White Lies: Bending the Truth - All Part of the Job For an Undercover Cop

By Damian Marrett

Covert operative 003 Damian Marrett is back with more crime-fighting yarns in White Lies. this time he pits himself against speed-dealing neo-Nazis, interstate dealers who put a price on his head, and a drug-trafficking Olympian, plus he encounters a crim who pricks his conscience ... Damian Marrett was just 19 years of age when he joined the Victoria Police in 1986 as a somewhat reluctant recruit. Four years down the track, he was handpicked to work in a covert capacity for the Drug Squad. A further six years working undercover, and Marrett had played a major role in close to 50 operations. White Lies picks up where his first book, Undercover, left off. After Marrett helped crack the legendary secretive Griffith Mafia, he moved on to a series of drug busts, from small-time deals to large-scale trafficking - operations that required him to take on numerous identities, often at the same time. His undercover path brings him face to face with smooth operators and street scum - and that was just in the police force. Damian Marrett's penetrating yet darkly comic insights into undercover work reveal a style of policing that is often shrouded in secrecy. told with grim humour and astonishing candour, White Lies is often hilarious, at times chilling, and always riveting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jun 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780730450146

Damian Marrett

Damian is fast becoming one of Australia’s leading commentators on crime. Having already published 3 best selling books capturing his fascinating and dangerous life as a deep undercover operative with Victorian Police, Damian has recently appeared in Gangs of Oz, Today Tonight and has also been a commentator with News Limited and other media organisations. Damian’s first book, Undercover will soon be the subject of a feature film and his first television series will debut later in 2009.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover Page

One OPERATION FLAMINGO

Two OPERATION FLAMINGO

Three OPERATION FLAMINGO

Four OPERATION BLACKSMITH

Five OPERATION BLACKSMITH

Six OPERATION BLACKSMITH

Seven OPERATION PANGA

Eight OPERATION PANGA

Nine OPERATION SAGE

Photographic Insert

Ten OPERATION SAGE

Eleven OPERATION SAGE

Twelve OPERATION TECHNO

Thirteen OPERATION TECHNO

Fourteen OPERATION BATHURST

Fifteen OPERATION BATHURST

Sixteen OPERATION BATHURST

EPILOGUE

GLOSSARY

Undercover

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Damian Marrett

Copyright

One

OPERATION FLAMINGO

Being a crook was a whole lot of fun. From a personal perspective, I particularly enjoyed the not-getting-caught part of the equation. Granted, there was probably more danger and risk associated with working undercover than breaking the law, but then the gut didn’t sink and scramble when cops knocked down the door either. Unlike my criminal associates, I had no fear of a ten-year stretch.

I was twenty-four when I first started working as an undercover for the Victoria Police. I was not only young for the job, but I also looked young. In the right light I could pass for eighteen, and my long blond locks had more in common with surfing culture than the traditional policing one. Accordingly, I didn’t need to cultivate an undercover persona—I never even looked like a copper in the first place.

My attitude wasn’t dressed up in blue either. I’d always been a bit of a rebel, and old friends from school were usually surprised when I told them I’d joined the police force.

‘I never picked you for being a copper.’

‘Yeah, well, you know…’

‘You were mental at school.’

‘Yeah, well, you know…’

‘I thought you’d be on the other side.’

‘Hey, fuck off.’

I might’ve been a bit of a lad as a young bloke, but so were a lot of other coppers as well. They don’t suck the personality out of recruits when they walk through the academy’s gates. They give it a red-hot go sometimes though.

But if I didn’t quite look or act the part of a dutiful copper, there were others working undercover who took it that little bit further. Senior Detective Pete Sutton was one such operative.

In Victoria Police vernacular, Pete Sutton was a shitman. Regrettably, the poor bloke looked like a piece of shit.

However, on Pete’s part, the look was intentional. He was the type of working undercover who specialised in one field. He was just playing a role—one he rarely, if ever, strayed from: throwing himself into looking like crap with reckless abandon. Think David Wenham’s Johnny Spitieri in the Aussie crime flick Gettin’ Square and you’ve got yourself a composite sketch of Pete Sutton in the line of duty.

A description probably wouldn’t do the bloke justice, but his face was pockmarked and pallid. Up top, his wiry nest of mousey mane had a late eighties feel about it—business at the front, party at the back. Skinny like an Olsen twin, policeman Pete was the spitting image of every lippy little pest dealing smack outside every housing commission high-rise in Australia:‘Are ya Jason, mate?’

‘Nah, pal. My name’s Damian.’

‘Nah, nah, mate. Are ya chasin’?’

Pete always dressed the part. A classic ensemble involved flannelette expertly tucked into acid-wash jeans, a scuffed-up pair of Kmart sneakers on his happy feet. His authentic streetwear was unparalleled in covert circles. Pete Sutton was the complete shitman package.

On the street, uniformed coppers were all over the bloke like a raging skin condition. When he stepped outside his house, a squad car would surface out of nowhere before his moccasins (or Kmart sneakers) had a chance to scuff the footpath. Not only was Pete Sutton the complete shitman package, he was a cop magnet into the bargain.

If none of his dodgy crim mates was around when he was pulled over, Pete would guardedly reach for his badge, knowing full well that, if he didn’t, the cops would be all over him like…um…a raging skin condition. Sometimes the uniformed boys wouldn’t believe the badge was his, and they’d radio in to check if a Freddy had been pinched. They figured that no copper was capable of carrying himself that badly.

Because he looked and talked like street scum, Pete was used primarily by Victoria Police as an introductions man; he’d act as a go-between, placing like-minded parties together. Pete could also lend credibility to a situation that required some underworld beefing up. He was pretty much the undercover unit’s connection to the street, and if you were mates with him, it followed that you could be trusted by certain sections of the criminal world.

Pete Sutton wasn’t the only undercover used for a specific purpose. Detective Senior Constable Chris Priest was another specialist. A monster-truck of a man, Chris always looked like he’d been out scrapping the night before. Not only big of bone, he also spoke with an unpolished authority that suggested he could handle himself if things turned to shit. To top it all off, the bloke had that Islander look about him and, just like many of his Pacific brothers, Chris Priest was truly frightening when challenged.

The big fella wasn’t a one-trick pony by any stretch, but he was at his most comfortable and confident playing the role of a money man. He’d be the one in charge of the show money—the cash we had to present to the target in order to demonstrate that the deal was on, even though we had no intention of parting with the money—if we were conducting a large-scale drug deal. When muscle was a necessary ingredient on a job, he was the first operative chosen.

Poles apart from big Chris Priest, we had a bloke join the undercover unit who was young, small—soft, even. A business degree behind him, he looked like your typical Volvo-driving, Hawthorn-supporting, cardigan-wearing accountant. I think he even used to bring a thermos into work every day. Sorry—that might’ve been me.

All up, he was a nice enough guy, but he had no street presence about him whatsoever. Even so, with a financial background behind him, we thought it’d be an advantage to have him on staff as our expert on white-collar crime and money laundering. To be honest, though, I wasn’t sold on the idea. I had a feeling from the word go that crooks would walk all over him at the earliest opportunity.

It panned out that way, too. En route to one of his first jobs, we received word through a phone tap that the crooks saw him as a soft target. After he arrived at the meeting they were prepared to stab him then rip him. The operation was aborted immediately, and our mild-mannered accountant decided that he wasn’t cut out for undercover work. He was actually quite traumatised by the whole experience.

These are just a few examples of ‘types’ that were required by the undercover unit. Everyone had a role to play. If we suspected a target couldn’t control himself around the opposite sex, we’d sometimes use female operatives, primarily for decorative purposes. The procedure involved was straightforward enough: the female undercover would cast a line and reel the target in by the dick, then greed would finish him off. This situation occurred more frequently than you’d think. It’s a sad indictment on the male of the species that way too many blokes think with their special friend downstairs. I must also stress that women were used in more varied (and less discriminatory) work situations than the above scenario. Sometimes they cleaned our offices.

Just like any film or TV production, the Covert Investigations Unit’s casting process was critical. Covert Investigations was formed in November 1993, almost three years after I’d started working undercover for the Victoria Police Drug Squad. Fortuitously, I was one of eight undercover operatives chosen to play a part in the new organisation—four had been chosen from the Drug Squad, and the other four from the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence.

I said goodbye to the fairly dingy Russell Street headquarters of Victoria Police when we moved into our own specially designed office space in Melbourne’s inner suburbs. The location was, and still is, a closely guarded secret.

The whole outfit was more professional than the Drug Squad, and I was hoping a variety of jobs would open up to me as a result. I was even given a special agent number. Unfortunately 007 had been taken by someone else. I was 003. Marrett, Damian Marrett.

During the six years I spent undercover, one of my jobs was to infiltrate designer drug- and cocaine-dealing networks, the reason being that I was able to scrub up a little bit better than a few of the other operatives. Obviously the streetwise Pete wasn’t first choice for that sort of operation. You could imagine an up-market Chapel Street coke dealer doing business with Pete. He’d be all, ‘Ooh, you dirty fuck, get away from me.’ And you could safely assume that big Chris Priest wouldn’t be infiltrating any gay ecstasy-dealing networks in a hurry. When perspiration is the closest thing to aftershave you’ve ever had on your face, the gay community’s respect is rarely forthcoming.

On the other side of the coin, work wasn’t automatically given to me—it once took me a whole day of pestering to convince my boss that I could handle a job that required me to pose as a hitman. The way the bosses saw it, Chris Priest was a hitman, Pete Sutton was a shitman, and Damian Marrett was just a smartarse kid.

In March 1995 I was instructed to use the services of shitman Pete Sutton for the beginnings of Operation Flamingo.

Just a brief word on the naming of operations. Assigning a name to an operation was generally a random, haphazard thing. Flamingo was no exception, but I do recall a period in 1993 when all the jobs took on some sort of canine connection. In the space of six months we had Afghan, Spot, Ridgeback and Terrier. Even the taskforce assigned to investigate organised crime was called Rover. I have no idea why the fascination.

But back to Pete Sutton and the fact that we had a small role in mind for him. His shitman qualities were required to introduce Operation Flamingo’s principal target, and he’d come highly recommended.

The target was a young Lebanese drug dealer, David Beroutty. An informer had briefly introduced him to Pete the week before. After the initial introduction, Pete mentioned that he knew a bloke who was eager to buy in bulk. That bloke was me. It was then stressed to Beroutty that I could be counted on to be reliable and trustworthy. For the purposes of Operation Flamingo, I was Perth drug dealer Ben Cross.

Quite often I would go undercover in Victoria as a Perth drug dealer, and there was always a fake name attached. When I said I was from the west, suppliers automatically called me back. They knew that dealers from the west were used to paying top dollar for their gear. For a start, the market in WA was not as robust as it was on the eastern seaboard. In some instances, the end user would have to cough up at least twice the going rate in Melbourne or Sydney. Put it down to the tyranny of distance.

And because I did business so far away, the anonymity of Western Australia gave me a decided edge. Melbourne crooks were less likely to know the ins and outs of the Perth underworld. For that added touch of authenticity, I would often say that coppers in the west were easier to pay off. Crooks loved hearing about cops who could be bought off. It somehow made everything worthwhile.

Flamingo’s target, David Beroutty, was about my age. Pete had told me he was solidly built, but in no way did he look tough or imposing. The bloke was almost pleasant—always well presented and well spoken. In fact, Beroutty looked like he’d just stepped out of a King Street nightclub, Pete said. Maybe he had.

Seemingly well connected too, ecstasy and LSD were Beroutty’s drugs of choice. It was said that he could conjure up sizable amounts at a moment’s notice. On Tuesday, 7 March 1995, I put him to the test.

Over the phone, Pete told Beroutty that I was after a sample of fifty LSD tickets. No problems if I was prepared to part with $500. Café Trevi on Lygon Street in the heart of inner-city Carlton was chosen as the meeting place for the transaction.

I picked up my very own shitman, Pete Sutton, in an unmarked red Commodore for the ten-minute ride from the city. It was a stinking-hot day, the temperature nudging forty. I liked the hot weather, but Pete wasn’t so impressed when Melbourne turned it on. A bloke like him couldn’t wear shorts and get away with it. He was an acid-wash man, the fabric permanently welded to his scrawny limbs.

Twenty minutes early for the meeting, we parked the car in nearby Elgin Street.

‘It’s approximately 3.40 p.m.,’ I announced clearly into both of the listening and recording devices strapped to my chest and back. ‘My name is Ben. I’m a trained covert operative attached to the Covert Investigations Unit. With me is Pete. He is also a trained covert operative attached to the Covert Investigations Unit. We will shortly attend Café Trevi in Lygon Street, Carlton, where we will meet David…um, I’ve forgotten his last name…um, sounds like Rooty. The reason for this meeting is an earlier phone call with him where we arranged to buy fifty LSD tickets. He’ll be meeting us at 4 o’clock.

‘I have $500 for fifty tickets of LSD. We’ll also be placing an order for a further, ah, around $2000 worth of ecstasy tablets on Friday, with a view to organising a substantial amount of them in the future. I’ll now turn the tape off and reactivate it later.’

Both of us then stepped into Melbourne’s dry heat and prepared ourselves for the short walk to Café Trevi. Pete was really struggling. Not only was he dressed inappropriately in denim, he also looked somewhat out of place among the latte set on Lygon Street. His natural habitat was the smack-riddled streets of Sunshine and Springvale. Carlton was Gucci slippers, not Kmart sneakers.

We took a seat inside the café and ordered some fluids. I reactivated the tape at 3.46 p.m.

‘I’ve known you for ages,’ Pete said.

‘What?’

‘I told the bloke when I called him that I’ve known you for ages.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No, um, yeah. You’re from Perth.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Where do ya reckon they’re hiding the fountain, then?’ Pete asked.

‘What?’

‘The fountain. The Trevi Fountain,’ he deadpanned.

‘Nice one, Mr Lonely Planet.’

A few minutes later David Beroutty hovered over the table. I stood up. Pete stayed seated. ‘How are ya?’ Beroutty asked, shaking Pete’s hand.

‘G’day. This here is Ben.’

‘Hi,’ said Beroutty, all smiles. I returned serve with a grin of my own.

On first impressions, I don’t think he was all that wowed by my coffee date. Even though he’d met Pete before, the Lebanese drug dealer probably considered himself more aligned with the sensibilities of the more up-market South Yarra than Sutton’s Sunshine. Mind you, I didn’t mind being associated with Pete. It gave me some semblance of street cred. He also made me look good.

‘Is it ever gonna be cold again?’ asked Pete of nobody in particular. ‘Or is it gonna be stinkin’ bloody hot all the time?’

Nobody in particular answered him. ‘So, what ya been up to?’ Beroutty asked, taking a seat, partially turned away from the badly dressed bogan banging on about the weather.

‘Just a bit of shopping,’ I replied.

‘Quietly melting,’ added Pete.

‘You going back to Perth, yeah?’ Beroutty asked.

‘Probably tomorrow,’ I replied.

Under the table, Beroutty handed me a small, clear plastic bag with the tickets of LSD presumably inside. ‘These, these are spastic,’ he said, shaking his head in wonder. ‘See, you know, the thing is, I don’t normally do…’

‘To be honest, mate,’ I interrupted early to state my intentions, ‘I’m just getting a look-in. If it works out, I’ll be looking to buy a hell of a lot more.’

‘I do thousands and that, you know what I mean? That’s the thing. Nothing against you guys, but heaps of people say that they want thousands and, like, the next week it’s, Oh, I’ll pay for ten today, you know.’

‘Nah, it’s not like that,’ I said, fishing out five 100-dollar notes from my pocket and handing them over. ‘I wouldn’t fly over just to do ten each week.’

‘Well, stick around. I’ll be getting some more soon.’

‘Some of these?’

‘Nah, the others,’ he said, meaning ecstasy not LSD. ‘They’re from England. The best, but expensive, you know. Most of the stuff around at the moment is shit. Not these ones, though.’

‘They’re not Ts, are they?’ I asked, chipping in with some local designer drug knowledge. At that time the Melbourne drug scene was a nightmare for ecstasy aficionados. Buying quality product was a rarity, and those in the know considered most of the available gear to be too trippy for its own good. One particular example was packaged in a yellow and white capsule, and everyone called them Ts. ‘T for terrific’, so the slogan went. Hard-core users weren’t so sold on the claims, however.

‘No, no, no, no. We get the proper ones from England.’

‘Yeah.’

‘The Ts are crap,’ he added. ‘These ones, yeah, you can’t explain the feelings. You wanna hug everyone and, you know, these ones go up. Yeah, they’re pretty good. If anyone told you that you’d be up for eight hours, you’d think they were shit-talkin’ ya. After about forty minutes, you’re in, and then for about two hours you’re peaking full-on, and then you’re just smiling for five hours until you come back to earth.’

‘How much?’ I asked, now that I was up to speed on the features and benefits of his merchandise.

‘I can give you a few samples for fifty bucks each, but I have to go up to Sydney for them. I’m not sure when,’ Beroutty said.

‘I was in Sydney last week. It’s a shame I didn’t know ya. Um, can I take some back for these blokes and, I mean, they are talking like very large amounts. What sort of prices are you doing on these?’

‘They’re fucken expensive, mate.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re looking at about forty-five for a hundred,’ said Beroutty, meaning that if I bought 100 of them, they’d be $45 each.

‘And more?’

‘If you buy a thousand, I can get ’em for about thirty-three, thirty-four.’

‘Thirty-three’s your best?’

‘Yeah, for 1000. A hundred’s forty-five, ’cause we make nothing. See, what people don’t understand is, the only person that makes any cash is in England. The thing is, when they come to Sydney from England, they’re buying around 5000 at a time, and they’re getting them at about twenty-nine.’

Beroutty was clearly bullshitting. In 1995, good ecstasy retailed for about $80, so it was a stretch that these blokes in Sydney were coughing up $29 per unit when they were buying so many. I figured that the margins would have to be a lot higher than that. Plus I knew that you could purchase ecstasy for about five pounds in London. ‘How many would you have to buy to get them at thirty, then?’ I asked.

He knew then that he’d been caught out, and his answer verified it. ‘Um, probably 2000, 3000. ’Cause then I’ll push them for twenty-nine and put a dollar on. No one does it for nothing. For me to put a dollar on for 3000, that’s 3000 bucks.’

‘Yeah, that’s fine. I’m okay with that, but are you able to do both packages, like, at the same time, you know, so I can just take everything back at the one time?’ I asked, trying to work a