About this episode

The episode discusses the Melbourne gangland war through the insights of detective Stuart Bateson and author John Silvester.

The gangland war has become like folklore in the tale of crime in Australia. From 1995, dozens of murders occurred in Melbourne in a wrestle over drugs and egos involving notorious underworld figures such as Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel, and the Morans. At the centre of it all was Stuart Bateson, a detective with the Purana taskforce. Today, John Silvester - who wrote the definitive account of the gangland war - talks to Bateson about what investigating this violent web of crooks was really like, and hear part of a recording of a real gangland hit. Bateson talks to Sly ahead of the release of a new three-part documentary from Channel Nine called Naked City: Hitmen, which screens from March 4. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People in this episode

Host: John Silvester

Guest: Stuart Bateson

Topics covered

• gangland war
• Melbourne crime
• underworld figures
• detective work
• drug trade
• murders
• true crime

Keywords

• Melbourne
• gangland war
• crime
• detective
• murders
• Carl Williams
• Tony Mokbel
• underworld
• true crime
• Naked City

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Channel Nine

Books & works: Naked City: Hitmen

More episodes of Naked City

• The cop, the sovereign citizen and the arrest that ruined a life · April 21, 2026 · 43 min
• The top cop who used his music career to find Tony Mokbel · April 14, 2026 · 42 min
• They were violent young offenders. But something happened to these ‘lost boys’ of Port Phillip · April 7, 2026 · 27 min
• We'll be back soon · March 31, 2026 · 0 min
• True detective, Part 2: Hunting a cannibal, and other tales of homicide · March 24, 2026 · 57 min
• True detective, Part 1: The hitman, and the corruption case of the century · March 17, 2026 · 1h 5m

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