Guns, pots and parmas: How a gang got away with the heist of the century

Greg Carroll worshipped his elder brother, Ian, and he wasn’t the only one. Ian was funny, charismatic and a great organiser, both as a union boss and later as a key member of the Great Bookie Robbery Gang.

Perhaps this is why Greg became his big brother’s alibi witness for what would be the crime of the century.

Greg has written a book, 11 Minutes, on his brother, the Bookie Robbery and a string of murders. It is a cracking read and cunning blend of inside information, fact and imagination.

Ian Revell Carroll made his career choice early and didn’t waver from his professional path, despite the disapproval of his father, Noel.

At the age of 14, he was found guilty of larceny and sentenced to 18 months in the notorious Turana Boys Home, later bragging it was the perfect finishing school for apprentice criminals.

Young Greg remembers visiting his brother with their mother, Irene, leaving from their Yarraville home. He was amazed at the green space of Royal Park, then the reality check of Turana. “It was pretty grim.”

On release, Ian followed the established western suburban path to a crime network – he went to the wharves and joined the Painters and Dockers Union.

A subsequent royal commission, headed by Frank Costigan, QC, found union members were involved in about 15 murders.

Greg says Ian returned home only about three times a year to see their mother.

“Father and him didn’t get on,” says Greg.

When he turned up aged about 21 driving a Cadillac, it was the confirmation of what his dad had feared. “It made my father hate him even more, and he called him a criminal.”

Of the four sons, Greg was the only one to gain a tertiary education. Like many working-class teenagers, he was a beneficiary of the Whitlam government’s free university policy.

It was a massive turnaround, having been expelled in year 10 for setting a rubbish bin on fire – inside a classroom. He completed year 12 at night school.

Having business and IT qualifications just as computers were becoming mainstream proved a lifelong bonus. He appointed Ian as a director of his company.

“From 1974 until he died, we were very close.”

Turns out Ian was gifted at making money – both legally and illegally.

Long before he was identified as one of the smartest and ruthless crooks in town, he made headlines – not as an offender, but a witness.

He was arrested with fellow Painter and Docker, Neil Stanley Collingburn, in 1971 when police found a set of golf clubs suspected of being stolen in the boot of their car.

Collingburn received fatal injuries while in police custody. Two detectives, Brian Francis Murphy and Carl John Stillman, were later acquitted of manslaughter.

The police said the injuries were sustained when Collingburn attacked them. Ian Carroll said it had been a beating in an interview room witnessed by police who refused to tell the truth.

The clubs weren’t even stolen.

In an era of cash payrolls, the best armed robbery gangs used inside information and trained with military precision.

Ray Chuck (also known as Bennett) was a born leader, dubbed “The General”. Carroll was his lieutenant.

They hit big targets and none was bigger than the Great Bookie Robbery.

On April 21, 1976, six bandits raided the Victoria Club where Melbourne’s biggest bookies were settling their accounts with cash. No one knows the exact figure, but it was supposed to be about $15 million.

According to Greg, the team was Ray Chuck, Ian “Fingers” Carroll, Laurence Prendergast, Norman “Chops” Lee, Vinnie Mikkelsen and Tony McNamara.

The gang hauled 118 cash bags upstairs to an office and dumped their weapons at the scene. Without the weapons and cash, they were able to scatter immediately – a vital trick to set up alibis.

“Ian asked me to lunch the next Wednesday, which was strange as that was not something we would do,” recalls Greg.

It was the era of long business lunches, and it was already under way at a Windsor hotel when Ian walked in, less than 30 minutes after the raid.

“When the news broke of the robbery, Ian had this smirk on his face. I thought it was professional appreciation of another gang’s work.”

Weeks later, Ian’s wife asked Greg to go to Carroll’s lawyers to make a statement that the brothers had lunched together. Who would believe someone would steal $15 million around midday, somehow dispose of it and then head off for a parma and pot?

He even brought Mikkelsen with him.

In his book, Greg writes: “Inside, a round table of men in pressed shirts and loosened ties were already entrenched. Ian led Vinnie over. ‘Everyone, this is Vinnie, an old mate of mine’.”

Greg recalls that Mikkelsen was the hit of the lunch, telling shady stories from the underworld. He left an impression and that was his intention.

Ian was too smart to brag about the job even to his brother. “He would sometimes leave hints or pull knowing faces if it came up.

“I once said that Ray Chuck was a legend and Ian just said, ‘He wasn’t the architect’.”

Does this mean it was another crook’s idea or, more likely, that Chuck hatched the plan while in jail in England, borrowing the methods developed by the bank-robbing Wembley Mob?

“Ray had no time for me. When he was about, Ian would change. He was a cheeky, funny guy, but around Ray he was serious. They would lower their voices when they talked, and it was clear it was a good time to make yourself scarce.”

Greg says he felt the gang thought Lee was a lightweight and McNamara the weak link, drafted in because Russell Cox was still inside a NSW prison. Boxing trainer Ambrose Palmer was at the Victoria Club. When the bandits told everyone to lay on the ground, McNamara broke the rules by saying, “You, too, Ambrose”, and the trainer recognised the voice.

McNamara died of a drug overdose and Lee was shot dead by police during a foiled armed robbery at Melbourne Airport.

Not only were the police chasing the Bookie Robbers but so were the standover brothers Les and Brian Kane. In a pre-emptive attack, three men burst into Les Kane’s Wantirna home in October 1978. Kane and his car were never seen again. Chuck, Mikkelsen and Laurie Prendergast were charged and acquitted of the murder.

Chuck was still facing a $69,000 armed-robbery charge, which was why he was in court on November 12, 1979. Brian Kane was sitting there in a dark blue suit, a beard and gold-rimmed glasses knowing Chuck would be led past him.

Kane aimed a snub-nosed revolver saying, “Cop this you motherf---er”, before firing at point-blank range.

Brian Kane was shot dead in November 1982 at the Quarry Hotel. The gunmen were believed to be Russell Cox, who by this time had escaped from a NSW prison, and hitman Rod Collins.

Cox and Carroll became business partners, pulling off major armed robberies.

While he was supposed to be living as a battler on waterfront wages, Ian owned a Mercedes and eight vintage cars. He put his children through private school, had a hand in several businesses, including Greg’s computer company and a firm that imported American cars.

A posthumous check of his financial records showed he had more than 20 bank accounts, some in false names, and an impressive property portfolio. He was building a luxury home on a two-hectare block in Wonga Park.

In the months that followed the Bookie Robbery, Carroll deposited nearly $450,000 in cash in different accounts.

In the six months from September 1981 until February 1982, Carroll made large deposits in his various accounts that coincided with four major Melbourne armed robberies that netted the gang nearly $600,000 in cash.

Business was so good that Carroll was able to take a 35-day holiday in the United States.

Cox and his girlfriend, Helen Dean, were living in a rented home in Mount Martha. They were quiet and considered to be ideal neighbours – that is until January 3, 1983. On that day, Carroll came for a visit in his imported maroon Chevrolet utility.

There was an argument, a physical altercation and a gunfight that left Carroll dead and Cox wounded.

Later, police would find a round hole in the shed floor, where it was said Cox had removed a home brew barrel that had some of the proceeds from the Bookie Robbery.

In the ceiling were armed robbery kits – guns, disguises, plans and even medications. Police were convinced the two were outsourcing stick-ups.

Cox would spend another five years on the run before he was caught at Doncaster Shoppingtown preparing another job.

Two days before Ian was shot dead, Greg went to a restaurant with Cox, Ian and their partners. (It was a vegetarian one to satisfy Cox’s dietary requirements.)

At the table of six, Greg spent time watching his brother’s business partner. “He was a charming guy. He appeared to be a bit of a chameleon. Cox could change his nature depending on who he was with.”

Greg said there was nothing to indicate the two heavy crooks were about to fall out. “Ian and Cox appeared to be best mates.”

11 Minutes, by Gregory Carroll

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.