Fat Tony & Co

Tony's story begins in the mid ‘90s in a pizza bar in the suburbs of Melbourne where he is pursuing the twin but at times conflicting dreams of becoming a restaurant and property tycoon and building a drug empire. Somehow managing to maintain an uneasy truce with Melbourne’s criminal royalty, the Carlton Crew, and with the help of a few bent cops, his rise is irresistible. But his friendship with fellow drug dealer and sworn enemy of the Carlton Crew, Carl Williams, jeopardises it all. And when the Drug Squad turns his right-hand man Billy Fischer against him, Tony looks to be living on borrowed time.

Tony has more balls in the air than he can count: a new club, a new girlfriend in Pill Press Queen Danielle McGuire, and a string of heavy-duty drug imports worth millions. In particular, he is consumed by plans for his new winged keel building, a property development every bit as bold and audacious as Tony himself. But it's a trial importation of a trivial three kilos of cocaine from Mexico that will ultimately bring him undone. Police agent Billy Fischer passes on everything Tony tells him to his state police Drug Squad handlers and they pass it on to the Federal Police. Thus Tony suffers a double whammy - arrested on a range of domestic drug trafficking charges by the state cops and charged with the Mexican cocaine importation by the Feds. Two strikes and you're out!

When systemic corruption in the Drug Squad is exposed, the domestic drug charges against Tony collapse and he is set free - but the Mexican cocaine importation charge survives. Tony decides to stick to local drug operations from now on, and even contemplates restricting himself to legitimate property deals. But his friendship with the increasingly dangerous Carl, who's picking off the Carlton Crew one by one, is the albatross around his neck. Carl's blatant murder of Tony's good mate and small-time dealer Willie Thompson over a drug debt, and the killing of another friend to mask Willie's execution, have Tony feeling nervous. He fears that if he calls Carl out on the murders he will put himself in the firing line.

The Federal Police finally bring Tony to trial for the Mexican cocaine job. Realising that the crown witnesses against him are rock solid, and therefore he may have to do serious gaol time, Tony takes a massive gamble and recruits a pair of unlikely cleanskins to set up what they call The Company to take over his drug manufacturing and distribution empire. Meanwhile Carl is gaoled by the state police to stop any more gangland murders. Now Tony's worry is that his best mate Carl might be tempted to make serious allegations against him in the hope of cutting a deal with the authorities. Then he hears the alarming whisper that one of Carl's hired killers has already made allegations against them both - Tony is to be charged with murder too! Not prepared to trust the legal system, he flees the country whilst in the middle of his cocaine trial.

Federal Agent Jarrod Ragg searches high and low for the absconder Tony Mokbel without success. He gets no help from the state police Purana Taskforce who actually find Tony's absence makes investigating his financial empire an easier task. Tony spends his first days on the run hiding out in the Melbourne suburbs before heading for a farm up country that belongs to one of his drug cooks. Meanwhile the Mexican coke trial concludes in his absence and he's found guilty and sentenced to a dozen years. With additional charges still looming, Tony now feels that his best option is to leave the country. He recruits a canny Greek fella he knows from the gambling clubs and persuades him to organise an ocean-going yacht to spirit him somewhere the Aussie cops will never find him - the question is where? Greece, says his Greek mate, where else?

While Tony fights seasickness all the way across the Indian Ocean to the Aegean, his pregnant girlfriend Danielle McGuire trips through Europe managing to burn the local police tasked to follow her. By the time Not-So-Fat Tony arrives in Athens to be reunited with her, Danielle has settled into a luxurious apartment and given birth to their daughter. Back in Melbourne the Purana Taskforce decides it's time they lent a hand finding Australia's Most Wanted drug dealer. Fortuitously, the government posts a handsome reward for information leading to Tony's arrest just as one of his disgruntled employees comes forward with valuable information, including a mobile phone number Tony is known to call regularly. It is via that phone-tap that a Greek-speaking Purana Taskforce member realises their man is hiding out in Athens.