# Almost busted infiltrating a bikie clubhouse: Todd Maguire Pt. 2

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 17 Aug 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/f62c799b-5d46-4c15-9824-b4a9001ef9f3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

In the gripping second part of Gary Jubelin’s conversation with former undercover operative Todd Maguire, the stakes reach a breaking point. Todd delves deeper into the psychological toll of maintaining multiple false identities, where the line between his real self and his undercover personas began to dangerously blur. From terrifying rural setups involving illegal firearms and rust-covered blades to the high-stakes world of city underbelly operations, Todd reveals the raw reality of life in the field. He shares the harrowing moment he truly thought his cover was blown and how a reckless descent into alcohol and substance abuse became his only way to cope with the trauma he couldn't process. Gary and Todd also discuss the profound personal cost of the job, the "tick and flick" approach to officer welfare, and the life-changing wakeup call that finally forced Todd to confront the train wreck his life had become. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life. The average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
[0:11] Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
[0:14] Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
[0:16] Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
[0:20] Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
[0:23] Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
[0:26] Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
[0:28] Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
[0:31] Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
[0:34] Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
[0:38] Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
[0:46] Speaker 1: Todd Maguire build a life around the life a false
[0:49] Speaker 1: identity so convincing that had to hold up under pressure.
[0:53] Speaker 1: Most of us will never face surrounded by people who
[0:56] Speaker 1: would have killed him if they'd known the truth. Two
[1:00] Speaker 1: of my chat with Todd we go further into the
[1:02] Speaker 1: undercover policing investigations he was involved in, the criminals he
[1:07] Speaker 1: had to befriend and the personal costs that came with it.
[1:10] Speaker 1: Or have a listen, this is part two of I
[1:14] Speaker 1: Catch Killers, and I'm with Todd Maguire former undercover cop
[1:19] Speaker 1: with Queensland Police. Or am I with Donnie or a
[1:23] Speaker 1: new little character that you've invented Rene. For those that
[1:27] Speaker 1: listen to, well, I should welcome you back. Thank you,
[1:31] Speaker 1: toddn go to Donnie. Yes, it's interesting that there's other characters,
[1:36] Speaker 1: Like we've talked about Donnie in part one and you've
[1:39] Speaker 1: got a new character, and we'll talk how that came about.
[1:43] Speaker 1: But how would you differ Donnie and Rena. What's the
[1:48] Speaker 1: difference in the characters.
[1:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, Reno was probably even worse than Donnie. So when
[1:54] Speaker 2: I even when I started reading writing the book, it
[1:58] Speaker 2: wasn't sure, you know, putting it on paper, and then
[2:01] Speaker 2: I was reading it backcne shit. I think that's when
[2:04] Speaker 2: Rene or Donnie was at his last right, real big time.
[2:10] Speaker 2: I remember personally, you know, I couldn't sleep at night.
[2:13] Speaker 2: I was up in Bunderberg. The place that I lived
[2:16] Speaker 2: in was a fortress, but I had the worst panic
[2:19] Speaker 2: attacks trying to go to sleep. My heart repounded through
[2:21] Speaker 2: the roof. I was seeing things, I was looking turning
[2:24] Speaker 2: over and you know.
[2:26] Speaker 1: This was when you're in the Renault year role. I'll
[2:30] Speaker 1: just read out an ext track from the book talking
[2:32] Speaker 1: about rene. The machete was suddenly at Renau's throat, cold,
[2:36] Speaker 1: still pressing against his skin, the edge trembling in Lance's
[2:40] Speaker 1: white knuckled grip. Rena didn't flinch, he couldn't. His heart
[2:43] Speaker 1: jack hammered in his chest, but his face stayed blank, calm.
[2:48] Speaker 1: The only thing that moved was the boot of sweat
[2:50] Speaker 1: trailing down his temple. Lance's eyes twitched. You're lying to me,
[2:55] Speaker 1: I can see it. Okay, now he's right, he was right.
[3:00] Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about talk about Reno, how he came
[3:04] Speaker 1: to be. Let's talk about how Reno found himself in
[3:08] Speaker 1: that situation and what case you were working at that time.
[3:13] Speaker 2: So Reno was was basically Donnie was going up to
[3:19] Speaker 2: Bunderburg to do another job after he'd done a few
[3:22] Speaker 2: in Kibulcha and Brisbane a few other things. Donny was
[3:26] Speaker 2: quite happy to go up there as Donnie. But then
[3:28] Speaker 2: there was some bit of intelligence to say that, you know,
[3:32] Speaker 2: some of the crooks from the Cabulta job overlap here,
[3:36] Speaker 2: and you know, even though there was no social media,
[3:39] Speaker 2: if the name Donnie came up, that would be like,
[3:42] Speaker 2: hang on, Donny was involved in what.
[3:44] Speaker 1: Was going by that time and had gone there closed.
[3:47] Speaker 1: Donnie was a uc.
[3:49] Speaker 2: Yeah you know that that Donnie was was the was
[3:51] Speaker 2: the only cover cops. Yes, So my hierarchy said, no,
[3:55] Speaker 2: you're gonna have to have a new name for this one.
[3:59] Speaker 1: Did you want to give up Donnie?
[4:00] Speaker 2: No? No, no, And I I just I really got
[4:04] Speaker 2: used to being called Donnie. Enter into the name without
[4:08] Speaker 2: fletching anything, having a That was almost twelve months of
[4:13] Speaker 2: getting used to it, and all of a sudden I
[4:15] Speaker 2: had to do it probably again. I was like, oh man,
[4:17] Speaker 2: I don't know I can do this. And I think
[4:19] Speaker 2: that identity crisis, along with everything else, really really confused me.
[4:25] Speaker 1: So now you're playing with three.
[4:27] Speaker 2: You got Todd, I had to put Donnie to sleep
[4:30] Speaker 2: for three months.
[4:31] Speaker 1: Then you've lost your best mate Donnie, and now you've
[4:34] Speaker 1: become Renna. Yeah, yeah, I can. I can see why
[4:38] Speaker 1: it puts you in their head spin.
[4:40] Speaker 2: And I think that's, as I said, reading writ in
[4:44] Speaker 2: the book, you could tell that's when my brain was
[4:48] Speaker 2: really struggling, you know, And it's probably it's not It's
[4:52] Speaker 2: not unusual to say that it probably came along with
[4:56] Speaker 2: the alcohol and drug abuse, which probably made it worse.
[5:00] Speaker 1: Now, the alcohol and drug abuse, did that happen because
[5:04] Speaker 1: of the nature of the work you were doing, or
[5:06] Speaker 1: you would have found your way that way. Anyway, I'm
[5:09] Speaker 1: still mindset that you're in a before we get onto
[5:14] Speaker 1: Reno and that particular investigation after Donnie, the job that
[5:19] Speaker 1: you were talking about, that kabula came to a conclusion.
[5:23] Speaker 1: Do they give you some downtime? Do they let you
[5:25] Speaker 1: clear your head and become normal again?
[5:28] Speaker 2: It's just by luck. If if there's no jobs on
[5:30] Speaker 2: the on the horizon, happy days, but if there's a
[5:34] Speaker 2: heat come through, you're either doing back to back or
[5:36] Speaker 2: sometimes I did two jobs at once.
[5:39] Speaker 1: That was confusing, running running different phones And yeah, okay,
[5:44] Speaker 1: so we've Rena describe him in more detail? Yes, what
[5:49] Speaker 1: role were you playing?
[5:49] Speaker 2: So I'd already been up there for a couple of
[5:51] Speaker 2: weeks as Donnie, and then all of a sudden I
[5:53] Speaker 2: had to change the whole thing to Reno.
[5:56] Speaker 1: Do you change your appearance?
[5:58] Speaker 2: No? Right, was still still look pretty bad. So Donnie
[6:07] Speaker 2: or rene was was sent up to Bunnerberg because there
[6:11] Speaker 2: was a there was a murder of an English backpacker
[6:15] Speaker 2: to Caroline Studdle, and she was walking over the Burne
[6:18] Speaker 2: out Bridge late at night and there's like a bit
[6:21] Speaker 2: of a rollery. Took a handbag and they pushed her over.
[6:26] Speaker 2: There was no leads at all. There was just whispers
[6:28] Speaker 2: a small town. The detectors who had shaken everything they can,
[6:33] Speaker 2: the same names kept on coming up. They're involved somehow.
[6:36] Speaker 2: I don't know how, but we need to find out
[6:39] Speaker 2: into Donnie or now Rene had an informant. He was
[6:47] Speaker 2: pretty rotten. Couldn't trust him, but I didn't any other choice.
[6:52] Speaker 2: So he's invited me out to his place. And one
[6:56] Speaker 2: of the crooks Lands who we wanted to be friend,
[6:59] Speaker 2: was Gonna. That was our own introduction. And as I'm
[7:02] Speaker 2: going on through this dirt road forty five minutes from
[7:06] Speaker 2: Bunderberg up near Gingine, it's a dirt road, look at me. Fine,
[7:12] Speaker 2: there's no there's no range, Like that's useless. I pulled
[7:17] Speaker 2: up at this dirt road just a real real old
[7:21] Speaker 2: rural sort of farming house type of thing. But there's
[7:24] Speaker 2: because I did pitbull fighting as well, so you could
[7:27] Speaker 2: set the same. Yeah, pretty cool, like car bodies.
[7:31] Speaker 1: Everywhere I know the places I'm picturing the place just
[7:36] Speaker 1: a place. Yeah, I don't want to be. And you
[7:39] Speaker 1: don't want to be when you turn up in force
[7:40] Speaker 1: with mark police vehicles. You don't want to be out
[7:43] Speaker 1: there on your own undercover.
[7:47] Speaker 2: So I got out and there was something like four dogs,
[7:49] Speaker 2: you know, with a metal six foot inch steak and
[7:54] Speaker 2: a chain. And you should see what they've done to
[7:57] Speaker 2: the ground, just on around and yeah and just and
[8:02] Speaker 2: they all they were doing was dying to get off
[8:04] Speaker 2: to get me. That was probably one of the scariest
[8:06] Speaker 2: things that I've tried to get through them up to
[8:09] Speaker 2: the house that was that was like I was already
[8:13] Speaker 2: on magitis already. But I'd always have a like an
[8:16] Speaker 2: overproof raman Carla, have two or three before I go
[8:20] Speaker 2: into a house.
[8:21] Speaker 1: Just settles the nerves. But do you think it also
[8:24] Speaker 1: plays the character that you meant to play.
[8:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, I would probably smell on my breath.
[8:28] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
[8:28] Speaker 2: They eleven o'clock in the morning.
[8:30] Speaker 1: They want you stink of smokes and running in alcohol.
[8:34] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, so it's coming out of the palsy
[8:36] Speaker 1: of skin and they'd make them feel feel more more
[8:40] Speaker 1: in that environment.
[8:41] Speaker 2: But as I was going up. Our mate had taken
[8:45] Speaker 2: the bolt out of the back. Yeah, he got paranoid
[8:47] Speaker 2: and somehow I thought it was a copper. For some reason,
[8:52] Speaker 2: he just saw the car coming up. He said, that's copper,
[8:55] Speaker 2: that's a copper. Don't trust her. So he's ran out into.
[8:58] Speaker 1: The bush and that's a parent them these dudes.
[9:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, somehow I don't know if he had it with
[9:04] Speaker 2: him or it was old mates, but he had a slasher, yeah, slash.
[9:07] Speaker 2: It was like it was like an old slasher that
[9:12] Speaker 2: you know back in the old days, the old fellas.
[9:14] Speaker 2: That's how they were to cut the cane. And anyway,
[9:18] Speaker 2: he's just running through the bush getting out of there.
[9:20] Speaker 2: He's just cutting it coming through, going through, and like
[9:23] Speaker 2: old mates yelling had to him he's not a copper,
[9:26] Speaker 2: get back here. Took about thirty minutes to get him back.
[9:29] Speaker 2: He finally came back and and he goes, you sure
[9:34] Speaker 2: see yeah, if I hadn't made And I said, mate,
[9:38] Speaker 2: I've known this for for a yeah, he can vouch me.
[9:40] Speaker 2: And he goes this fucking yeah, he goes he'd sell
[9:44] Speaker 2: his mother out. He was right. So yeah, he still
[9:48] Speaker 2: lost his ship for a bit. And he's like walking around.
[9:50] Speaker 2: You know who knows you, tell someone Blake that tells me,
[9:53] Speaker 2: that knows you, that can vouch for your far from
[9:55] Speaker 2: this buck. It was a good one who really gave it.
[9:59] Speaker 1: Gave it to you respond to that, well, that's where.
[10:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, at stages he had it up against a Yeah,
[10:04] Speaker 2: he could tell he's never going to use it was
[10:06] Speaker 2: just a threaten me, and I think it was one
[10:08] Speaker 2: of those old ones that had that much rust. It
[10:10] Speaker 2: probably wouldn't have done anything anyway. But anyway, he's just
[10:13] Speaker 2: written anyway, and I'm going, mate, oh go, I don't
[10:16] Speaker 2: I don't know this shit fuck off, you know, bah
[10:18] Speaker 2: blah blah. He's still going off, still going off. I
[10:20] Speaker 2: could see that it was obviously affected by speed. So
[10:26] Speaker 2: I said, I said, let's have a bomb. So I
[10:30] Speaker 2: think one of us started up a bong and I've
[10:33] Speaker 2: just put it in front of his face. Okay, that's
[10:37] Speaker 2: settling down.
[10:38] Speaker 1: It was amazing and that that part of that is
[10:40] Speaker 1: because I know the is with the crooks, that the
[10:46] Speaker 1: CoP's not going to take the drugs and all that. Yeah,
[10:51] Speaker 1: it's exceptional circumstances in which you've got to that. Yeah,
[10:56] Speaker 1: gone through the days of well the Keith Banks that
[10:59] Speaker 1: we've had on here on. We've spoken about he got
[11:02] Speaker 1: my interest before I became friends with him, talking about
[11:05] Speaker 1: the first line that Kaki had was with a loaded
[11:07] Speaker 1: chock gun pointed at his head and yeah, these are
[11:11] Speaker 1: the type of things that you've got to do.
[11:13] Speaker 2: So you know, I never got threatened and said you
[11:16] Speaker 2: have to do this, but I was in a situation
[11:18] Speaker 2: that if I didn't, it wouldn't have looked good. Nah.
[11:21] Speaker 1: And I think people have got to appreciate where you
[11:24] Speaker 1: are in. That's the location, the geography of it. No,
[11:32] Speaker 1: and you're out there on your own, so you've got
[11:35] Speaker 1: to do what you've got to do. Yeah, so how
[11:38] Speaker 1: did you How did that all play out? Did he
[11:40] Speaker 1: settle down? Yeah?
[11:41] Speaker 2: The worst part about it. I wasn't a big smoker,
[11:45] Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't something before I undercover. I sort
[11:48] Speaker 2: of was in and this was probably one of my
[11:52] Speaker 2: first times of having a real good smoke session, going
[11:56] Speaker 2: around and around around. Fucked. I couldn't handle it.
[12:01] Speaker 1: I was out.
[12:02] Speaker 2: I sort of just went back into the couch and
[12:05] Speaker 2: I was just I was hoping that recording device wasn't
[12:07] Speaker 2: charged somewhere, and I kept on saying I don't even
[12:11] Speaker 2: know why, but I was so out of it, just
[12:14] Speaker 2: saying fuck off, can't. I was just giving it to him.
[12:18] Speaker 2: I said I don't need your business, get off, and
[12:20] Speaker 2: I just kept going saying I'm gone, I don't need
[12:23] Speaker 2: your ship. And I kept on doing that, and you know,
[12:26] Speaker 2: once they sort of think you're losing you, I just
[12:29] Speaker 2: had to make sure you were a GOP. So no,
[12:31] Speaker 2: fuck you, no, funk off.
[12:32] Speaker 1: Were you doing that consciously or were you? Yeah?
[12:37] Speaker 2: And I just didn't react like I was calm because
[12:40] Speaker 2: I was so staying.
[12:41] Speaker 1: Do you think the fact that you didn't give a
[12:44] Speaker 1: stuff about yourself made it? And there is your job
[12:48] Speaker 1: for you to do? Like if your life was all
[12:50] Speaker 1: rosy and you're thinking, well, I'm going to lose this,
[12:53] Speaker 1: I fist goes bad. But it sounds like you just
[12:55] Speaker 1: had reckless abandonment the type of.
[12:58] Speaker 2: Stuff I was doing so that I didn't I didn't
[13:02] Speaker 2: know what to do, and that just felt the best
[13:04] Speaker 2: way to do it.
[13:06] Speaker 1: How did that job play out, because that was trying
[13:09] Speaker 1: to get some information about the murder about an unsolved murder?
[13:13] Speaker 1: How far did you go with that job?
[13:15] Speaker 2: No, we didn't. They weren't involved they were two that
[13:20] Speaker 2: were under the bridge and doing a drug deal and
[13:22] Speaker 2: saw it happened, but they weren't going to do the cops,
[13:26] Speaker 2: so they weren't the ones that did it, but they
[13:28] Speaker 2: were witnesses. So the detectors were very close in terms
[13:31] Speaker 2: of their names keep coming up. Yeah, but they weren't
[13:35] Speaker 2: the ones that did it. So they ended up getting
[13:37] Speaker 2: another fella for it. And he no relation, no whatever. Yeah,
[13:43] Speaker 2: but he was a he was an addict and just
[13:46] Speaker 2: wanted to do money and there was no connection there
[13:48] Speaker 2: at all.
[13:48] Speaker 1: But interesting after that one, did you put Rena to bed?
[13:53] Speaker 2: Yeah? What we did was there's another story when Reno
[13:56] Speaker 2: was really bad, you know a lot. I was drinking
[13:59] Speaker 2: a couple bottles of rama day.
[14:01] Speaker 1: And just so people know, we're not by pole, we're
[14:03] Speaker 1: talking about all these people. We're talking about the character
[14:07] Speaker 1: that you're playing undercover, Rene being one and Donnie.
[14:10] Speaker 2: Yeah other way Johnny could comeback.
[14:12] Speaker 1: So okay, good, So Rene, maybe we're maybe we're being
[14:15] Speaker 1: up to something we shouldn't before we sat down.
[14:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, so Rene would need a bottle of two a
[14:21] Speaker 2: rum a day at night Tamasapan cannabis orders just to
[14:25] Speaker 2: go to sleep, which meant that just wasn't going well.
[14:29] Speaker 2: The brain wasn't working. Probably these two fellas are rumored
[14:33] Speaker 2: to have broken into a gun shop. So I then
[14:36] Speaker 2: went over to their place and said, you know, I
[14:39] Speaker 2: had a knife that I had and gave it to him,
[14:41] Speaker 2: and then we started throwing it against walls and as
[14:43] Speaker 2: those dickheads do you know? And and then I said
[14:47] Speaker 2: we've got a bang mane and he guns said yeah.
[14:50] Speaker 2: That's when they took us out to the busch. And
[14:52] Speaker 2: but as I was driving through the streets, I thought
[14:55] Speaker 2: I saw Karen. I was one hundred per cent sure
[14:58] Speaker 2: it was her. I stopped the car, left it run,
[15:00] Speaker 2: door open, middle of the street. I ran down the
[15:02] Speaker 2: street try and chaser. Yeah, like these two crocks a gown?
[15:05] Speaker 2: The fuck is he doing?
[15:08] Speaker 1: Well? The craziness that you are in that like with
[15:12] Speaker 1: the drugs and the alcohol, and then the trauma that
[15:15] Speaker 1: you've processed trauma. You were like a crazy, crazy man
[15:21] Speaker 1: jumping out thinking you've seen seeing Karen.
[15:25] Speaker 2: That might when I got to it, no way, not
[15:28] Speaker 2: at all.
[15:29] Speaker 1: That might that might have fitted. Okay, this bloke's as
[15:32] Speaker 1: crazy as we are. That might have made you. Yeah,
[15:34] Speaker 1: So when you went to get the guns. That was another.
[15:37] Speaker 1: And this is like there's pressures working in a city,
[15:41] Speaker 1: but there's also pressures working rural. And when you're driving
[15:44] Speaker 1: down dirt tracks looking for to buy a gun off someone,
[15:48] Speaker 1: it's a pretty worrying Yeah, your warning signs would be
[15:53] Speaker 1: going off, I would imagine.
[15:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
[15:55] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[15:56] Speaker 2: I didn't get a chance to tell my controller that
[15:59] Speaker 2: we were moving from the house to an unlow like cation. Know,
[16:03] Speaker 2: I couldn't tell him. I couldn't get the text out
[16:04] Speaker 2: or whatever, because it was like ready to go now,
[16:07] Speaker 2: and we all went out together, jumped in the car. Yeah,
[16:09] Speaker 2: I went, I'll just have to wing it. So we're
[16:13] Speaker 2: driving down south now there's all these palm trees and
[16:16] Speaker 2: he just says, turning their left, mate, okay. And as
[16:21] Speaker 2: we're going and it's getting dark and dark and dark.
[16:22] Speaker 2: It was really scary looking place, just even on its own.
[16:27] Speaker 2: And has got it out there because he had a
[16:30] Speaker 2: police scanner with him as well in the front seat,
[16:31] Speaker 2: and he would just keep on looking at me. He's good,
[16:37] Speaker 2: he's good, this fella. Anyway, So as we got out there,
[16:41] Speaker 2: you know, he said, today, you stop the car, And
[16:43] Speaker 2: that's why someone jumped out of the back, out of
[16:46] Speaker 2: the back of a behind a tree trunk, like someone's
[16:48] Speaker 2: already waiting out there. So okay, this is a bit
[16:51] Speaker 2: of a stitch up. Yeah, this is where I went, Okay,
[16:54] Speaker 2: I'm out of here. Anyway. They wouldn't let the go go. No,
[16:57] Speaker 2: you came out of he to get them, and that's
[16:59] Speaker 2: where I nott the help for the first time ever.
[17:01] Speaker 2: That was it. They found out there was a cop
[17:04] Speaker 2: and they're coming to bury me out here.
[17:06] Speaker 1: Well, that's that's where they do you.
[17:08] Speaker 2: That's why I honestly thought that was it, especially when
[17:10] Speaker 2: I saw the black come from around the way. La, mate,
[17:14] Speaker 2: here you going so yeah, I was just trying to
[17:16] Speaker 2: trying to avoid it, like, mate, I got some piss
[17:19] Speaker 2: in the back, let's have a drink. You know. I
[17:20] Speaker 2: don't even want the guns anymore. Fucking no, no, no,
[17:22] Speaker 2: you are you getting them? And that's you know, I
[17:25] Speaker 2: had a recording device on and I was I was
[17:28] Speaker 2: talking to the recording device saying who had done this?
[17:31] Speaker 2: In case they found me later and there was still
[17:33] Speaker 2: a recording, you know, under the dirt, you know, maybe
[17:36] Speaker 2: six months later, twelve months later, at least they wouldn't
[17:38] Speaker 2: get away with it. So I must have sound like
[17:41] Speaker 2: a mad man whom I who am I talking to?
[17:44] Speaker 2: But as this fellow was walking around hundreds of meters
[17:48] Speaker 2: away like trying to no, it's not not underneath this tree,
[17:53] Speaker 2: every time I heard us and he go, I found it, went, oh,
[17:58] Speaker 2: I hang on, what's he doing over there? Come on,
[18:01] Speaker 2: let's go. And I honestly thought I got around out
[18:05] Speaker 2: the corner of the tree, there'd be a whole dug
[18:07] Speaker 2: for me or something. I sort of closed my eyes
[18:10] Speaker 2: to it, things, waiting for it, waiting for it. Well,
[18:13] Speaker 2: there's a duffel bag full of guns right exactly how
[18:16] Speaker 2: he said it was going to be.
[18:19] Speaker 1: Well, and this is in the middle of the night.
[18:21] Speaker 2: No, there is probably four or five and the other yeah, yeah,
[18:25] Speaker 2: and and he says, which ones do you want? Said
[18:28] Speaker 2: all of them? You can only take two. All the
[18:32] Speaker 2: rest are already say for so, I not buying two
[18:36] Speaker 2: rugas that are on the in the book and on
[18:39] Speaker 2: the cover of the book as well.
[18:44] Speaker 1: So what what happened after after that? You bought the guns?
[18:48] Speaker 1: You got back safely, obviously.
[18:50] Speaker 2: Ye see in the meantime, what was happening with the informant.
[18:53] Speaker 2: There was a detective from the drug squad kept on
[18:56] Speaker 2: coming up and standing over him and saying, you work
[19:00] Speaker 2: for me. Now, you don't talk to the detectives in
[19:02] Speaker 2: Bunderberg and he just didn't do a good thing. And
[19:06] Speaker 2: it was starting. He was starting to make some noises
[19:10] Speaker 2: that you know there could been under cover in town.
[19:13] Speaker 2: You don't know, you don't know that. Yeah, it wasn't good.
[19:16] Speaker 2: And there the wist was, we're getting back and like
[19:18] Speaker 2: my informant was getting the calls at midnight from this
[19:21] Speaker 2: old mate and his mates. In the background, he said,
[19:25] Speaker 2: you could tell how drunk, but they were saying, we'll
[19:27] Speaker 2: kill you. You're dead, You're dead if you don't do
[19:30] Speaker 2: what we do tell and he's got mate, I'm out.
[19:33] Speaker 2: I want to head of this. And it took me
[19:35] Speaker 2: ages to get him back on. That was like took
[19:37] Speaker 2: me a month or two. And he's going, nah, this
[19:38] Speaker 2: is scaring the shit out of me. And this detective
[19:41] Speaker 2: is just stuffed big time. He got that bad where
[19:45] Speaker 2: they said, you know what, we're going to cut our
[19:47] Speaker 2: losses and go we're out. So my boss controller said
[19:53] Speaker 2: we're hitting the right at midnight tonight. Be ready, he's
[19:56] Speaker 2: out and pull that sort of stuff. Yep, And it
[19:58] Speaker 2: was like that night, we're out. So I went, I
[20:00] Speaker 2: paid in last rinks and all that sort of bullshit
[20:03] Speaker 2: and pack my car. Goes an seizing we'll drive it together,
[20:09] Speaker 2: and he goes, hang on, do you still rememb where
[20:11] Speaker 2: the guns are? I think so? I think, so let's
[20:15] Speaker 2: try and find the rest of them. Take them season.
[20:20] Speaker 1: Well, you can't have guns out on the street.
[20:23] Speaker 2: We got to and it was pretty scary at midnight
[20:25] Speaker 2: doing it. Yeah, but we found it, took me ages
[20:28] Speaker 2: and returned all the guns.
[20:31] Speaker 1: That's that's something I think, getting guns off the street
[20:34] Speaker 1: because we know that the damage that one gun can do,
[20:37] Speaker 1: so that makes it rewarding you. You might have got
[20:39] Speaker 1: the breakthrough with the murder investigation, but you've got to
[20:43] Speaker 1: try these try these things on my operations like that
[20:47] Speaker 1: they put you up in accommodation, like you've got accommodation
[20:49] Speaker 1: because yeah, it might I dare say, get to the
[20:52] Speaker 1: point where one of the blokes that you're befriending might
[20:55] Speaker 1: say well let's catch up or or come to your
[20:57] Speaker 1: place and just want to suss your place out, So
[21:00] Speaker 1: that you have to keep a place that you could
[21:03] Speaker 1: let someone in it looks like this is the type
[21:05] Speaker 1: of place where they would live in, or done they'd
[21:07] Speaker 1: live in.
[21:07] Speaker 2: If there's anything else that I needed, my personal stuff,
[21:11] Speaker 2: you leave it at the controller's house.
[21:13] Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so you are really embracing the whole lifestyle.
[21:17] Speaker 2: Yeah. I did a job in the valley where they
[21:20] Speaker 2: put me up in a unit at Kangart Point. It
[21:22] Speaker 2: was beautiful. I suggested as it as the job went
[21:26] Speaker 2: on that I needed like a FEMA with me.
[21:29] Speaker 1: Is this Liz, Yeah, Liz, yeah, okay, it ain't not been.
[21:34] Speaker 2: It was going it work perfectly. But our persona as
[21:37] Speaker 2: well was to be boyfriend girlfriend living in this high
[21:41] Speaker 2: ese where we invited them all over and you know,
[21:44] Speaker 2: pre drinks before you went out, and we even had
[21:47] Speaker 2: like a pretend engagement party.
[21:50] Speaker 1: Tell us about that, because that was this is away
[21:53] Speaker 1: from the rural areas or the smaller towns and the
[21:58] Speaker 1: ice heads and everything else that dealing with there. Now,
[22:02] Speaker 1: wonder you suggested let's do a job this way. So
[22:05] Speaker 1: where did you have your apartment?
[22:07] Speaker 2: Then there's a Kangaro Point?
[22:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay on the case, Yeah, yeah, very nice. And
[22:12] Speaker 1: what what was your role there? What crime were you
[22:14] Speaker 1: trying to target?
[22:16] Speaker 2: And just in the in the nightclubs in the valley.
[22:20] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and that would have been fairly rampant. It was,
[22:24] Speaker 1: But you know, how did how did Donnie or Rene
[22:27] Speaker 1: fit in?
[22:27] Speaker 2: Good? Because Donney looked like a bike He looked like
[22:30] Speaker 2: a rural, rough sort of blake And it was just
[22:34] Speaker 2: a cult start. There was no informants or anything like that.
[22:36] Speaker 2: And the first one that I went to was was
[22:38] Speaker 2: a a very well known gay place. I didn't attract
[22:42] Speaker 2: too many people that night for some reason. I would
[22:47] Speaker 2: head up so many people about.
[22:51] Speaker 1: But that's not the type of type of person that
[22:54] Speaker 1: looked out.
[22:55] Speaker 2: I looked out of place. And that's why I went.
[22:57] Speaker 2: I did two weekends of doing it. I got nothing,
[23:00] Speaker 2: and I went, can we bring losing like Donnie in
[23:03] Speaker 2: this place? That would have been together?
[23:05] Speaker 1: So you bring bring Liz in and you're playing she's
[23:09] Speaker 1: playing your your lady and what are you playing? The
[23:13] Speaker 1: tough guy just sitting in the corner and she studies
[23:17] Speaker 1: the party girl. Yeah, okay, so that that fitted more
[23:21] Speaker 1: into that that environment.
[23:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just that gruff in the corner, yep,
[23:25] Speaker 2: just keeping an eyner, making sure she's all right, you know,
[23:28] Speaker 2: And then you know, she'd come back. She goes, I've
[23:31] Speaker 2: got a thousand pills next to you. I did two
[23:34] Speaker 2: weekends at doing getting nothing. It comes back within an
[23:37] Speaker 2: hour of a thousand pills.
[23:39] Speaker 1: So that that you had a lot of success with that.
[23:42] Speaker 1: And as you said, like you'd have people back to
[23:45] Speaker 1: your apartment, you were forming friendships. Yeah, yeah, and just
[23:49] Speaker 1: living living the lifestyle. Did you lose yourself in the lifestyle,
[23:53] Speaker 1: because that that's a fun, fun lifestyle and if you
[23:56] Speaker 1: think you're living that lifestyle for a good reason, I would,
[24:00] Speaker 1: and it was a good time.
[24:02] Speaker 2: There was many times would I you know, I used
[24:05] Speaker 2: to say, I can see why these bloody you know,
[24:08] Speaker 2: these kingpins live like this.
[24:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels good because you're not sitting in a
[24:13] Speaker 1: bus to day out lounge out the back of Queensland somewhere,
[24:16] Speaker 1: smoking a dirty bong in an orchide bottle.
[24:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, as you know, as a copper. Yeah, that's not
[24:22] Speaker 2: gonna last for ever. Yeah, there's some hazards to that job. Yeah,
[24:25] Speaker 2: and I didn't want to do that yet. Yeah.
[24:27] Speaker 1: So how long did the operation run with you and
[24:30] Speaker 1: Lis for?
[24:31] Speaker 2: Only be three months? Yeah?
[24:33] Speaker 1: When the operation was up and you had to declare
[24:36] Speaker 1: that these people that yeah, you've been hanging around with,
[24:40] Speaker 1: were because once they start selling drugs, you've got them.
[24:45] Speaker 1: How did you feel with that, because I would imagine
[24:47] Speaker 1: there's a bit of we all know there's bad crooks,
[24:50] Speaker 1: there's other crooks that for whatever reason, have found themselves
[24:54] Speaker 1: in a lifestyle, and people that, yeah, there's some good
[24:57] Speaker 1: in bad good in people that do some bad, bad things.
[25:00] Speaker 1: Did you feel any guilt or remorse that you had
[25:03] Speaker 1: to had the the trailer?
[25:05] Speaker 2: I never did. I knew I was doing it. I
[25:08] Speaker 2: felt I felt a little bit bad, a little bit,
[25:11] Speaker 2: but I certainly didn't dwell on it. Yeah, I didn't care.
[25:15] Speaker 1: You were a bit driven as well because of what
[25:17] Speaker 1: happened to Karen, and that you attribute the ecstasy pill
[25:21] Speaker 1: that might have played.
[25:22] Speaker 2: I still think it might have. You know, I might
[25:25] Speaker 2: have done something to a serotonin levels or whatever and
[25:28] Speaker 2: just made them do something that you would never have done. Yeah,
[25:31] Speaker 2: so I did have that in the back of my mind.
[25:33] Speaker 2: I want to get rid of this. I don't want
[25:34] Speaker 2: to do that anymore. I want them off the streets.
[25:38] Speaker 2: But what I did notice was, you know, when you
[25:40] Speaker 2: go from speed cooks, shooting up hair omdeals and then
[25:46] Speaker 2: you're doing md A people there's no criminal history there,
[25:50] Speaker 2: there's no nothing. They're just normal people. They've got a
[25:53] Speaker 2: work and a hairdresser or a bank or whatever, and
[25:55] Speaker 2: they're just doing that shit on the weekends.
[25:58] Speaker 1: It's a caution there is, it's a course and their
[26:00] Speaker 1: retail for people. I've had the people sit in that
[26:03] Speaker 1: chair that start off they're just using party drugs, and
[26:07] Speaker 1: then they start buying more party drugs, and then they
[26:10] Speaker 1: start giving the part of some of the party drugs
[26:13] Speaker 1: to their friends and before they know what, they're dealing
[26:15] Speaker 1: drugs and they realize the ramification. So you can see
[26:17] Speaker 1: how people fall into it. That So when the when
[26:22] Speaker 1: the game was up, what happened with Lorenzo.
[26:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, as they do, they you know, they ask for
[26:28] Speaker 2: a confrontation, where as an undercover you can go in.
[26:31] Speaker 2: If that person doesn't believe that that person sold to
[26:35] Speaker 2: an undercover, we're coming and go hey mate, I'm Donnie
[26:39] Speaker 2: ye master. Yeah he didn't do that, which was good.
[26:41] Speaker 2: He admitted to it all and it was probably one
[26:45] Speaker 2: of the ones where I went, you know, he didn't
[26:46] Speaker 2: deserve that, but yeah, he was a good, good bloke,
[26:49] Speaker 2: never been in trouble with his whole life. I just
[26:51] Speaker 2: had amazing make a marriage breakdown, a bit of a
[26:56] Speaker 2: stupid idea life crisis.
[26:57] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
[27:00] Speaker 2: So anyway, he's sort of going to court. He's in
[27:04] Speaker 2: charge with trafficking. And I got a phone call from him.
[27:09] Speaker 2: I could see it come up, and went, oh, he's
[27:10] Speaker 2: going to give me a spray because I've got a
[27:12] Speaker 2: few of them, you know, after it sort of finished.
[27:14] Speaker 1: So you still keep your phone for a bit, Yeah,
[27:16] Speaker 1: just for a bit.
[27:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, And anyway, he's wrung me. I'll get out of
[27:20] Speaker 2: the way. I said, hey, lare you go?
[27:23] Speaker 1: And he knows your you're the He definitely nas now.
[27:26] Speaker 2: And that's why I'm gone. I let him have a
[27:28] Speaker 2: spray with me, get out of system. Tell me call
[27:32] Speaker 2: me all the names on the son. I don't care.
[27:34] Speaker 2: You know, that will make you feel good. But he
[27:36] Speaker 2: didn't do that. You know, he was crying straight up.
[27:39] Speaker 2: I said, hey, Lorenzo, what are you doing? Just tell
[27:43] Speaker 2: my wife and kids, but I love them. I didn't
[27:45] Speaker 2: mean for any of this, but I can't do this.
[27:46] Speaker 2: I'm not going to jail. I could hear what he's saying.
[27:49] Speaker 2: I said, what are you doing? I said, where are you?
[27:52] Speaker 2: You know, he's on the Brisbane River, just over sort
[27:55] Speaker 2: of Brunswick Street type sort of area, and I said, mate,
[27:59] Speaker 2: don't do anything, I'm coming straight over. I was at
[28:02] Speaker 2: West End, which is only ten minutes across the city,
[28:06] Speaker 2: and I found him here. He was standing over looking
[28:08] Speaker 2: at it. When I think back now, I knew that
[28:13] Speaker 2: he wasn't going to do it. If he waited that
[28:14] Speaker 2: long for me, he wasn't going to do it. But
[28:17] Speaker 2: my recklessness as well was stupid that I've grabbed his
[28:21] Speaker 2: hand and said, mate, thanks for waiting for me. Let's
[28:24] Speaker 2: do it. Come on one, two three, and he's gone.
[28:26] Speaker 2: I thought you were talking to me out of it.
[28:27] Speaker 2: What the what the? And it was a bit of
[28:29] Speaker 2: a verse psychology, and you know, it worked. And then
[28:33] Speaker 2: he sort of yacked me back. He anywhere. We went
[28:36] Speaker 2: to the near the end of the edge. Now don't
[28:38] Speaker 2: go here there. I thought we were doing it anyway,
[28:42] Speaker 2: He yacked me back and we laid on the ground.
[28:44] Speaker 2: You know, he was crying, I was crying. And then
[28:46] Speaker 2: we sat on a park bench. I told him all
[28:49] Speaker 2: about Karen, who obviously didn't tell him well, I was
[28:52] Speaker 2: going to cover told him about everything that had happened
[28:56] Speaker 2: to me and everything, and I said, you know, you
[28:58] Speaker 2: don't want to do that to you feel me? You
[29:00] Speaker 2: really don't.
[29:01] Speaker 1: What a heavy conversation, Yeah, it was.
[29:04] Speaker 2: It was a game changer for me where I went
[29:07] Speaker 2: home that night and I don't think I'd cried in
[29:11] Speaker 2: a year or so. I balled, balled for twelve hours straight.
[29:15] Speaker 2: It was that that one that just made me realize,
[29:18] Speaker 2: what the fuck am I doing? I don't want to
[29:20] Speaker 2: do that to my family either. I don't want the
[29:23] Speaker 2: same as what he is doing to himself. I'm in
[29:26] Speaker 2: his position. My family and friends are going to miss me.
[29:30] Speaker 1: He was about to destroy himself. Yeah, I knew. You
[29:34] Speaker 1: saw that. That's what you're trying to do. The yousaf
[29:36] Speaker 1: and it was a wake up call.
[29:38] Speaker 2: It was big time.
[29:38] Speaker 1: That would have been a heavy, heavy moment for it.
[29:40] Speaker 2: It was really good. It was. Yeah, it was all
[29:43] Speaker 2: the emotions where I'd been building up and I just
[29:46] Speaker 2: leaded all that that night.
[29:48] Speaker 1: That's what you needed to happen.
[29:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I needed that. I knew I was on that.
[29:52] Speaker 2: I was on like a steam train that just couldn't
[29:54] Speaker 2: be stopped. And there was no one at the bloody
[29:56] Speaker 2: wheel at this time, he's jumped on the wheel and
[29:59] Speaker 2: sort of stopped forget and said, how do you think of.
[30:02] Speaker 1: Is It's strange the connections you can have in life
[30:05] Speaker 1: with people that you have no reason to have that connection,
[30:08] Speaker 1: but leave an indelible impression. There's a bloat that you've
[30:13] Speaker 1: caught as an undercover cop, and yeah, has such a
[30:17] Speaker 1: defining moment in your life.
[30:19] Speaker 2: He did go to jail. Yeah, I don't know what
[30:22] Speaker 2: he's doing now, but anyway.
[30:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine that you've got to keep your
[30:28] Speaker 1: focus on what you're doing. I was saying, he's gone
[30:32] Speaker 1: to jail. I had Joe stony On, who was a
[30:35] Speaker 1: real Donnie Brass gave the movie that Johnny Depp played
[30:39] Speaker 1: in Their Brunnows. He went undercover in the mafia for
[30:42] Speaker 1: five years, and I asked him about how he kept
[30:45] Speaker 1: his because he became friends with all all the people
[30:49] Speaker 1: that he brought down, and he said he always remembered
[30:54] Speaker 1: what he was there for, and yeah, it came came
[30:58] Speaker 1: as a cost, but yeah, you've got to hold that
[31:02] Speaker 1: moral ground, haven't you.
[31:03] Speaker 2: Yeah I do. Yeah, And I still I was still
[31:05] Speaker 2: pretty much focused on being a cop, but acting very differently. Yeah, yeah,
[31:13] Speaker 2: I never really, never really strayed from that because I
[31:17] Speaker 2: did notice that, you know, I was getting at the
[31:19] Speaker 2: awards and everything like that. But even though I didn't
[31:21] Speaker 2: care about that, I was going, I finally could it
[31:23] Speaker 2: something bad? Right?
[31:24] Speaker 1: So okay, So that that was that was striking your
[31:28] Speaker 1: your mindset that you are doing something good. That's the
[31:34] Speaker 1: bikey situation. When you're in the biking clubhouse and being
[31:37] Speaker 1: accused of being a cop and you're wearing the white
[31:41] Speaker 1: not a good position to be in. No tell us
[31:44] Speaker 1: what happened. Then, Well, it's it's funny that that was
[31:46] Speaker 1: Donny or Reno.
[31:47] Speaker 2: That was Donny. Yeah, Donny dony is back, getting back
[31:50] Speaker 2: to Donny Brasca. I mean, I reckon. I watched it
[31:54] Speaker 2: twenty times before I went in an undercover. I tried
[31:57] Speaker 2: to watch all the undercovered movies as I possibly could
[32:01] Speaker 2: and just get information, get scenarios, get how did that
[32:04] Speaker 2: person deal with it? And I just kept him in
[32:06] Speaker 2: the back of my mind, going, you never know, one
[32:09] Speaker 2: day I might be able to use him.
[32:10] Speaker 1: He was. I was just so excited about speaking to him.
[32:14] Speaker 1: You know, he's a legend in law enforcement for what
[32:17] Speaker 1: he did, and just a really chilled, calm type person
[32:21] Speaker 1: as he would expect. And when he finally declared what
[32:25] Speaker 1: was going on, family members of the mafia dudes were
[32:30] Speaker 1: reaching out to him and yeah, he just wanted to
[32:33] Speaker 1: let you know that he's glad you took him down
[32:35] Speaker 1: and stuff like that, some really heavy stuff. And Michael Francis,
[32:39] Speaker 1: who's a mafia dude, had him on the podcast and
[32:42] Speaker 1: I did a tour around the country with him, and
[32:44] Speaker 1: he was in the New York Mafia and had cross
[32:48] Speaker 1: paths with Donnie, and I was interested just chatting with him.
[32:53] Speaker 1: What's your thoughts on Donnie? And he looks back and yeah,
[32:55] Speaker 1: they're old, older now and wiser, and go, well, he
[32:58] Speaker 1: was just doing his job. He did his job for well,
[33:00] Speaker 1: we were trying to do our job. But it's interesting
[33:03] Speaker 1: how it comes about.
[33:04] Speaker 2: The fella from the michais our own area. The big
[33:08] Speaker 2: job I did there, did the same thing. I rang
[33:10] Speaker 2: him just before he was going to jail and said,
[33:12] Speaker 2: you want to jump on board, you want to help out.
[33:15] Speaker 2: He has no, no, I'll do it. I'll do it myself.
[33:17] Speaker 2: But he goes, oh, you did your job. No hard feelings, mate,
[33:22] Speaker 2: you did a good job. Do you got me.
[33:25] Speaker 1: Oh it's good if they're thinking thinking that way, all right?
[33:29] Speaker 2: So in with the in with the bikies, Yeah yeah,
[33:32] Speaker 2: so And as I said about the Donny Brasco book
[33:36] Speaker 2: book and the movies, I've only just watched it that
[33:39] Speaker 2: many times beforehand, and it was amazing that I used
[33:43] Speaker 2: one of his sayings to get me out of it.
[33:45] Speaker 2: And that's when I look at all the things that
[33:46] Speaker 2: I do. It's all these movies and books that I've
[33:50] Speaker 2: How did you get that information? I sort of kept
[33:53] Speaker 2: that in the back of my mind for any time
[33:55] Speaker 2: you might need something. Anyways, I was already on another job,
[34:02] Speaker 2: but my controller says they got another one for it's
[34:05] Speaker 2: only one night. God, okay, what is it? There was
[34:09] Speaker 2: a clubhouse down in the South Side. They haven't one
[34:11] Speaker 2: days invite to all of the local businesses come in.
[34:15] Speaker 2: It's not a closed thing or anything like that. There
[34:18] Speaker 2: were strippers, there was music, there was parties, bikes, cars
[34:24] Speaker 2: had a fly So I just knocked on the door. Really,
[34:27] Speaker 2: I didn't know if it was going to be real
[34:29] Speaker 2: or not, whether they just let me in. I thought
[34:31] Speaker 2: the controllers might be talking shit, but they said, we
[34:33] Speaker 2: just want to see what's going on in there? Tell
[34:36] Speaker 2: us if there's anything illegal, anything like overt right in
[34:39] Speaker 2: front of everything, is their prostitution, all these sort of things.
[34:43] Speaker 2: So I just had to go on there and just
[34:45] Speaker 2: have a look. And when I went in there, yeah,
[34:48] Speaker 2: all I saw was blokes about six foot eight, massive,
[34:53] Speaker 2: but they are great fellows, great fellas, you know. One
[34:55] Speaker 2: stage I was up the bar with them and trying
[34:58] Speaker 2: to get my arms up there around them and we're
[35:00] Speaker 2: just passing the derby down the bar, like wasn't anything.
[35:03] Speaker 2: That was the most I saw all night. And and
[35:07] Speaker 2: then I was over playing pool later and this is
[35:09] Speaker 2: over from six pm through it all twelve one o'clock,
[35:14] Speaker 2: so I'm drinking a fair few stubbies at this time.
[35:18] Speaker 2: I had six skonies before I went there, just to
[35:20] Speaker 2: loosen the loose in the throat so so I could
[35:24] Speaker 2: talk a little bit of shit. So anyway, yeah, I'm
[35:27] Speaker 2: just hanging with different people. You just got it, and
[35:29] Speaker 2: that as an undercovery here, you just got to go
[35:31] Speaker 2: and talk to people. Yeah, don't being that person sitting
[35:34] Speaker 2: in the corner pearl tables always a good place for that.
[35:37] Speaker 2: So I'm playing pool, I would see this fellow over
[35:39] Speaker 2: the corner. I went, oh, I do I know him?
[35:41] Speaker 2: I do know him? And he said about hey god,
[35:47] Speaker 2: well no, I'm not listening not I could sort of
[35:50] Speaker 2: half hear it. I knew he was trying to get
[35:52] Speaker 2: my attention. Anyway. I stopped playing Pearl. He said, have
[35:56] Speaker 2: come up to me and he goes, hey mate, He
[35:59] Speaker 2: gone good to see. Yeah, the fuck are you mate?
[36:03] Speaker 2: How are you Todd? Aren't you? And it was one
[36:05] Speaker 2: of those things where I went, fucking, his music's loud,
[36:08] Speaker 2: but it sounds like you could. I don't want him
[36:12] Speaker 2: to say anything. And again, no, I mat. He goes, yeah,
[36:15] Speaker 2: we played footy together down the gold case. I said, no,
[36:18] Speaker 2: I'm from Sydney. I have no idea you're talking about. Yeah, yeah,
[36:22] Speaker 2: you're Todd and you're playing in the centers and I
[36:24] Speaker 2: was playing on the wing and reserve. Great. I said, oh,
[36:27] Speaker 2: that's probably that person would do. And then uh and
[36:32] Speaker 2: then he goes, well once you a cop then, and
[36:36] Speaker 2: that's when it was almost like the music just stopped.
[36:39] Speaker 2: It hadn't, but that's what it did to me. It
[36:41] Speaker 2: just went doom, doom, doom, doom. Holy shit, what am
[36:44] Speaker 2: I going to do? So I just hit him, fucking
[36:47] Speaker 2: hit him with a beauty and he laid him out,
[36:50] Speaker 2: and then that's when the music stopped. It said, what
[36:52] Speaker 2: the fuck's going on over here? And I was like,
[36:55] Speaker 2: I'm n I might know. I'm out of here, see
[36:57] Speaker 2: you later. So I've sort of raced over to the
[36:59] Speaker 2: toilet because I was basking for a piece too, knowing
[37:02] Speaker 2: that my controller was about a climeer down the road.
[37:05] Speaker 2: So I've gone in and that's when these bikes come
[37:09] Speaker 2: in and I noticed it was the same fellas that
[37:11] Speaker 2: I was havn't I spoke with earlier and we'd had
[37:16] Speaker 2: a lot of jugs and laughs at shut myself a bit,
[37:20] Speaker 2: but I thought, now we've had a bit of rapport
[37:24] Speaker 2: up until now, but who knows what could happen? Anyway,
[37:27] Speaker 2: they gave what did you my brother for? I went
[37:30] Speaker 2: who him? Oh see your brother? I'm sorry about that mate.
[37:34] Speaker 2: Well he grabbed me on the cock mane because she
[37:36] Speaker 2: would not have he did. That's why I hit him
[37:40] Speaker 2: m hm. And he said you'd tell us, Ah gotcha
[37:46] Speaker 2: fucking didn't even know him. We thought he's a fag.
[37:49] Speaker 2: Thanks for doing that for us, said, oh, it was lucky.
[37:54] Speaker 2: And then it was like, there was one fella with
[37:57] Speaker 2: a shody, but I don't reckon it was later, but
[37:59] Speaker 2: it was just he must have been taken it somewhere
[38:01] Speaker 2: and was carrying it. And he goes, but that fellow said,
[38:04] Speaker 2: you're a cop. I said no, he said, I grabbed
[38:07] Speaker 2: you my cock. And I was just I was just
[38:12] Speaker 2: spitball and just trying to bamboos all these these fellas,
[38:15] Speaker 2: and at one stage I said, you know what if
[38:17] Speaker 2: I am a cop, Yeah, maybe I am. What are
[38:19] Speaker 2: you gonna do about it? Actually, I'm detective Donnie. You're
[38:22] Speaker 2: all under arrest. Turn around and put your hands more
[38:25] Speaker 2: on your back.
[38:25] Speaker 1: That's what you said to them?
[38:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, And they go, fuck off, mate, fuck off. I said,
[38:29] Speaker 2: have you got your own handcuffs because I don't have enough,
[38:32] Speaker 2: And I was just making joke of some laugh and
[38:34] Speaker 2: sup alive whatever, and they went a fuck yeah, you'ren't
[38:37] Speaker 2: even worth the bullets, mate. Fuck just. I remember hearing
[38:40] Speaker 2: that as I was as they were leaving, and there
[38:44] Speaker 2: was a big practical joke for them. They were pissing themselves,
[38:46] Speaker 2: backslapping and fucking no, we got that little fucker. And
[38:49] Speaker 2: I went straight to the door and I ran my
[38:51] Speaker 2: fucking ass off.
[38:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're lucky, lucky, lucky to get out of there.
[38:55] Speaker 1: By the sounds of it, you had a job down
[38:58] Speaker 1: in Sydney as well. Yeah, and you've got a bit
[39:02] Speaker 1: of a harbor cruise.
[39:03] Speaker 2: It was, and that was one of the times where
[39:05] Speaker 2: I thought I could live like this. Yeah. That was.
[39:07] Speaker 1: Now you're getting closer to than Miami vice that you're
[39:10] Speaker 1: looking for.
[39:11] Speaker 2: Yeah. It was right at the end of my two
[39:15] Speaker 2: years of under cover work. It was like two or
[39:16] Speaker 2: three months left to go, and they said, oh, do
[39:20] Speaker 2: you want to start your integration early? What do you
[39:23] Speaker 2: want to do this one last job? I always want
[39:27] Speaker 2: to do another job. They said, oh, there's something you
[39:30] Speaker 2: got to think about. This one. It's on cops in
[39:34] Speaker 2: New South Wales. I went, no, mate, not doing that.
[39:38] Speaker 2: They said, do you want to read it first? Tell
[39:42] Speaker 2: me what it is. He goes they got a pool
[39:45] Speaker 2: press involved in Surry Hills nightclubs and they're punching pills
[39:50] Speaker 2: out and getting the bounces to dispute him. I went, yeah,
[39:53] Speaker 2: they're not cops. I'll do that. But it was a
[39:57] Speaker 2: bit of an eye open and coming down here. I
[39:59] Speaker 2: did things very from me to Queensland. But yeah, I
[40:02] Speaker 2: had many good drinks in a lot of the pubs
[40:04] Speaker 2: in Dalinghurst and we're doing a thousand thousand pill buys
[40:08] Speaker 2: it twenty three bucks or something. Did a few of them,
[40:11] Speaker 2: but the coppers were always stand off, which was always
[40:14] Speaker 2: just one other fellow who was doing all the boys
[40:16] Speaker 2: from And I got invited over to a boat one night.
[40:23] Speaker 2: It was a yacht. It was magnificent. There was TV
[40:26] Speaker 2: people there, there was models was it was great. And
[40:29] Speaker 2: then I finally got to make the two coppers who
[40:31] Speaker 2: were our targets. Yeah, and yeah, that was us on
[40:34] Speaker 2: me straight away.
[40:35] Speaker 1: What do you think made them? Made them saus I
[40:37] Speaker 1: don't know.
[40:37] Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, just being coppers. I think they're
[40:40] Speaker 2: just one step ahead, I think. And I'll mate, gave me,
[40:44] Speaker 2: threw me a bag of pills or something and to
[40:47] Speaker 2: go to the toilet, and they must have followed me
[40:49] Speaker 2: and sort of as I was closing the thing, they
[40:52] Speaker 2: smashed the door and all three of us were in
[40:54] Speaker 2: the in the in the in the toilet and they're
[40:57] Speaker 2: just written in me, who the fuck are you going
[41:00] Speaker 2: the pearls? I said, mate, they're old mates, Mate, they're
[41:01] Speaker 2: not mine. They said, oh, you're a cop. Are no? Fuck? No? No,
[41:06] Speaker 2: I have a couple. Yeah, why not? You're a cop?
[41:11] Speaker 2: Are not give me them?
[41:14] Speaker 1: Yeah? And took pills.
[41:15] Speaker 2: I did because there was no way of getting out
[41:18] Speaker 2: of that cubicle. And yeah, I found out later what
[41:24] Speaker 2: those things do to you to kick instro the white No, No,
[41:29] Speaker 2: it was like thirty fourteen minutes later, and I didn't
[41:31] Speaker 2: know what the hell it did me.
[41:33] Speaker 1: Then where did you go?
[41:34] Speaker 2: I was still on the boat. Yeah, And I went
[41:36] Speaker 2: from you know, someone who was just being very sociable
[41:40] Speaker 2: and had my wits about myself to a fello couldn't
[41:45] Speaker 2: walk properly. It was falling over, jumping in the pearls,
[41:48] Speaker 2: just doing crazy shit. Yeah, giving everyone sprayse I was
[41:51] Speaker 2: that idiot wild times. Yeah, so he sort of has it,
[41:55] Speaker 2: sort of got a bit better. I kept on telling
[41:58] Speaker 2: them that I hung out of this strip joint, and
[41:59] Speaker 2: I did. I actually got a strip tooint most nights.
[42:01] Speaker 2: But I my sort of mantra was just to be seen.
[42:05] Speaker 2: I'm not going there to look at the girls. I
[42:07] Speaker 2: have my back to them, and that's what I do
[42:08] Speaker 2: on my business. And it's just the city underbelly and anyway,
[42:14] Speaker 2: I said, I'll take you there. We'll go to the
[42:15] Speaker 2: strip toint Yeah, okay, yep. So we've all gone there,
[42:18] Speaker 2: plus the coppers, and they're just they just can't wait
[42:21] Speaker 2: to see me fucking I really lose my shit. Yeah,
[42:26] Speaker 2: but it didn't get any worse. So I just I
[42:27] Speaker 2: just carried on like a pork chop all night. Next
[42:30] Speaker 2: thing you know, I'm walking out at six or seven
[42:32] Speaker 2: in the morning. The sun went back to my unit,
[42:36] Speaker 2: played music till about middays, like what a life this is?
[42:39] Speaker 2: And then I went to sleep and I wake up
[42:42] Speaker 2: twenty four hours later feeling like so shit, feeling really bad.
[42:46] Speaker 2: And that's why I went sort of half see how
[42:49] Speaker 2: what Karen's feeling there, Like you feel really bad, Like
[42:53] Speaker 2: it's a real it's a real low.
[42:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't know. I suppose what part that played
[42:59] Speaker 1: in Karen are taking their own life. But everyone talks
[43:03] Speaker 1: about the lows that you get after the heights of drugs,
[43:06] Speaker 1: and you just wonder the impact that has on people.
[43:10] Speaker 1: So you got down to got down the Sydney. Did
[43:13] Speaker 1: anything come of those cops? Were they caught up in
[43:15] Speaker 1: any of.
[43:15] Speaker 2: The well they were, but I think they eventually got
[43:18] Speaker 2: them later. Yeah, but you know, when I wake up
[43:21] Speaker 2: and I you know, I was feeling, you know, the
[43:23] Speaker 2: worst person in the world. You know, you regret all
[43:25] Speaker 2: these things I wanted to do that. Oh fuck up,
[43:27] Speaker 2: I want to fuck this.
[43:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[43:30] Speaker 2: You get a phone call from the Sydney controller. They're
[43:34] Speaker 2: obviously listening to particular phone calls, and they said, yeah,
[43:38] Speaker 2: we got that cop, didn't we that fucking undercover cop?
[43:40] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he goes mate, gigsop O pack your bags.
[43:44] Speaker 1: Calked. When when you finally got out of undercover work,
[43:49] Speaker 1: how hard was that to go back to real policing.
[43:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, I found that really hard. You know. There was
[43:56] Speaker 2: not only times when you know, I used to say,
[43:59] Speaker 2: like I would have it in my mind to give
[44:02] Speaker 2: the cops a hard time as I drove past them
[44:04] Speaker 2: or something, especially when I was with the crooks, like
[44:06] Speaker 2: they gave and they go yeah, yeah, fucking yeah, look
[44:09] Speaker 2: at those I can stick. Yeah that's sort of shit. Yeah.
[44:12] Speaker 2: Well I did it one night when I wasn't working.
[44:15] Speaker 2: I was just with cripp of mates and my missus
[44:18] Speaker 2: come and picked me up, and as we're driving, it
[44:21] Speaker 2: was like someone doing a road traffic job or something.
[44:25] Speaker 2: I'd hang out the window and gave you the biggest
[44:27] Speaker 2: spray in the world, like, fuck, yeah, I don't know.
[44:32] Speaker 1: Why you're losing yourself.
[44:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know why I was doing it. Anyway,
[44:37] Speaker 2: he chased me and stopped the car. We almost got
[44:41] Speaker 2: one of the biggest fight ever because I wasn't backing down,
[44:43] Speaker 2: and it was just stupid.
[44:45] Speaker 1: Did you declare that you're a cop? Just arguing?
[44:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, And I finally back down when he goes, oh,
[44:53] Speaker 2: noticed a pee and you can you can go to
[44:55] Speaker 2: the watchhouse and speak to the major straight tomorrow. I went, okay, yeah,
[44:58] Speaker 2: I'm not doing that. I'm back down. I said, no, actually, sorry,
[45:02] Speaker 2: I shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have done that. Yeah.
[45:04] Speaker 2: So that was my attitude then. And that was only
[45:07] Speaker 2: a couple of weeks before I finished, and it was
[45:10] Speaker 2: still not good, and they said, okay, well you're starting now.
[45:14] Speaker 2: Crime Stop was answering phones and I go, what I
[45:18] Speaker 2: said two weeks ago.
[45:20] Speaker 1: Is that to help you for a transitional period before
[45:23] Speaker 1: they unleash you out in the Yeah, well it's.
[45:25] Speaker 2: In a controlled environment and ideally is just to get
[45:28] Speaker 2: you back into, you know, a structured work environment. Eight
[45:33] Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning to four o'clock. I said, I
[45:35] Speaker 2: have not waken up at eight o'clock in two years.
[45:38] Speaker 2: My friend, this is not going to be easy.
[45:40] Speaker 1: Oh sorry, princess, but all my work was done.
[45:43] Speaker 2: No, I didn't in the afternoons. You know, no one
[45:45] Speaker 2: does drug deals at eight thirty in the morning. I said, Oh,
[45:50] Speaker 2: I'll do my best. I really, I'll try my best
[45:52] Speaker 2: to get there at a reasonable you know, I think No.
[45:54] Speaker 2: One thirty or ten o'clock was my first one, and
[45:56] Speaker 2: I was quite proud of myself. And anyway, he goes,
[46:00] Speaker 2: you always know how crom stops work. People are inside,
[46:02] Speaker 2: they daub on people and then we pass it on
[46:05] Speaker 2: to the detectives. Okay, got the phone calls in blah
[46:08] Speaker 2: blah blah, and I had to borrow someone's uniform as well.
[46:12] Speaker 2: It couldn't even tuck in and it wasn't ironed it.
[46:15] Speaker 2: It was pretty awful.
[46:17] Speaker 1: You look messy.
[46:20] Speaker 2: And and anyway, a fellow rings up and he goes, oh,
[46:23] Speaker 2: I just want to let you know the next door
[46:26] Speaker 2: over was smoking drugs. Man, I and the fuck are
[46:30] Speaker 2: you calling here for your fucking dog?
[46:33] Speaker 1: And would have gone over well, yeah.
[46:35] Speaker 2: And I'm going mate, don't you know snitches? If you snitch, mate,
[46:38] Speaker 2: this will get you killed. Don't you know the rules?
[46:40] Speaker 1: Man?
[46:41] Speaker 2: I was just ripping into him. Senior starting comes over,
[46:44] Speaker 2: grabs the farre gither to another lady. By this time,
[46:47] Speaker 2: I'm still screaming my like that fucking idiot. What the
[46:50] Speaker 2: fuck is he doing? Comfortab walk for me down the street, Todd,
[46:53] Speaker 2: let's get some breath there, settled down, and I'm still
[46:57] Speaker 2: going off one hundred meters down the raid. He doesn't
[46:59] Speaker 2: know the rules this fuck anyway, guys, am, I get
[47:04] Speaker 2: you to do this and filing. So that was I
[47:07] Speaker 2: say that because that was my mindset, and it took
[47:10] Speaker 2: me a couple of months to get my head around
[47:12] Speaker 2: being back normally.
[47:14] Speaker 1: I would imagine, because it's a completely different lifestyle. It's
[47:17] Speaker 1: a loose life style. You get to live in the
[47:19] Speaker 1: u c's and then you come back into the regiment
[47:22] Speaker 1: of working as a policeman on the streets.
[47:25] Speaker 2: And that's what I was saying. I've gone from living
[47:27] Speaker 2: in a high eyes over Hyde Park. Yeah, I was
[47:30] Speaker 2: driving a BMW, hanging out a strip joints all night
[47:33] Speaker 2: and then buying pearls and going on to soupert parties
[47:37] Speaker 2: and now I'm entering Phanes.
[47:38] Speaker 1: Did you get access to psychologists or professional help? Did
[47:43] Speaker 1: that come into play or did we just kick you
[47:45] Speaker 1: out of or not kick you out of the UC's
[47:47] Speaker 1: Just you leave u C's And was it by choice
[47:49] Speaker 1: you left the u c's.
[47:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, he only allowed to do two years at the time. Yeah, yeah,
[47:53] Speaker 2: I didn't want to lose it. I don't want to
[47:54] Speaker 2: leave it all.
[47:55] Speaker 1: But it's probably probably a good thing because you could
[47:57] Speaker 1: perhaps lose yourself in there.
[47:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, I reckon, I reckon. One or two more years
[48:02] Speaker 2: would have been enough.
[48:04] Speaker 1: The shame of the shame of it is that the
[48:06] Speaker 1: longer you stay in, the better you become. It your trade,
[48:08] Speaker 1: that's what it's a trade.
[48:10] Speaker 2: But it took me twelve months to be okay, and
[48:14] Speaker 2: then eighteen months to be I felt I'm really confident now,
[48:17] Speaker 2: and then two years was a lot like I'm the king,
[48:20] Speaker 2: I can do whatever, do anything now.
[48:22] Speaker 1: Did you get any briefs or how did they do
[48:26] Speaker 1: brief It.
[48:27] Speaker 2: Was just the two conflicts. You know, how do you
[48:29] Speaker 2: do do your psychometrics test? I did the psychometrics test
[48:33] Speaker 2: that many times. I knew what the answers were and
[48:37] Speaker 2: you always knew, you know, coming out of undercover. Do
[48:42] Speaker 2: I like a well written poem or a well made handgun?
[48:47] Speaker 2: What do you reckon? I'm going to tick because all
[48:52] Speaker 2: the ones where it needed to be to be, I've
[48:56] Speaker 2: sound and mine I passed and I still remember that
[49:00] Speaker 2: today I said, this is my last one. Yeah, I'm
[49:02] Speaker 2: going to do a real one exactly how I feel
[49:05] Speaker 2: right now? Right?
[49:05] Speaker 1: Okay, how did that school phone call?
[49:07] Speaker 2: Straight away? You need to come and see us straight away?
[49:12] Speaker 2: How easy is that? How easy I got?
[49:14] Speaker 1: I got a call after a welfare check of psychometric
[49:18] Speaker 1: testing that I think. One of the questions do you
[49:20] Speaker 1: think people are trying to kill you? And I said yes?
[49:23] Speaker 1: And then I get dragged in and go, we're a
[49:26] Speaker 1: little bit worried, and you know how they talk, and
[49:28] Speaker 1: it's just very calm. We're a little bit worried about
[49:30] Speaker 1: one of the answers that you've given that you believe
[49:33] Speaker 1: people are trying to kill you. Why do you think that? Well,
[49:36] Speaker 1: that's because they are. And I explained which which ones were,
[49:40] Speaker 1: and they, oh, well that puts it in context.
[49:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't make believe people.
[49:44] Speaker 1: Look we laugh at it. But we know, and we
[49:48] Speaker 1: laugh at it as a bit of a bravado, but
[49:49] Speaker 1: we know what you're boomed through. It's not normal to
[49:52] Speaker 1: go through what you're boom through, not just talking about
[49:54] Speaker 1: the personal impact that you had in your in your
[49:58] Speaker 1: personal life, the personal problems, but then going into that
[50:02] Speaker 1: environment and then coming out and expecting you to be normal.
[50:05] Speaker 1: It's like we send people the war and come back. Now.
[50:07] Speaker 1: I want you to integrate back into society. Do you
[50:11] Speaker 1: think more could be done?
[50:12] Speaker 2: He heeps more?
[50:14] Speaker 1: What sort of things? How do you think Donnie and
[50:18] Speaker 1: Reno could have been tamed and bring Todd back?
[50:23] Speaker 2: Probably genuine care instead of just to conflicts. You're working
[50:28] Speaker 2: a lot closer with us as to how do we
[50:31] Speaker 2: see our reintegration go and what we would need to
[50:34] Speaker 2: go to all that it might have been done by now,
[50:36] Speaker 2: but in two thousand and three it wasn't a great deal.
[50:40] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think all the law enforcement agencies are
[50:44] Speaker 1: getting better at understanding that there's a problem that needs
[50:47] Speaker 1: to be addressed. But you say tick and flict. I
[50:50] Speaker 1: say tick and flict. That's the thing of noise cops
[50:53] Speaker 1: more than anything. When and this is just a cynical
[50:56] Speaker 1: view of ex cops. But I know it's what we
[51:00] Speaker 1: carry that you felt any welfare checks was just a
[51:04] Speaker 1: tick and flick? Can you say it? I say it.
[51:06] Speaker 1: That's because so the bosses can sign off on No.
[51:09] Speaker 1: We managed Todd's welfare. We made a psychologist available to
[51:14] Speaker 1: him and he had an opportunity.
[51:16] Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean the organization as a whole do
[51:21] Speaker 2: a lot of good things. Yeah, a lot of other
[51:23] Speaker 2: stuff could be improved. But in relation to undercover work
[51:27] Speaker 2: for me back then was you know, there wasn't a
[51:32] Speaker 2: great I still can't believe that they let me in
[51:33] Speaker 2: for starters. Yeah. Well I.
[51:38] Speaker 1: I was reading your book and I could see a
[51:42] Speaker 1: few warning science, but you know you can't. Undercover work
[51:48] Speaker 1: is a specific skill set that you've got, and your
[51:52] Speaker 1: attitude to life was a skill set that served you
[51:55] Speaker 1: very well in that environment.
[51:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it took me a while to
[52:01] Speaker 2: work out because I've got told numerous times where we
[52:04] Speaker 2: controllers and other detectors. You know, you're just an investigative
[52:08] Speaker 2: tool in my belt. We'll use that over there. If
[52:12] Speaker 2: that doesn't work, we'll use a device do that. That's
[52:15] Speaker 2: how much we know you mean to us. Yeah, he
[52:19] Speaker 2: goes that's why we've got a couple of heaps of his.
[52:21] Speaker 2: We lose one, we'll put another one in. And it
[52:23] Speaker 2: was like that didn't well, that's not good. And undercover
[52:29] Speaker 2: officers have always had a quite sketchy part, especially in Queensland,
[52:36] Speaker 2: and it's cost the service a lot of money. So
[52:39] Speaker 2: being tarnished with an X as an ex undercover didn't
[52:42] Speaker 2: do well for you fee bloody promotional stuff either.
[52:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, well they have a reputation, but so like detectives
[52:49] Speaker 1: have a reputation. The whole criminal investigation before Royal Commissions
[52:53] Speaker 1: came through and all that, and there was corruption and
[52:56] Speaker 1: exposered I think my take on it, there was a
[53:00] Speaker 1: lot of corruption outside of the police too. It was
[53:02] Speaker 1: a different era and yeah there were people in high
[53:06] Speaker 1: places that were involved in it as much. But yeah,
[53:09] Speaker 1: I can see the reputation and I know everyone when
[53:14] Speaker 1: UC came back into the normal policing, everyone was a
[53:17] Speaker 1: little bit wary of a UC, Like, yeah, we saw
[53:21] Speaker 1: them come back into detectives and different places. But if
[53:24] Speaker 1: someone had marked on their their career that they've been
[53:29] Speaker 1: at UC, you're sort of looking, Okay, what's this bloke
[53:32] Speaker 1: or what's this girl about.
[53:33] Speaker 2: If I could tell people a little bit sussed on me.
[53:36] Speaker 2: I sort of just get my mobile phone and I go,
[53:38] Speaker 2: what if I just keep it there for a bit,
[53:40] Speaker 2: right in front of them?
[53:41] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[53:42] Speaker 2: What what?
[53:44] Speaker 1: Yeah? But that's it's just part and parcel of.
[53:50] Speaker 2: Anything.
[53:51] Speaker 1: That's how you guys get attacked it in court too,
[53:54] Speaker 1: because if I'm the defense baris so the first question
[53:57] Speaker 1: I'm asking you. So you're an undercover police officer, yep,
[54:01] Speaker 1: and your whole thing that you do, your role is
[54:06] Speaker 1: to lie and give a false impression and just attack
[54:11] Speaker 1: your credibility. You would have had that in the witness box,
[54:13] Speaker 1: oh heaps of times.
[54:14] Speaker 2: Yeah. I talk about it once in the book because
[54:17] Speaker 2: I didn't want to go over and over and over.
[54:19] Speaker 2: But yeah, definitely that was always a good way out. Well,
[54:22] Speaker 2: how do you know when you're not lying? Which one's
[54:24] Speaker 2: not a.
[54:24] Speaker 1: Lie because your whole world is Well, then the barrister
[54:27] Speaker 1: turns to the jury and go, this officer here was
[54:31] Speaker 1: paid to lie, and you're now expected to believe what
[54:34] Speaker 1: they're saying. So that's where the integrity of undercover police
[54:38] Speaker 1: work has to the ConTroll of the documenting. Because we've
[54:42] Speaker 1: talked about we'll call it the exciting, exciting stuff, but
[54:45] Speaker 1: there's a lot of paperwork that goes with it. I
[54:47] Speaker 1: would imagine that you've got to keep a log of
[54:50] Speaker 1: all your meetings and details of all your meetings. It's
[54:52] Speaker 1: not just party time and hanging out with.
[54:56] Speaker 2: Hours and hours and hours and hours of typing afterwards. Yeah.
[54:59] Speaker 2: I got the age where I didn't talk much anymore
[55:03] Speaker 2: during a bye, knowing that I had to transcribe it later.
[55:08] Speaker 1: Can I Can I understand that because I would.
[55:11] Speaker 2: Have done one last week and I just it took
[55:13] Speaker 2: me four hours to type some stupid conversation that I
[55:17] Speaker 2: had that meant nothing.
[55:18] Speaker 1: How have you gone since you're out dealing with your
[55:22] Speaker 1: alcohol and drugs and all that? Is that that you
[55:25] Speaker 1: got that under under control? Yeah?
[55:27] Speaker 2: Definitely? Yeah. I mean I noticed I noticed the type
[55:31] Speaker 2: of pride to Karen's death. You know, drinking was a
[55:34] Speaker 2: social thing for me. Afterwards it became just a source
[55:38] Speaker 2: of wrecking me, where so I didn't have to have
[55:42] Speaker 2: to feel anything. I don't feel I do that anymore.
[55:45] Speaker 2: I go back to social drinking or whatever. And I
[55:49] Speaker 2: do notice that when I start carrying on like that,
[55:53] Speaker 2: where drinking is not enjoyable it's an anger thing, especially
[55:57] Speaker 2: my wife. Now, So that's why the name's Donnie. And
[56:02] Speaker 2: ever since undercover whenever, PTSD sort of sort of nips
[56:09] Speaker 2: at my ankles, and my wife can see it. She'll go, hey,
[56:13] Speaker 2: you're right, I can see a better Donnie coming back in.
[56:17] Speaker 2: So it became the analogy of.
[56:19] Speaker 1: I can imagine that would be a good way of
[56:20] Speaker 1: raining you in. We Donnie now, Yeah, and that's enough.
[56:24] Speaker 2: For me to go, Okay, something's going on, and then
[56:27] Speaker 2: I'll just really check myself work out what was going on.
[56:31] Speaker 1: Your partner and now wife and mother of your child, Peter,
[56:35] Speaker 1: she knew you during this period of time. She must
[56:39] Speaker 1: be a very understanding woman, or she might see something
[56:42] Speaker 1: in you that others don't.
[56:44] Speaker 2: And I keep asking them, Yeah, I still don't know
[56:47] Speaker 2: what it is, but she's been bloody awesome.
[56:50] Speaker 1: I get the sense that you know what you put
[56:53] Speaker 1: your family through and Peter at different times, having them
[56:57] Speaker 1: stand by you would have made the difference.
[57:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, definitely, Yeah, like Peter can almost because I
[57:07] Speaker 2: told her a lot. Yeah, Chicken basically say I remember
[57:11] Speaker 2: telling me that. I remember telling me that. Yeah, And
[57:13] Speaker 2: I'd even go back to my diaries and double check. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[57:17] Speaker 2: but she was through the whole time. You know, there
[57:19] Speaker 2: was times where I was sort of I'd ring her
[57:22] Speaker 2: just before thirty minutes before I'd go and to a
[57:24] Speaker 2: buy up north. I ring you thirty minutes afterwards. Yeah,
[57:28] Speaker 2: so you don't need from me. Something's bad's happened.
[57:32] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[57:33] Speaker 2: I hated to do that, but that's what she wanted
[57:35] Speaker 2: to hear.
[57:35] Speaker 1: So yeah, I can understand. Well, that's another cost that
[57:38] Speaker 1: comes for the work that you do as an undercover
[57:41] Speaker 1: of your family and your partner and everyone else.
[57:45] Speaker 2: That when I was sort of still still boyfriend girlfriend,
[57:50] Speaker 2: I had a weekend off and I said, oh, let's
[57:52] Speaker 2: got the Sunshine case and just have a bit of downtime.
[57:55] Speaker 2: But you know one of those phone calls that comes
[57:58] Speaker 2: through that you've been waiting for months and months to
[58:01] Speaker 2: take it, it's the big one. I'm flying some drugs
[58:03] Speaker 2: down north, from up North down to Cabalt with you
[58:07] Speaker 2: for you a plane in my own plane. It's okay, nice,
[58:11] Speaker 2: I meet you at this pub. It's like I'm on
[58:15] Speaker 2: the road, driving off the coast with my girlfriend and
[58:19] Speaker 2: he's young, but I've got this big, big bit for
[58:22] Speaker 2: you here and we're there. If I said no, never
[58:26] Speaker 2: hear from it again. I said, oh, okay, Pete, you
[58:31] Speaker 2: just stay in the car and I'm going in the pub.
[58:34] Speaker 2: I've got to do a good dude coming out. And
[58:37] Speaker 2: she was just like, I can't believe I'm doing this.
[58:41] Speaker 2: She had never done anything like that in my life.
[58:44] Speaker 2: She was shitting herself, and to me it was just
[58:47] Speaker 2: so normal.
[58:48] Speaker 1: But well, you get sensitized.
[58:50] Speaker 2: I said, I'm just going in to get a couple
[58:52] Speaker 2: of pound.
[58:52] Speaker 1: Ye, the career that you've had after you've found some
[58:57] Speaker 1: peace in the policing because you stayed in for a
[58:59] Speaker 1: long time. After the couple works, you've been you've been
[59:03] Speaker 1: retired what three years? Three years? So you got in
[59:07] Speaker 1: detective work. You enjoyed it and satisfaction from that.
[59:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I am. You know, as soon as I
[59:13] Speaker 2: finished my six month three integration, I went straight into
[59:16] Speaker 2: crime operations in headquarters and started my detective training there,
[59:21] Speaker 2: and I went to Flying Squad and then property crime,
[59:26] Speaker 2: and then that's when you're in the two thousand and
[59:28] Speaker 2: four or five was where the baby was coming along.
[59:32] Speaker 1: Yep.
[59:33] Speaker 2: It was like, okay, I got to stop traveling because
[59:35] Speaker 2: those other ones I was still away for ten days back.
[59:38] Speaker 1: Before takes an impact, doesn't it.
[59:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, So I thought to myself, I've been living out
[59:42] Speaker 2: of a suitcase for four years. Now, I got to
[59:46] Speaker 2: got to slow down. So I took a job at
[59:50] Speaker 2: forty stud Valley c IB Yeah, which meant I was
[59:53] Speaker 2: home every day, home every night. Normal. But it was
[59:56] Speaker 2: almost like I was sitting on the train all the
[59:58] Speaker 2: other officers, and I was like, I was hating every minute.
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: I I can't, I'm not like these people. But I
[1:00:07] Speaker 2: was convincing myself that I was going to be And yeah,
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: it's sort of I was liking it. But what I
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: needed was what I noticed was, yeah, Donny needed to
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: be let out every now and then, just to keep
[1:00:19] Speaker 2: me saying type thing because I was feeling too caged
[1:00:23] Speaker 2: up type thing.
[1:00:24] Speaker 1: Yeah. Your path has been it's had its highs and
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: highs and lowers, but you seem to be in a
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: good place now. Any regrets, No, No, you never regret anything.
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: In my books, Yeah, the decisions you make at the
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: time were the right ones. You can't look back now
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: and go, oh, I shouldn't have done that. He's what
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: it is. I've learned from it. I haven't done. I've
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: done a lot of silly things, a lot of stupid things.
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: That's life. I can't change it. That's way I look
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: at it.
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: Well, it's not a bad way. And you got to
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: accept yourself and love yourself, and yeah, think, okay, I
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: did my best.
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: It's like I was a pretty confident kid, sporting blake
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: up until two thousand. You know, I probably had a
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: bit of a strut, me in my stride and thought
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: I was a little bit hot shit. So it certainly
[1:01:12] Speaker 2: did bring me down a fair bit. Yeah, and for ages,
[1:01:17] Speaker 2: I was sort of thinking to myself, you know, why
[1:01:19] Speaker 2: did this happen to me? Was it karma? Was it
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: something I did really bad that deserved it was?
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: It?
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: Was it something I had to be taught. I don't
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: know what am I supposed to learn from. It was
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: one thing that I got and I kept on coming
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: up with nothing. None of this makes sense. I don't understand,
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: and so it's sort of for a while I had
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: to sort of go. I noticed my confidence was just shot.
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: I was so shot. I remember just talking to people
[1:01:47] Speaker 2: and I couldn't look in their eyes and my bottom
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: lip would quiver and I felt like I was crying.
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: Every time I had to speak to someone, and I
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: hated it and I went, okay, I got to stop this,
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: and I kept on. I was always hard on myself.
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: This is not like me, this is not me. This
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: is something that's happened to me that's causing me to
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: be like this. So I just started trying to convince myself,
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: you got to start loving yourself again. Yeah, because I
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: was pretty good at it before that.
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, with the book, and that would have been therapeutic
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: for you. Imagine getting it all out there.
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, just writing that first shitty copy they call it,
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: yes blur. It was just straight were first one to
[1:02:28] Speaker 2: the end. I don't think there was any full stops
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: any just let it out, because that's what I said.
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: Just get it all out and then we can put
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: it all in the right places.
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: Okay.
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: I didn't want to stop because I kept on bringing
[1:02:39] Speaker 2: my editor. I said, when do I stop? I got
[1:02:42] Speaker 2: I've got so many stories. Well it's she's got Yeah
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: stop now.
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: Donnie An Undercover Cop with a Death Wish by Todd Maguire.
[1:02:53] Speaker 1: It was a good breath. I enjoyed it, and I've
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: enjoyed having having our chat chat today. Thank you guests
[1:03:00] Speaker 1: that have done their public service and worked as cops.
[1:03:04] Speaker 1: So thank you for the service you've done for the
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: community and thanks for coming on like catch killers and
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: I hope you have a have a good future.
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: Apprecijoyed the chat.
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: Thanks Mane.
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: Cheers

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