Strike Force Tuno and this investigation is soon to be the subject of the fifth Underbelly television series, Underbelly: Badness
When Terry Falconer's dismembered body turned up in the Hastings River in 2001, detective Gary Jubelin was given the investigation to lead. Falconer had been a violent criminal, a police informer, and possibly a murderer. The suspect list quickly grew to 70 of the state's most hardened criminals, all of whom had wanted him dead.
After a year Jubelin had a name. Anthony Perish believed Falconer had carried out a contract killing on his grandparents back in 1993. Perish was almost unknown to police, but as Jubelin and his team dug deeper, they discovered he was one of Australia's most successful drug manufacturers, with strong links to the Rebels bikie gang and a reputation for violence and professionalism. Only the personal nature of his revenge murder of Falconer had brought him out of the shadows.
It took the dozens of detectives involved with Strike Force Tuno a decade to bring Anthony Perish and his brother Andrew to justice. It is an amazing story of what police call serious 'badness', involving many murders, professional killers, protected witnesses, electronic surveillance, underground drug labs, secret hearings conducted by the New South Wales Crime Commission, and over 180,000 recorded phone conversations.
Author Michael Duffy was given almost unprecedented access to police force files to write the story of what has been described as one of Australia's most difficult murder investigations and its biggest. The result is a chilling and forensic account of an Australian criminal empire that dwarfs all others and a meticulous and enthralling chronicle of an extraordinary police investigation.
