Victorian criminals ordered to pay $20m in debts to taxpayers
Tony Mokbel is lead away from the Supreme Court by prison guards in 2012. (AAP Image/Julian Smith) (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Jailed drug baron Tony Mokbel has been revealed as one of more than 200 criminals ordered to repay $20 million in debts owed to Victorian taxpayers.
The Herald Sun reports the Mokbel crime family and its associates were the hardest-hit crime syndicate in a wave of pecuniary penalty orders issued by magistrates and County Court judges.
The crackdown comes as the newspaper reveals criminals are flouting orders to compensate victims, handing over just $1.1 million of the almost $11 million judges ordered them to pay.
According to figures obtained under Freedom of Information, PPOs imposed by magistrates and County Court judges over the past decade totalled almost $11 million.
The figures accumulated through the Supreme Court are not available but are believed to exceed that of the other two courts combined, due to the more lucrative nature of its crimes.
The FoI figures show the largest PPO imposed was $1.415 million, relating to the trafficking of a commercial quantity of heroin and cultivating cannabis.
The smallest was just $45 for possessing proceeds of crime.
Some PPOs were able to be settled almost immediately through the seizure of assets but others are set to become long-term debt.
Mokbel was lumbered with a $4 million PPO in 2012. The order will hang over him until he is released from jail in about 20 years.
This came on top of an earlier $50 million freeze on property, shares and luxury vehicles belonging to the convicted drug trafficker and his associates.
Brother Horty Mokbel, "left-hand man" Bart Rizzo and George Williams, father of slain gangland boss Carl Williams, have also copped big bills exceeding $700k relating to various offences.
Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said criminals had to be shown that crime did not pay and their assets redirected back into the community.
"Those who think a life of crime will let them live an extravagant lifestyle need to know they stand to lose everything they thought they had gained," he said.
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