How Colin McLaren infiltrated Calabrian mafia and did drugs in Australia as an undercover cop

A former undercover cop has spoken about his toughest day trying to infiltrate the criminal underworld revealing he almost blew his cover when he was on a light plane with mafia bosses and forced to listen to them ‘bragging’ about killing one of his colleagues.

Colin McLaren, trying to blow open the Australian branch of the Calabrian mafia back in 1994, was about to board a flight to Weipa in Far North Queensland to confirm the arrival of a huge cocaine deal.

That’s when Mr McLaren heard the news a colleague, Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen, had died in the bombing of the National Crime Authority office in Adelaide.

Lawyer Peter Wallis lost an eye in the 1994 blast too. 

Former undercover cop Colin McLaren has recalled his toughest day infiltrating the criminal underworld was on a light plane with mafia bosses ‘bragging’ about killing one of his colleagues

Mr McLaren had to endure a long light-plane flight with criminals who were ‘bragging’ about the death of Geoffrey Bowen

‘I was in the plane with two mafia heads and they were bragging about the bomb that went off in Adelaide and blew up the NCA building and killed a policeman,’ Mr McLaren told the Kyle and Jackie O show.

To avoid raising any suspicion, Mr McLaren had to joke along with their sick celebrations about killing cops. 

It was one of the hardest things he ever did. 

‘They’re boasting about it … I just wanted to get my gun out and shoot them or throw them out of the plane.’

‘I had to suffer their bulls*** tough guy stuff and their bragging. But your training kicks in and you say to yourself “we’re gonna get these b**tards”.’

Mr McLaren’s undercover work was instrumental in securing enough evidence to jail 11 mafia bosses for up to 13 years each for major drug trafficking and racketeering.

For this reason, Mr McLaren said he will always be looking over his shoulder and worried about the mafia or gangs seeking payback. 

Undercover officer are legally allowed to take cocaine in the execution of their work

The bombing at the National Crime Authority (pictured) in 1994. Six mafiosi were convicted 

Mr McLaren was handpicked by senior Victoria Police officers for undercover work and in his early days practiced by catching minor drug dealers in the back rooms of Melbourne pubs.

Mr McLaren said the first step to infiltrating the Aussie mafia was to create an identity the crooks would believe.

So he became Cole Goodwin, a dodgy Melbourne art dealer who wanted to buy a kilo of cocaine to sell to his clients. 

But to build rapport with lifelong criminals it was necessary to act like them. 

That meant doing drugs and, at times, seeing prostitutes.

Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen (pictured) was killed in the bombing, suffering horrific injuries from the blast

Dominic Perre (pictured, being wheeled by a prison guard) was found guilty of the bombing attack on the National Crime Authority

He received guidance from police psychologists and doctors on what to expect and how to deal with being on drugs. 

His training taught ways to try and avoid drug use – for example, suggesting the parties to a drug deal ‘get on with it’ rather than sit around getting high. 

‘But if you’re Johnny on the spot and you’re in the Hells Angels clubhouse and they want to throw you a line or they expect you to snort some speed or smoke some skunk, you’ve gotta do it.

‘[Undercover police] are allowed to do it, you’re protected by law to do it.’

Mr McLaren and his sidekick, posing as drug buyers, were left with two prostitutes for the evening by Griffith mafia , who wanted the women to find out whether they were wealthy enough to complete the deal and whether they respected their hosts.

While the young women joked about their ‘wog’ bosses to provoke a response, Mr McLaren was a step ahead and disagreed, saying he considered the mafia men ‘great friends’. 

Mr McLaren wasn’t just trained to take and cope with drugs. For another investigation he was taught to manufacture them too.

While on the trail of the NCA bombing, forensics experts discovered a chemical residue from crime scene was also present in home-cooked amphetamines.

So for five weeks Mr McLaren and his team were trained to cook speed in ‘a world first’.

‘Then we put ourselves out there as cooks of speed in Adelaide,’ he said.

His work also helped put another six mafia members behind bars in connection with the NCA bombing.

The bomber, Dominic Perre, was charged with murder soon after the bombing but the case against him was dropped six months later because of a lack of evidence. 

He was arrested again in 2018 and in 2022, found guilty of murder and attempted murder.

Mr McLaren began to write books about his three years as an undercover cop and in 2011 one was turned into a four-hour TV movie, Underbelly Files: Infiltration.

In January he launched a podcast, The Sting.