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Airdate: Fat Tony & Co.

Nine's not-Underbelly series Fat Tony & Co. premieres on Sunday night.

robert_mammone_as_tony_mokbelNine’s not-Underbelly series Fat Tony & Co. premieres on Sunday night at 8:40pm.

Fat Tony & Co., the brand-new production from Screentime, tells the story of Australia’s most successful drug baron, from the day he quit cooking pizza in favour of cooking drugs, to the heyday of his $140 million dollar drug empire, all the way through to his arrest in an Athens café and his whopping 22-year sentence in Victoria’s maximum security prison.

Robert Mammone stars as Tony Mokbel with Vince Colosimo as Alphonse Gangitano, Gyton Grantley as Carl Williams, Les Hill as Jason Moran, Madeleine West as Danielle McGuire, Simon Westaway as Mick Gatto, Debra Byrne as Judy Moran, Hollie Andrew as Roberta Williams, Gerard Kennedy as Graham Kinniburgh and Kevin Harrington as Lewis Moran.

Fat Tony & Co. also features Shane Jacobson, Stephen Curry, Steve Bastoni, Richard Cawthorne, Simone Kessell and Nicholas Bishop.

Already a key player on the Australian drug scene in his own right, Fat Tony becomes more deeply embroiled in the underworld as he joins forces with up-and-coming drug dealer Carl Williams. He strikes an uneasy truce with the Carlton Crew, the territorial and dangerous royalty of the Melbourne underworld, even doing business from time to time with the Moran family. With his three brothers and Carl Williams, Tony expands his drug empire into a multi-million dollar industry, all the while investing his profits in honest bricks and mortar, determined to leave a legacy for the family and the city that he loves.

However, the burning tension between Carl and the Carlton Crew is quickly devolving into all-out war – the Melbourne Gangland War that would eventually claim some thirty lives. Tony is losing control of his well-ordered operation, and is finding it harder and harder to remain a neutral businessman. But Tony isn’t like other underworld figures – he always has a plan and an eye to the future, even when it seems like the police have closed every door to him.

The ambition and drive that it took for Tony Mokbel to rise from a suburban milk bar owner to Australia’s most wanted man was matched only by the sheer determination of the police in their ten-year battle to shut Fat Tony down. The Victorian and Federal police undertook a marathon attempt to bring him to justice, spanning countless arrests, legal battles and the downfall of more than one corrupt officer.

Fat Tony & Co. is the true story of Tony Mokbel; how he grew entangled with the country’s most notorious underworld figures, how he built his massive fortune, and how he became a fugitive on a yacht bound for Greece, desperate to escape mounting criminal law battles.

11 Responses

  1. The 20% tax rebate this production gets is from the Tax Office. Given it sounds to me like a rebadged Underbelly and is fact part of the original Underbelly story that couldn’t be told because Tony Mokbel was on the run how can it possibly qualify under the tax rules? It is part of the same story. Are the tax rules so lax or has the ATO got it wrong?

  2. I truthfully don’t care for all the hate that’s probably going to be levelled at me but seeing Nine thumped provides me with joy. They have a lot to be livid and covetous about.

  3. “Well, I for one am looking forward to it. Much as I like Downton Abbey, I hope this trounces it in the ratings. I’m just so sick of 7 winning all the time. Week after week after week after week. Can they just lose once?”

    Absolutely not. Seven shouldn’t misplace their number one rank based upon the veracity that they’re truly the best storytellers. Save for “Dancing with the Stars” in 2005 and 2006, Seven have set in place a one-season boundary to all their hit programs and it’s perceptible that it’s worked in their favour.

    Nine are model example of veracious plagiarists, relentlessly banging their thick heads against the wall and never learning from their mistakes. Instead of attempting to produce great content and setting trends, they love throwing stones and indulge in infantile frolics.

    I truthfully don’t care for all the hate that’s probably going to be leveled at me but…

  4. Well, I for one am looking forward to it. Much as I like Downton Abbey, I hope this trounces it in the ratings. I’m just so sick of 7 winning all the time. Week after week after week after week. Can they just lose once?

  5. It’s not called Underbelly, so 9 could get a tax credit.

    A sequel to the 1st series to finish the Carl Williams story and show more of stuff they didn’t have time to get into, is very good, but it should’ve been done 2 or 3 years ago.

  6. Sounds like a spin off from underbelly to me, so fed up with these kind of programmes now, and normally so over dramatized, cant channel 9 find something else to make, why do they flog everything to death. Wont be watching

  7. In light of the disappointing figures for the Schappelle telemovie it will be interesting to see if the audience is over Nine’s “Underbelly” brand of glamourising drug dealers.

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