One of Australia’s most famous gangsters walked free on Friday after prosecutors said they would drop a planned retrial on drug trafficking charges.
Sixty-year-old Tony Mokbel – a key figure in Melbourne’s years-long gangland war – was jailed for 30 years in 2012 after pleading guilty to masterminding an elaborate drug syndicate.
But his case fell apart after it was revealed that his high-profile lawyer at the time, Nicola Gobbo, was feeding information to police while supposedly defending her clients.
Mokbel spent about 18 years behind bars but was released on bail last April after a court ruled he had a strong chance of overturning the criminal convictions.
A court subsequently acquitted him of one charge and ordered a possible retrial over allegations he tried to import a commercial quantity of the synthetic drug MDMA in 2005.
On Friday, prosecutors in the state of Victoria said they had decided not to pursue that planned retrial.
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