The Gangland War by John Silvester

Author:John Silvester
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Floradale Productions and Sly Ink
Published: 2008-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

15

INSIDE JOB

Sometimes in the underworld

it is more dangerous

to be owed money

than to be in debt.

PEOPLE can strive all their lives to make money to guarantee their security. The irony for many Australian criminals is that as their illegal assets rise, so too do the risks to their long-term future.

The maxim that money can’t buy health or happiness applies especially to criminals. In the case of a Melbourne couple shot dead in 2003, the money they made through the lucrative vice industry couldn’t buy them good taste.

Steve Gulyas and his partner, Duang ‘Tina’ Nhonthachith, also known as ‘Bing’, had all the trappings of wealth, but were destined not to live long enough to enjoy them.

As with so many of the Melbourne underworld murder victims, they knew they were in danger, but did not grasp they would almost certainly be betrayed by someone close to them.

Steve Gulyas didn’t see it until the moment he was shot on the hobby farm he had bought with dirty money. He and Tina had gone to their luxurious retreat near Sunbury for the weekend. He was lying on the couch, relaxed and secure, the remote control in his lap and a drink beside him when the killer placed the gun almost to his cheek and pressed the trigger.

Tina may have been able to get from her chair and run a few steps before she, too, was shot dead.

When the bodies were found on 20 October 2003, the television and the central heating were still on. Police believe the couple knew the killer and had invited him in.

They were security conscious. In their business they had to be. But the killer may have known that the couple’s elaborate security systems would be flawed that weekend.

Electronic gates at the property were being installed but were not yet operational, and their guard dogs had been taken back to Melbourne earlier that day. The hit man was either incredibly lucky or, more likely, expertly briefed.

He would have known that vicious dogs, an iron fence and window shutters protected their home in Coburg. And that their ‘introduction agency’, Partner Search Australia, was also protected by a security system, including cameras.

But at their 30-hectare hobby farm in Wildwood Road, they were vulnerable because the gates and fence that would make their weekender a mini-fortress had not yet been finished.

Istvan ‘Steve’ Gulyas, 49, was born in Hungary, and Tina Nhonthachith, 47, in Thailand. Their bodies were found by an employee who went to the home after she became concerned for their safety. Police believe they had been dead at least 12 hours.

Partner Search Australia, in Sydney Road, Coburg, supposedly specialised in introductions to Russian and Asian women. But police say Gulyas had specialised in employing under-age Asian girls in the sex industry. Signs at the premises of Partner Search promote massage services — but it was unlikely the customers were looking for relief from bad backs.

It was well-known in the sex industry that Partner Search was an illegal brothel as well as an introduction service.

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