A Tale of Two Cities (28 page)

Cox and Deane would always rent moderate, furnished homes, which they would share with their black Labrador, Devil.

Cox's brother was a champion surfer who retired in the United States, and athleticism and self-discipline ran in the family. Cox loved the beach and regularly ran fifteen kilometres a day. But he didn't drop his guard. He always had a sub-machine gun under the front seat of his car and had a handgun concealed on his body even when running.

The chatty Deane and quiet Cox passed as perfect tenants and usually provided glowing references when renting a house.

In November 1981 they moved into a small house in Lynette Street, Nunawading, taking a six-month lease at just $75 a week. An armed robbery squad detective rented a similar home just two streets away but did not cross paths with the fugitive.

In January 1982 Cox and Deane made sixteen separate deposits for a total of $30,000 in a building society account held under false names. They travelled around Victoria to make the deposits making sure that none were big enough to raise suspicions.

In February, Cox withdrew $25,000 to buy 80 hectares at Broadford next to a property owned by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. Police reports suggest Cox and Deane used the small
log cabin on their country retreat as an emergency safe house. In March 1983, two months after the Carroll murder, the cabin was found burnt out. Police believe it was either a revenge attack by friends of Carroll's or – more likely – it was torched by Cox himself to remove any evidence he had stayed there while recovering from his gunshot wound.

Detectives say Cox tapped a phone line into a police station so that he remained up to date on the search for him.

During one raid where police narrowly missed the pair, they found theatrical books, which had chapters on make-up. They believed he used actor's make-up, false teeth and wigs to continually change his appearance.

Cox preferred heavy, military-style weapons and kept bullet-proof vests and gas masks.

He often used the alias ‘Mr Williams', the same name used by his favorite comic hero, The Phantom. Even Devil the dog had an alias: he was known as ‘Butch' when they were on the run. In fact, he might not have answered to his real name at all.

After the Carroll killing, Cox moved to Queensland and joined the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland under a false name. He bought two high-powered military weapons from a Brisbane gun shop after producing fake identity papers.

He studied Australian bushrangers, including Ned Kelly and the ‘Wild Colonial Boy'. His favourite magazine was
Soldier of Fortune
. He also read non-fiction Australian crime books, contributing in a small way to these authors' meagre income in those lean years.

According to ‘Chopper' Read, Cox won $15,000 on Tattslotto while on the run. ‘I've shot people for less,' he said.

Read also said Cox had once revealed he'd turned to crime when he won a raffle for a new bike when he was ten years old but because he wasn't present at the draw the prize was withdrawn
and raffled again. He was so angry ‘he stole a brand new bike and told everyone he had won it in a raffle,' Read said.

Read said Cox was famous in the underworld for his cool head.

‘He was pulled over for licence checks and breath tests and was never fazed. Once, when there were police screaming all over the place, he just drove off. The police didn't notice the dog running after the car. Russell just opened the door of the car and Devil jumped in, barking out the back window at the police, who were blissfully unaware.'

Cox was cool under pressure, a loving partner and would try to avoid a fight if he could but, underneath it all, he was a gunman.

IT would be the hardest job in policing: to go undercover and infiltrate the tight knit Bookie Robbery team.

The risks were enormous. This mob killed rivals and would have no hesitation in shooting nosy outsiders.

But Graeme Henderson, a detective who had just returned from studying overseas under a Churchill fellowship, was keen to use the tactics he had learned and there was no bigger target than Ray Bennett.

Henderson recruited Rob Robertson, a Vietnam veteran, who was brave to the point of recklessness, and together they would be the first full-time undercovers in Victoria.

It was nearly two years after the robbery that police found their first way in – and that was only because the gang had no intention of retiring on the spoils from the Victoria Club.

They continued to pull off big jobs in Perth and Brisbane using methods imported from the London team known as the Wembley Mob. In February 1978 they were looking for a new target in Melbourne.

Bennett believed the heat was off them. His best friend, Norman ‘Chops' Lee, had been acquitted of charges over the Bookie Robbery and most of the team were free and available.

Again he hand-picked the crew and this time included an armed robbery expert who would never crack under pressure – Russell Cox.

After all, Cox was near enough to family now that he was living with Bennett's sister-in-law.

As usual, Bennett wanted an inside man and on 18 February 1978, a Queensland SP bookmaker made tentative approaches at Flemington races to a part-time worker for the Mayne Nickless security company, the same firm that handled the cash delivered on the day of the Bookie Robbery.

If the security man could provide information on cash movements and payroll deliveries there would be a handsome ‘earn' in it for him.

But Mayne Nickless learned of the potential breach through its own security systems and contacted police, who slipped Robertson into the firm.

The operation, code named Osprey, was designed to destroy the million-dollar payroll gang.

Robertson became Brian Wilson – a security guard with a weakness for luxury cars and fast women. And he wanted cash to support his lifestyle.

Robertson (as Wilson) twice met the Queensland man – a skilled armed robber known as ‘Bikkie' at a North Melbourne hotel to discuss possible targets.

‘He told me they were the crew behind the Bookie Robbery and they wanted another job worth between $8 million and $10 million,' Robertson remembers.

On 22 April Robertson met key gang members at Werribee races. Bikkie introduced him to ‘Kelvin'. It was Russell Cox.

‘He was super fit and super smart. The consummate professional at what he did,' Robertson said later.

The undercover told the team he had identified a likely target – the Country Roads Board offices in Denmark Street, Kew.

While it wouldn't be a $10 million heist, it was still worth the risk.

The payroll would usually be $600,000 but on 4 May it would be swollen to $900,000 because of back pay.

Embellishing the story as he went, he told them it would be ‘a piece of cake.'

The inside man was promised 10 per cent of the takings in funds that would be laundered through Dennis William Smith's Manila bar operations.

He was told he would get $5000 up front and the rest about a week later.

Police planned to take the sting to the line. This was their chance to catch the Bookie Robbery master-minds. But it was uncharted waters. Undercover work in the 1970s was rudimentary – largely ‘buy-bust' drug deals at a street level. No police in Australia had tried such an elaborate – and dangerous – ruse.

They fitted out a Mayne Nickless armoured van with James Bond style electronic devices to foil the robbery and the Special Operations Group was briefed. The briefing was straightforward: If the crooks have guns don't hesitate to fire. In other words, police were preparing for a gun battle.

They were simpler times and Coroners tended not to ask too many questions.

On 26 April Roberston met ‘Kelvin' and ‘Bikkie' at a North Melbourne coffee shop. ‘They wanted to check me out. Ray Bennett just wandered past to have a good look,' Robertson said.

Four men, including two identified as Bookie Robbers, followed them to the target for last checks before the job.

Cox authorised the raid but only after doing his own homework. He later told Roberston he had donned a workman's dustcoat to check out the building and found the payroll office was protected by only a plywood door. ‘He said they would kick it in and do the job without any problems.'

Once Cox approved the job, the team began to gather, with up to fourteen staying in different motels around Melbourne.

At 8pm on the night before the raid, Cox and Robertson met again in North Melbourne. They were waiting for Bikkie to arrive with the $5000 deposit for the information but the Queenslander was late.

Cox suggested they go somewhere quieter to wait and the undercover agreed. They went to the nearby deserted Victoria Market where the police back-up team couldn't follow without being seen.

One of the shadowers said they knew if they went in they would blow the job but if they didn't the undercover's life was at risk.

‘He was an ex-serviceman who was absolutely fearless and a first class operative. Basically, I think he was half crazy. He wasn't that flash at his paperwork but he could think on his feet. We decided to let it run.'

Robertson says he felt fully in control. ‘I didn't have a gun and I wasn't wearing a tape. I had a knife in my shoe but that wouldn't be much good against a gun. To this day I don't think Cox had any intention of harming me.'

But as they were standing and chatting, a police car with three uniformed police on board pulled over. One of the police recognised Robertson, but was alert enough to realise it was an undercover operation and continued to perform a routine identity check. Robertson produced a fake licence while Cox produced a real, long-barrelled .38 revolver.

‘I have no doubt he was going to kill the coppers,' Robertson said. The undercover started talking, telling Cox that he could solve the problem and there was no need to shoot.

He ripped the microphone from the police car and took their guns, throwing them on the market roof.

Robertson then forced them into a large rubbish bin and placed heavy wooden pallets on top.

‘Before Cox ran off he said to me “You're a true Briton, and then fired a shot in the air”.'

Robertson ran back to the coffee shop to ring for back-up when another police car arrived. He told the two policewomen in the car he was in the middle of an undercover operation and they should not use their radio but ring the head of Osprey, Detective Chief Inspector Fred Silvester.

Despite the warning, one police officer foolishly used the radio to inform headquarters they were talking to an undercover policeman at the market.

‘Cox always used police radio scanners. He could have been tipped off straight away. He had the knack of knowing when a job wasn't right and he would walk away from it.'

Cox ran from the market to the Marco Polo Hotel where he met the team leaders.

Meanwhile the SOG was already in the Country Roads Board building, doing a floor by floor search to check if the bandits had already set up.

Cox told the others their inside man had probably been arrested and was still wearing his Mayne Nickless shirt. They believed that if the police connected him to the robbery he would be able to identify some of them. They decided to abort the job and scatter.

It was just as well – for them. The SOG also had a meeting. They were not going to take any chances. The fact that a key
gang member was prepared to kill three police hardened their resolve to shoot first.

But Bikkie did send the undercover $500 with a message that he was sorry the job didn't go ahead. Proof that occasionally there is honour among thieves.

Years later, when Robertson was working at the Consorting Squad, he saw Bikkie at the races, sauntered over and just said: ‘How's Russell?'

The Queenslander quickly lost his tan, as he turned white.

‘Years later I got some feedback from Russell – he said he thought I had done a good job,' Robertson would recall.

IN the end it was dumb luck that brought down Russell Cox and it was sheer luck that kept him alive.

It was on 22 July 1988 when the crew from an armoured van heading to Doncaster Shoppingtown in Melbourne's eastern suburbs radioed police to say they feared they were being followed.

A local divisional van was despatched to check the scene but saw nothing suspicious and radioed headquarters to say they were leaving the area.

But an armed robbery squad crew in the area, headed by Paul ‘Fish' Mullett, turned up and located the car, a Holden station wagon, in the shopping centre car park.

Mullett contacted the armed robbery squad office and three crews, all heavily armed, headed east.

Members of the squad, armed with concealed pistol grip shotguns, wandered around the shoppers trying to see would-be armed robbers.

Meanwhile police opened the back of the Holden station wagon and the first item they saw was a prison library card in the name of notorious gunman Raymond John Denning, who had escaped from New South Wales's Goulburn prison just days before.

The detectives knew they were onto a heavy criminal but they were unaware that Denning had teamed up with Cox.

When Denning had escaped he'd headed to Queensland and made immediate contact with Cox, who told him to go to Melbourne where they would meet in Doncaster. He set Denning up in a local motel and began to plan the next armed robbery.

Armed with a scanner Cox, Denning and a woman were inside the shopping complex where they remained until they heard the divvy van report that it was leaving the area.

But the armed robbery squad was equipped with new, ‘silent' radios that could not be intercepted by scanners.

Denning, wearing a brown Stetson hat, walked back to the Commodore and slipped in behind the steering wheel. Then a second man, wearing a black hat, wandered over, opened the passenger door and stood there chatting. It was Cox, not that the watching police knew that.

He sat in the passenger seat but left the door ajar as he continued to chat. Finally, he moved away but returned for a few more words before heading to the car parked next to it – a yellow Ford Fairlane sedan.