Australia's "Fat Tony" flies home to 12 years jail
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Like an episode from the hit mafia TV series the Sopranos, Australian mobster "Fat Tony" has finally been extradited from Greece to serve his 12 year jail sentence for cocaine trafficking in Melbourne.
Antonio Mokbel, the country's most wanted criminal, arrived on board a chartered luxury Gulfstream jet on Saturday and was driven straight to a maximum security prison to begin serving his sentence.
"They took him in a white armored van with a police chopper giving escort," a Reuters witness said.
Mokbel, was convicted in absentia for drug trafficking in 2006, after he fled Australia and police have been trying to get their hands on him ever since.
Mokbel, wearing an ill-fitting wig as disguise, was arrested in Greece in June 2007 where he was living with his girlfriend and, according to police, still running his drug empire.
For the past 11 months "Fat Tony" fought extradition in the Greek courts, vowing he would never return to Australia.
Mokbel, 42, is expected to be charged with 15 new crimes, including two murders, said local media. Mokbel is also wanted on suspicion of ordering and paying for the murder of rival crime boss Lewis Moran and another man, but he denies any involvement.
A gangland war erupted in Australia's second largest city Melbourne in 1998 and lasted nearly a decade, leaving 28 people dead.
In 1998 self-styled "Godfather" Alphonse Gangitano, 40, was shot dead in his laundry, sparking tit-for-tat revenge killings in cars, restaurants and the street.
With Gangitano's turf up for grabs in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, the home of the southern city's Italian community, petty criminal Carl Williams rose to prominence after forming an alliance with "Fat Tony".
In May 2007, Williams was sentenced to 35 years in jail for murdering three underworld rivals -- a conviction which police heralded as an end to Melbourne's gangland war.
The bloody gang war was made into a hit TV series called "Underbelly", which screened in 2008, but the show was banned in the state of Victoria fearing it could prejudice trials.
(Reporting by Anirban Nag; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
