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Money has no value in prison, so inmates rely on outside runners to transfer cash from one person to another, which releases items to inside buyers. And if you need a money transferral, Hakim* is your guy.I met up with Hakim at a TAB deep in the Western suburbs. He was pulling $50 notes from a bundle he had in an EA7 messenger bag. He passed me a handful of notes and nodded in the direction of the Big Red pokie machine. “Don’t put in more than $100 at a time," he told me. "The machine jerries [catches on] and fucks you over.” Then I watched his diamond studded Hublot rhythmically pound the buttons as his credits shrunk to zero.The prison world is separated into two economies. There's the public one, which is an image controlled by guards and state justice departments. And then there's the underground economy, which is a system that prison intelligence tries to disrupt. This market runs on cash in exchange for luxuries that emulate freedom: mostly cognac, gambling, USB sticks loaded with porn, and methamphetamine.I sat down with Hakim to understand how he manages the flow of money from the underground to the real world.VICE: Hey Hakim, let's start at the beginning. How did you get into this job?
Hakim: My cousin went to prison and stood over a guy who had access to beup [Buprenorphine is a opiate used in prisons to counter heroin addiction]. I wasn’t working at the time so I was visiting him heaps. He told me about how much money was being turned over in jail, some guys were making at least 10 grand a week, so we worked out a way of getting in on it. You can get shard outside for about $4k an ounce, while in prison you can get up to $20k for it. My cousin started divvying up the buep to the Asians because they were the most reliable and I would meet their contacts on the outside to pick-up the coin.I built a reputation for being very reliable and I always distributed the profit we made with the families of the other inmates in my cousin's unit. They all look after each other and I get to make a living off it on the outside as long as I’m available whenever they need me. Before I knew it my cousin was being approached to collect money for all the other rorts inside; gambling, ice, buep, whatever. If it involved money, I was getting in on it. Now I work seven days a week.Does it get dangerous?
Sometimes. I’ve been stabbed in the arm once, because some junkies tried to roll me. They set me up, thinking that I drove around with a car full of cash.What happened?
I met them at the carpark of Southland shopping centre, near the cinemas on a Wednesday night. There wasn’t anyone around which made me suss. They kept asking me to get out of the car and walk towards them. I was like, “Get fucked just bring me the money because I’ve got boys waiting for me at the gym.” He walked over to the car with one hand in his pocket and a hoodie on. I still thought, he’s probably just paranoid walking around with cash, but I left my car on and when he got close I rolled down my window and asked him what was going on. He just shoved his hand into the car back and forth several times.I thought he was punching me but then I saw blood on his jersey and hit the accelerator. I couldn’t find where I'd been stabbed so I just kept driving. They kept calling me saying they were going to have my cousin offed in jail. But the guy who organised it jumped the fence the next day and went into protection.Related: Watch our documentary on Australia's black market medicinal weed growers:
How do you ensure your safety nowadays?
I've got a couple of guys on call. I ring them and they rock up straight away. I’ve got five spots where I do pick-ups and the guys live close by so they show up ready whenever I call. They get paid a weekly retainer and we promised to sort their legals out if shit gets messy. They are responsible for making sure we get interest if cunts take too long to sort their debts. We give them an extra week on the house, every week after that it’s 15 percent, and that’s if we haven’t had their cars and jet skis signed over. The banks do that shit all the time, and we are supposed to be the corrupt ones so why shouldn't we take a cut? As my boss said, “We are criminals and this is business not charity—too much heart will make you bankrupt.”Cars and jet skis. Tell me, how lavish are some of these guys?
Look, if we do our homework on someone inside, and they are known to have mad cars and boats on the outside, we’ll put them in a spot they can’t get out of. Shout them a few points or whatever they’re into. Get them hooked and flood them with gear they can’t pay for. Sooner or later they'll slip up and we will take them for all they've got. Kind of like when banks give you a loan you can’t dig yourself out of. I’ve seen guys sign over Lamborghinis and AMGs. They act like we are doing them a favour, we are in a way, by keeping them safe from a situation they don’t know we started. Prison is like the world outside, except we don’t front like we are all nice and stab you in the back. We just stab you in the chest and we tell you we're doing this because the world is about survival of the fittest. Jump in or get dropped off.What if those guys decide to roll you?
I never think like that because I still believe in loyalty. The code is still out there if you pick the right associates. We don’t associate with crumbs anymore. These guys have all done a lot of jail and don’t fuck around, it's strictly business. Act first, ask questions later—those types of blokes. The thing that separates us from other crews and so-called gangsters is that we only associate with jail heads. I’ve served three years in a maximum security prison. If they haven’t been part of the system we don’t trust them. And the people dropping cash have to be family of whoever owes, or else no deal.What’s the most amount of money someone has paid you?
The most I’ve picked up in a week has been about 80k in cash. That was because someone in jail paid another guy to give him a pass. From what I understand he was a major coke dealer that had made a statement to the police about another inmate so one of the bosses of the yard brokered a deal to keep him alive. He had to pay 50k to settle the score. About 25k went to the guy running the unit and we were given 5K.What is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you?
I was picking up money for a series of ice deals. The bloke in jail had told us his wife was going to front with the money but when I got to her place she said she was broke. She straight up asked if she could fuck me instead of paying. I don’t know what planet she was living on because the debt was five grand, so I put her on a payment plan and helped her as much as I could. She eventually told me her boyfriend had told her to do it, which was pretty fucking sad. We ended up getting into each other and fucking pretty regularly. I didn’t feel bad though because her boyfriend was the sad cunt using her as currency and she was a really lovely bird, just lonely as.There was another time that my cousin told me a guy wanted me to fuck his wife. He was facing 15 years for importing a ton of MDMA. She lived in an upmarket penthouse off Chapel Street. I was collecting money off her too, but apparently she had seen me in a visit and needed a fuck buddy while her husband was in jail. I could never understand that shit but the other guys told me he gets off over the thought of her fucking other men he knows. Just he has to know them or else it's cheating. Explain that to me.Anyway, I dropped some Kamagra and had a couple of lines to g me up and buzzed up to the room. Then I get there and there was an old man who looked like a fucking accountant in a suit. He was holding a folder he'd stuffed a few bundles of cash into. I asked him where old mate's wife was and he said she was busy with the kids. My cousin didn’t give any explanation and I spent the rest of the night picking up money from people with a boner.Do you ever feel guilty about what the other side of your money looks like, the addictions, stand-overs, and the stabbings?
I’m a religious man and I will pay for my sins. If I have done wrong and I’ll have to deal with it. But this kind of money is a funny thing. It doesn’t last, and honestly I don’t know where it goes. Dirty money corrupts you. I never gambled until I got into this business, work that out. But the more money, the more problems. I just think the more money you have, the more opportunity you have to fuck yourself, with drugs, hookers and gambling. You take bigger risks.Follow Mahmood on Instagram*Hakim is not his real name for obvious legal reasons.
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Hakim: My cousin went to prison and stood over a guy who had access to beup [Buprenorphine is a opiate used in prisons to counter heroin addiction]. I wasn’t working at the time so I was visiting him heaps. He told me about how much money was being turned over in jail, some guys were making at least 10 grand a week, so we worked out a way of getting in on it. You can get shard outside for about $4k an ounce, while in prison you can get up to $20k for it. My cousin started divvying up the buep to the Asians because they were the most reliable and I would meet their contacts on the outside to pick-up the coin.I built a reputation for being very reliable and I always distributed the profit we made with the families of the other inmates in my cousin's unit. They all look after each other and I get to make a living off it on the outside as long as I’m available whenever they need me. Before I knew it my cousin was being approached to collect money for all the other rorts inside; gambling, ice, buep, whatever. If it involved money, I was getting in on it. Now I work seven days a week.
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Sometimes. I’ve been stabbed in the arm once, because some junkies tried to roll me. They set me up, thinking that I drove around with a car full of cash.What happened?
I met them at the carpark of Southland shopping centre, near the cinemas on a Wednesday night. There wasn’t anyone around which made me suss. They kept asking me to get out of the car and walk towards them. I was like, “Get fucked just bring me the money because I’ve got boys waiting for me at the gym.” He walked over to the car with one hand in his pocket and a hoodie on. I still thought, he’s probably just paranoid walking around with cash, but I left my car on and when he got close I rolled down my window and asked him what was going on. He just shoved his hand into the car back and forth several times.I thought he was punching me but then I saw blood on his jersey and hit the accelerator. I couldn’t find where I'd been stabbed so I just kept driving. They kept calling me saying they were going to have my cousin offed in jail. But the guy who organised it jumped the fence the next day and went into protection.Related: Watch our documentary on Australia's black market medicinal weed growers:
I've got a couple of guys on call. I ring them and they rock up straight away. I’ve got five spots where I do pick-ups and the guys live close by so they show up ready whenever I call. They get paid a weekly retainer and we promised to sort their legals out if shit gets messy. They are responsible for making sure we get interest if cunts take too long to sort their debts. We give them an extra week on the house, every week after that it’s 15 percent, and that’s if we haven’t had their cars and jet skis signed over. The banks do that shit all the time, and we are supposed to be the corrupt ones so why shouldn't we take a cut? As my boss said, “We are criminals and this is business not charity—too much heart will make you bankrupt.”
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Look, if we do our homework on someone inside, and they are known to have mad cars and boats on the outside, we’ll put them in a spot they can’t get out of. Shout them a few points or whatever they’re into. Get them hooked and flood them with gear they can’t pay for. Sooner or later they'll slip up and we will take them for all they've got. Kind of like when banks give you a loan you can’t dig yourself out of. I’ve seen guys sign over Lamborghinis and AMGs. They act like we are doing them a favour, we are in a way, by keeping them safe from a situation they don’t know we started. Prison is like the world outside, except we don’t front like we are all nice and stab you in the back. We just stab you in the chest and we tell you we're doing this because the world is about survival of the fittest. Jump in or get dropped off.What if those guys decide to roll you?
I never think like that because I still believe in loyalty. The code is still out there if you pick the right associates. We don’t associate with crumbs anymore. These guys have all done a lot of jail and don’t fuck around, it's strictly business. Act first, ask questions later—those types of blokes. The thing that separates us from other crews and so-called gangsters is that we only associate with jail heads. I’ve served three years in a maximum security prison. If they haven’t been part of the system we don’t trust them. And the people dropping cash have to be family of whoever owes, or else no deal.
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The most I’ve picked up in a week has been about 80k in cash. That was because someone in jail paid another guy to give him a pass. From what I understand he was a major coke dealer that had made a statement to the police about another inmate so one of the bosses of the yard brokered a deal to keep him alive. He had to pay 50k to settle the score. About 25k went to the guy running the unit and we were given 5K.What is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you?
I was picking up money for a series of ice deals. The bloke in jail had told us his wife was going to front with the money but when I got to her place she said she was broke. She straight up asked if she could fuck me instead of paying. I don’t know what planet she was living on because the debt was five grand, so I put her on a payment plan and helped her as much as I could. She eventually told me her boyfriend had told her to do it, which was pretty fucking sad. We ended up getting into each other and fucking pretty regularly. I didn’t feel bad though because her boyfriend was the sad cunt using her as currency and she was a really lovely bird, just lonely as.There was another time that my cousin told me a guy wanted me to fuck his wife. He was facing 15 years for importing a ton of MDMA. She lived in an upmarket penthouse off Chapel Street. I was collecting money off her too, but apparently she had seen me in a visit and needed a fuck buddy while her husband was in jail. I could never understand that shit but the other guys told me he gets off over the thought of her fucking other men he knows. Just he has to know them or else it's cheating. Explain that to me.Anyway, I dropped some Kamagra and had a couple of lines to g me up and buzzed up to the room. Then I get there and there was an old man who looked like a fucking accountant in a suit. He was holding a folder he'd stuffed a few bundles of cash into. I asked him where old mate's wife was and he said she was busy with the kids. My cousin didn’t give any explanation and I spent the rest of the night picking up money from people with a boner.Do you ever feel guilty about what the other side of your money looks like, the addictions, stand-overs, and the stabbings?
I’m a religious man and I will pay for my sins. If I have done wrong and I’ll have to deal with it. But this kind of money is a funny thing. It doesn’t last, and honestly I don’t know where it goes. Dirty money corrupts you. I never gambled until I got into this business, work that out. But the more money, the more problems. I just think the more money you have, the more opportunity you have to fuck yourself, with drugs, hookers and gambling. You take bigger risks.Follow Mahmood on Instagram*Hakim is not his real name for obvious legal reasons.