Comanchero bikie Roberto Morando slugged with $1.7 million tax bill
High-ranking Comanchero bikie Roberto Morando has been hit with a $1.7 million tax bill after a major investigation of his business affairs over the past eight years.
Mr Morando, who was almost killed when ambushed by a gunman in 2015, has denied most of the claims by the Australian Tax Office in a defence statement lodged with the Supreme Court of Victoria.
The ATO assessment has been broken down into almost $1.1 million in unpaid taxes and a further $653,000 in penalties.
In 2014, Fairfax Media revealed that Morando was a shareholder of a security business employed at more than a dozen gaming venues owned by supermarket giant Woolworths and billionaire businessman Bruce Mathieson.
Mr Morando's former business Ultimate Crowd Control was aligned with another security company Nitro Security Pty Ltd, which was owned by Comanchero president Michael Murray before it was placed into administration in 2010.
Security contracts for several ALH Group hotels appear to have been transferred from Nitro Security to Mr Morando's company when it was established in 2010.
The ATO investigation appears to focus on the period between 2010 and 2014, when Mr Morando was a director or shareholder of Ultimate Crowd Control, which was suspected by police of employing gang members and laundering the proceeds of crime.
In 2015, the former champion body builder
was blasted in the torso by a gunman while on an evening walk near
his Narre Warren South home.
At the time of the shooting, Mr Morando was on bail over charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice after allegedly threatening to "cut open" an associate.
He was accused of allegedly pressuring another man to "put his hand up" and take the blame for explosives that were found during police raids.
Echo taskforce detectives are understood to have examined if Mr Morando's shooting was a reprisal for an attack on another security guard, Clay Auimatagi, who was wounded outside a gym in Narre Warren South a month earlier.
The Supreme Court action against Mr Morando is part of a co-ordinated law enforcement attack on the assets of suspected gang bosses, including Comanchero's Mr Murray.
Mr Murray was issued with a tax assessment of more than $9 million in 2014, which was based on unexplained spending and claims that revenue from his tattoo, security and gym businesses had been deliberately under-reported.