Victorian football was last week shocked by the news that the headquarters of Dandenong Thunder had been raided by anti-gang and sports-corruption detectives, along with the homes of supporters and a senior club official.
The Age’s Nick Mckenzie, Australia’s preeminent investigative journalist, joined Box2Box for an extensive discussion on the club’s suspected links with Albanian organised crime, the susceptibility semi-professional clubs face regarding organised crime and corruption, and why footballers may be more predisposed to the threat of corruption than other athletes in Australia.
‘The allegation behind the raids is somebody deeply involved in gameday activities, at the very least, has been dribbling out information. At the very worst, has been interfering with what’s gone on on the field, in a way as to pervert the outcome of the game[s]’, McKenzie told Box2Box.
‘Organised crime can’t do this without people on the inside, we know that as a general rule. There’s no doubt what they’re policing and looking at is who on the inside, if anybody, has been helping out and how.’
In July 2023, The Age published an investigation by McKenzie, Michael Bachelard and Amelie Ballingera into Albanian organised crime in Australia, outlining how the exploitation of the immigration system has led to the control of the local cocaine market, and the building of a ‘powerful criminal enterprise.’
Given the deep, historically-entrenched role the Albanian community continues to play in the running of the Thunder, and the extent to which organised crime has separately flourished among more recent Albanian migrants, McKenzie feels the cross-pollination of the two should come as no surprise.
‘Most Albanians are law abiding, good people, both in Albania and Australia. But Albania has a massive organised crime and corruption problem for a whole range of reasons. Albanian organised crime is in charge of the cocaine market in large parts of Europe, and is establishing control of the cocaine and cannabis crop house market in parts of Australia.
‘Dandenong Thunder has a really proud and honourable Albanian history, is founded by Albanians and is very much proud of its ethnic identity, and that’s a good thing. But, because there are strands of organised crime in pockets of that community, there’s inevitably going to be overlap.
‘The community forms around, in the case of Dandenong, the local Dandy Market, the mosque, and the footy club. Where will Albanian gangsters be looking to direct attention? Where you can make easy money. Sport is of course vulnerable, especially at lower levels, [through] betting, match fixing.’
The news represents a second match-fixing scandal for Australian football in 2024. In August, three Macarthur Bulls players faced Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court over the alleged bet-fixing of yellow cards, with then-captain Ulises Davila alleged to have acted as a conduit to an unnamed criminal group in Colombia.