source : the age
Underworld figure Mick Gatto and a woman have reportedly been arrested by Victoria Police.
“Detectives from Taskforce Hawk executed a warrant at a Mount Martha property this morning as part of a current investigation into alleged financial offences,” police said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
“Two people at the address, a man and a woman both in their 70s, were arrested and are being interviewed by police. Further information will be released later today.”
Taskforce Hawk was set up to probe criminal behaviour in the construction sector, partly in response to reporting by this masthead.
On February 18, Gatto denied allegations in a report by Geoffrey Watson QC that he had “damaged the building industry and damaged the Victorian economy – maybe permanently” as a result of his work as a self-styled mediator and arbitrator between the CFMEU and construction firms.
“Unfortunately, they’re looking for a scapegoat, and I refuse to be one,” Gatto said on 3AW at the time.
“I’ve been down this track the last 30 or 40, years, you know: They’ve tried to do it in different royal commissions that they’ve had nothing’s come out of them.
“They’ve rendered me a stand over man with no evidence.”
In his report, tabled in the Queensland Royal Commission into the CFMEU, Watson outlined what he called the “Gatto extortion model”, which involved demanding payment from contractors to avoid industrial strife.
He accused Gatto of successfully running a “terror campaign” that he estimated would net the gangland figure millions of dollars a year.
Watson’s report also backed revelations by this masthead that Australian Federal Police were investigating – and had raided – accountant Charles Pellegrino over payments from a number of contractors.
On Wednesday, 3AW reporter Jacqui Felgate said the two arrested were Gatto and his wife.
“Mick Gatto was actually taken into custody by these detectives last night, and was brought back to his house in a police van with his wife,” Felgate said.
“Police are still at scene, they have been taking boxes, I think there are about six cars there at the moment, and they have been taking boxes in and out of the property all day.”
More to come.
Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has three times been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 20 Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs and criminal justice.Connect via email.
