THE insider who helped police nab fugitive drug chief Tony Mokbel has denied turning him in for a $1 million reward.The informer (known as 3030) yesterday began giving evidence against those accused of being part of Mokbel's alleged $4.2 million amphetamines network, dubbed The Company. Police allege Mokbel ran the drug business from his Greek hideaway using mobile phones and had more than $400,000 in cash wired to him up to his arrest in June last year. Documents tendered to Melbourne Magistrates' Court alleged that: MOKBEL and The Company hatched a plan to free his sister-in-law, Renate Mokbel, from jail by presenting $1 million in laundered drug money to the Supreme Court; A MAJOR drug import involving a mid-sea transfer of drugs was being organised; MEMBERS of the Mokbel family, including his mother and son, regularly spoke to him while he was on the run;
MOKBEL laughed and joked with associates about media reports he was hiding in Lebanon; and THE court heard 3030 helped Mokbel organise a false passport.
The informer told the court he got involved with The Company when a friend, Bart Rizzo, asked if he could use his spare room for mixing amphetamines in December 2005. He said he handed his current and expired passports to Mr Rizzo last April and was quizzed on personal details by a man who relayed the information to Mokbel by phone.
3030 said he learned of the $1 million reward for information leading to Mokbel's capture around that time but had not put in a claim.
"My motivation was simply to keep myself from going to jail," he said.
He denied money was the real reason, but did not rule out seeking part of the reward after the case was over. He admitted helping transfer money that he believed was going to Mokbel, including paying a "travel agent" who was arranging the drug trafficker's escape from Australia.
The preliminary hearing for Mr Rizzo, 29, of Box Hill, and four others on drug-related charges is continuing.
