Made then unmade: Brunswick organised crime boss Rocco Arico (left) at a funeral in 2016. Credit:Jason South MATTAS: You run the show, not me. ARICO: Yeah, you better f---in believe it. It was no accident the meeting was held in Brunswick – despite its burgeoning reputation as a suburb of hipster cafes, vintage shops and eco-friendly apartment developments. Arico and Mattas grew up only a few blocks apart in the once predominantly working-class suburb, and decades later they would still be using its streets, parks and pubs to do business.

Sydney Road, Brunswick: Multicultural and increasingly middle-class but still home to mobsters. Credit:Vince Caligiuri Even after Arico, by then top dog, moved to a flash apartment in Southbank's Eureka Tower, he would still regularly return to do business in and around Brunswick. Arico and Mattas were part of a crew of neighbourhood boys that entered a life of crime as drug dealers, standover men and (suspected) murderers, the associates of gangland players like Carl Williams, the Moran family and the Carlton Crew. Court in the act: Gangland lawyer Joe "Pino" Acquaro, since murdered, leaves court with client Rocco Arico, in 2015. Credit:Courtesy Channel Nine None of the Brunswick boys became household names in the "Underbelly War" (1999-2006) between those factions, but most survived the fighting and rose to power in the aftermath.

On Thursday, that ascent ended for the most influential of their crew, Rocco Arico, who was convicted of extortion, drug and weapons offences. Dark deeds: Allard Park Footy Oval where an ill-fated drug deal went wrong. Arico's four-week trial in the County Court – where Mattas appeared as the star witness for the prosecution – revealed how Brunswick and the surrounding suburbs have become a business hub and playground for organised crime. It was also a window into how drug trafficking actually works in a world where electronic eavesdropping has made phone calls, text messages, and conversations in cars and homes unsafe for conducting criminal activity. Gunned down: Former Bandidos enforcer Toby Mitchell was shot outside a local gym. Credit:Wayne Taylor

The cardinal rule of the "Brunswick Crew" was never, ever talk business on the phone. Mobiles and pay phones were only used to set up meetings. Business was negotiated in person, often out in the open – a precaution known as a "walk and talk". Brunswick boy and now jailed Brunswick gangster Tony Mokbel in 2008. Credit:Thanassis Stavrakis "We don't talk on the phones … We'd go for a walk and discuss what was gonna happen," Mattas testified. Arico and his associates would often take these strolls in the residential streets just off Sydney Road, not far from their childhood homes.

Even then they were still cautious, using gestures like pointing to your nose to signify cocaine, an eye for ice, or using a car key to denote a kilogram of a drug. Meetings would also be convened in popular neighbourhood restaurants and pubs, or at well-known local landmarks like the Don Bosco Hostel or Doherty's Gym (right next door to the Bandidos bikie clubhouse). Mattas said Arico threatened to shoot up his family home over an unpaid $110,000 debt during a sit-down at Sydney Road's Post Office Hotel. Mattas would also be stood-over for a $200,000 drug debt at now-defunct Italian eatery Zagame's by Savas Pastras, another long-time neighbourhood associate-turned-enemy. Parks and parking lots were also useful places to transfer drugs on the assumption that being open rather than furtive provided a cloak of protection.

Mattas said he took delivery of a kilogram of cocaine near the Brunswick IGA – pretty brazen, given it's only a few doors down from the local police station. Those drugs were supposed to be sold to then-Bandidos bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell in Allard Park in Brunswick East on Boxing Day in 2010. Mitchell instead stole the cocaine, leaving as payment a box of men's magazines instead of cash at the drop point under a tree. When a meeting was later brokered at the same place to sort out the "misunderstanding", the footy oval and popular dog walking spot became the scene of a wild brawl that quickly escalated into an exchange of gunfire. "I was looking, I saw the gun, I immediately said to myself out loud 'Oh f--- he's got a gun'," a witness testified. Fortunately, no innocent bystanders were hurt. But the area's most infamous public shooting was when Mitchell was gunned down in a Brunswick street opposite the area's busiest shopping centre, Barkly Square, in November 2011.

Mattas falsely took credit for that attempted hit – a lie that would break his 20-year friendship with Arico. It was his anger at this betrayal, and Mattas' repeated inability to pay his debts, that would ultimately lead to Arico's downfall. Mattas, under threat as his family's cars and new Coburg home were being vandalised and torched, decided to become a police informer. He wore a wire to a "walk and talk" outside a real estate agency on Sydney Road, a conversation where Arico would be caught on tape offering to sell Mattas drugs. A few days later, infuriated because Mattas still hadn't sorted out the debt, Arico would break his own cardinal rule by threatening Mattas' family in a phone call that was intercepted by police.

And all this was going on right under the noses of all those Brunswick hipsters. They shouldn't be surprised, really, because while the median house price is now a well-heeled $815,000 it's long been a place favoured by organised crime. Drug lord Tony Mokbel owned a home there, even setting up a drug lab (which burned down) in the property next door. The crown jewel of Mokbel's ill-gotten property empire was supposed to be an $18 million T-shaped apartment tower on Sydney Road that was promoted as a Brunswick landmark akin to the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe. That land would be seized by authorities as the proceeds of crime after Mokbel was imprisoned.

Now that Arico is going to jail, the only question is: who runs the show next? cvedelago@theage.com.au WHO'S WHO IN THE BRUNSWICK CREW ROCCO ARICO: Major underworld player connected to the Calabrian mafia. Convictions for kidnapping, attempted murder, extortion, guns, violence and drug trafficking CON MATTAS: Mid-level drug trafficker. Long-time friend of Arico who became the prosecution's star witness. Falsely took credit for shooting Toby Mitchell in 2011.

SAVAS PASTRAS: Alleged drug trafficker who stood-over Mattas for $200,000 debt. Once arrested with $44,000 in cash at the home of crime patriarch Lewis Moran. MICHAEL "EYES" PASTRAS: Alleged drug trafficker; brother of Savas. Nicknamed "Eyes" because drug kingpin Carl Williams gave him diamond-encrusted glasses. Shot in the buttocks and thigh in 2006. TRAVIS "THE ALBINO" EADES: Mattas says Eades and another man set fire to his family home to pressure him into paying his debts. Interviewed over the murder of racing identity Les Samba in 2011. OTHER KEY PLAYERS TOBY MITCHELL: Bandidos bikie enforcer who allegedly stole cocaine from Mattas in 2010. He was shot six times in 2011 – in an unrelated attack – but survived. Currently in prison for drug offences.

CARL "FAT BOY" WILLIAMS: Convicted murderer and drug trafficker and friend of Rocco Arico. Arico was driving a car owned by Williams in 2000 when he shot a man six times in a road rage incident. Arico is suspected of orchestrating Williams' murder in prison in 2010. * Real name suppressed for legal reasons