Tony Mokbel cleared of some serious drug trafficking charges over Lawyer X scandal

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Tony Mokbel has been delivered a mixed bag of results in his appeal against serious drug convictions despite his claims the cases against him were hopelessly tainted by the Lawyer X scandal.

The man known as Australia’s underworld drug kingpin was handed a 30-year prison sentence in 2012, with a non-parole period of 22 years, for pleading guilty to masterminding an elaborate drug syndicate.

Tony Mokbel arrives at court on September 2, 2025.

Court of Appeal justices Stephen McLeish, Maree Kennedy and Stephen Kaye found one of Mokbel’s three major drug convictions, known as Quills, could not stand and acquitted Mobkel.

He will face a retrial for another, known as Orbital, and his appeal was dismissed against the case known as Magnum.

Quills and Magnum relate to convictions for trafficking in large commercial quantities of drugs; Orbital for trafficking MDMA and inciting the importation of the drug in 2005, and Magnum also for trafficking methylamphetamine across 2006 and 2007.

Nicola Gobbo with then-client Tony Mokbel outside a court in 2004.

Mokbel’s legal team had argued the prosecution had been corrupted by Nicola Gobbo, who was working as a double agent for police, while also representing Mokbel before his sentencing.

In November 2024, Justice Elizabeth Fullerton found that police took part in a “joint criminal enterprise” to pervert the course of justice when they used Gobbo to help bring down Mokbel by convincing a drug cook to plead guilty and turn supergrass against him.

Mokbel’s barrister, Julie Condon, KC, had argued her client should have been made aware that Gobbo was a supergrass before entering his 2012 plea. Condon told the court both Victoria Police and then director of Public Prosecutions John Champion, now a judge, were aware the integrity of the convictions could have been at risk.

Prosecutors disagreed and argued putting Mokbel’s drug offence sentencing on hold while investigations into Gobbo’s role took place, would have seen the case stalled for years while keeping Mokbel “completely in the dark” about why.

Mokbel had orchestrated one of the most infamous escapes in Australian history while awaiting trial for the drug charges. He smuggled himself out of Australia in a specially designed yacht – before being tracked down in Greece a year later, in a restaurant wearing a wig.

When returned to Australia and sentenced, he later survived a serious assault in jail in 2019, telling the court he was no longer the same man he once was.

In April, Mokbel was granted bail by the Court of Appeal, as part of his quest to quash his drug-trafficking convictions, subject to about 30 conditions, including a curfew, daily reporting at his nearby police station, a ban on using smartphones or encrypted apps, and an ankle monitoring bracelet. That ankle bracelet was removed recently following changes to the private bail monitoring rules.

The 59-year-old had been behind bars since 2007.

Tony Mokbel was arrested in Athens in 2007 wearing a wig.

Despite successfully appealing one of his drug convictions, Mokbel won’t have his entire criminal history erased.

In the early 1980s, he was convicted of offences including assault, threats to kill, resisting police arrest and possessing a firearm.

In 1992, he was then jailed for a year for attempting to bribe a County Court judge. Six years later in 2018, he was also convicted for manufacturing amphetamines.

Those convictions remain in place.

Gobbo was first registered as a police informer in 1995, but it wasn’t until 10 years later that she was officially given the pseudonym, Informer 3838.

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