's wife, Liz) that Falconer was informing to the police about the drug-dealing activities of the Rebels.
Falconer was in prison but on work-day release. Anthony hired three men to abduct him, for a fee of $15,000. On November 16, 2001, a lookout phoned Anthony to say Falconer was at work. The three kidnappers, posing as police officers, abducted Falconer and locked him in a metal toolbox, which was delivered to Anthony at Turramurra.
There, according to evidence later given in court, the box was opened and Falconer was still alive. The box was shut and taken to Girvan, by which time Falconer was dead. Anthony, Lawton and another man put on protective suits and laid a big sheet of plastic on the ground. After Falconer's teeth were removed, his body was hoisted up inside a shed with a block and tackle, and cut up. The pieces were wrapped in black plastic, weighed down with stones and thrown into the Hastings River, where they were found a month later near Wauchope.
According to Strike Force Tuno's chief, Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin, ''It was like a who's who of NSW's hardest criminals as to who had a motive and means to murder Falconer. We had a list of about 70 people of interest early in the investigation.'' But no one was saying much. ''The brutality of the crime sent out a message to other criminal informants about the consequences of assisting the authorities.''
The incompetent hitman
The violence continued. In 2002 Waygood, helped by Christiansen, now 42, tried to kill a leading member of the Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Club in a pub in Haymarket. This was because the bikies had been contracted to kill Waygood after a problem at a nightclub where he'd worked. They'd tracked him to Anthony Perish's Turramurra house, where he was hiding. Waygood claimed Anthony told him that because he had ''caused the safe house to be compromised, [i] had to kill Felix Lyle and Dallas Fitzgerald of the Bandidos''. Christiansen was on the door of the bar and pointed out the target to Waygood, who fired eight shots. But it was the wrong man.
Fortunately the victim, who was hit by three bullets, survived.
After the botched job, Waygood walked to a stolen van and removed the outer clothes he'd worn, threw them in the vehicle and set fire to it.
Police obtained DNA material from some unburnt clothing. Queensland police have matched this to DNA they found on clothing from a burning vehicle not far from where Gold Coast businessman Michael Davies was shot dead that same year. No one has yet been charged with that more successful assassination effort.
In the same year, Anthony Perish paid Waygood $25,000 to do an armed break-in at BOC Gases at Wetherill Park to steal valuable chemicals for use in drug production. Waygood hired Payne, Christiansen, Postlewaight and Jay Sauer for the job. Waygood continued to work for Anthony over the next few years. In 2006, police finally arrested Anthony in a house at Hoxton Park surrounded by a three-metre wall and an electric fence, with a bedroom lined with steel plates. Somewhat ironically after all his time on the run, the 1992 charge was then withdrawn at court.
In 2007, Andrew was convicted of stalking for the purpose of intimidation and in 2008 of manufacturing a commercial quantity of amphetamines and possessing an unauthorised pistol. He was sentenced to four years in jail. Police had found his meth lab in a shipping container inside a big shed on a rural property.
The secret lab
Strike Force Tuno had begun to suspect the Perishes of Falconer's murder in mid-2002. An informant told them he'd been hired to dispose of Falconer's body at sea, although the disposal had not gone ahead.
This was helpful, but much more evidence was needed to build a strong case.
Tuno detectives kept an eye on Anthony Perish over the years and learnt of the important relationship with Waygood. Eventually they broke the code the men used on the phone and were able to keep them under almost constant surveillance.
In 2008, police discovered Waygood owned a property in remote bushland near Mudgee.
Anthony Perish and a convicted drug manufacturer poured a slab there for what was obviously going to be a big building.
Police surveillance discovered that a large hidden basement had been built beneath the slab, presumably to be used as a clandestine drug laboratory. Also that year, Waygood damaged a golf buggy parked in the driveway of a man who owed Anthony money. ''Mr Waygood,'' noted the judge who sentenced him, ''said Mr Perish's instructions were to torch the house if the man was not there but because there were people at home, he did not burn the house, just the golf buggy''.
In October 2008, police followed Waygood when he drove to the Gold Coast and made the rounds of nightclubs and hotels thought to be linked to Anthony Perish. Police managed to stay on his tail but it was difficult. ''The level of counter-surveillance techniques used by Waygood was extreme - over 48 hours it stretched us to the limit,'' Detective Jubelin says.
Waygood met Perish in Brisbane and handed him a package.
Gradually, police were building up a picture of a large operation based on drug manufacturing and the laundering of profits through legitimate businesses, protected by violence where necessary.
An unsatisfied customer
Waygood's long-time girlfriend knew nothing of his work as a major criminal and believed he was working as a private investigator. They married in late 2008 - Anthony Perish was a guest.
In December he agreed to provide armed protection for a drug dealer named Tuan Tran in a meeting with an unhappy customer. Paul Elliott, a violent Melbourne underworld figure, had been sold a large quantity of low-grade methamphetamine and was in Sydney to get his money back.
But Waygood had to drop out and the job was done by Christiansen, who is now in jail for killing Elliott and dumping him at sea in a metal toolbox. In the latter task he was assisted by Marcelo Urriola and Postlewaight. It was not until January 2009 that police had enough information to arrest Anthony Perish and Waygood. ''We couldn't afford for them to get bail,'' Detective Jubelin says. ''If they had, there would have been ramifications for the witnesses.'' Police in body armour moved in on the two men at the Lavender Blue Cafe at McMahon's Point.
Booby traps
After the arrests, police visited the property at Girvan where Anthony Perish had hidden, drugs had been made and Terry Falconer had been dismembered. The perimeter was protected by machine guns and buried explosives. The approaches were covered by cameras linked to a control centre inside the house.
Anthony and Andrew Perish and Lawton were convicted in September this year of Falconer's murder. They are still to be sentenced. Last week they were convicted in the District Court of holding up signs reading ''Dog'' and ''Fink'' when one of the main Crown witnesses came into court at their committal hearing.
Tuno has been one of the most successful investigations in Australia's history. Fourteen people have now been charged with more than 100 offences, with convictions achieved for every charge. The effort by the police involved, including sacrifices for themselves and their families, has been considerable.
And it continues: six other murders and two suspicious deaths are still being investigated.
Detective Inspector Jubelin says: ''We're still obtaining evidence but we believe we know who carried out those murders and why. Those involved should be very concerned about being brought to justice.''
It has been suggested that serious criminal activity in Australia ought to be called disorganised crime because of its use of networks rather than hierarchies. Whatever you call it, as Strike Force Tuno has shown, it usually revolves around a small number of particularly violent and influential criminals. The conviction of the Perish brothers has destroyed one network that, in Detective Jubelin's words, ''had total disregard for society's rules and human life''.
Video: http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-a-murderous-empire-was-brought-down-20111217-1ozpa.html
