From the outside, horse racing identity Les Samba had it made.
He was a prominent Sydney horse owner and had been a successful trainer in Adelaide, managing and co-owning top-line gallopers such as Thorn Park, Flying Pegasus, Gorky Park, and Guillotine.
His daughter Victoria was the 2005 Victorian Ambassador of the Spring Racing Carnival.
Les Samba and his grand daughter Hilary. Samba had passed himself off as a family man, but he also had some sinister underworld mates
Les Samba was captured on CCTV leaving Crown’s Metropol Hotel in Melbourne on the night he died. Why he left there to travel to Middle Park where he was shot dead remains a mystery
She also held positions at the Australian Jockey Club and Racing NSW and had been married to Melbourne jockey Danny Nikolic.
But on February 27, 2011 Samba was murdered in an inner Melbourne suburb not usually associated with gangland executions.
He had been ambushed on Beaconsfield Parade in Middle Park, lured to a spot outside number 299 and shot.
Samba had been in Melbourne for yearling sales and was last seen leaving the Crown Metropol Hotel.
He ran for his life, but already had a bullet in him.
He collapsed face-down in the middle of the road where his killer approached from behind and shot him in the head from point-blank range.
Police later found a spent cartridge from another gun, opening the possibility he had been taken down by a hit team.
Homicide squad detectives had plenty to work with – maybe too much.
Samba had been anything but an upstanding member of the horse racing community.
At the time of his death he was in partnership with Sydney identity Ron Medich with the horse Sea Lord.
Medich had been charged with the murder of property developer Michael McGurk and was on bail.
Last year the 70 year old was effectively sentenced to life in jail over the murder of his nemesis.
McGurk, 45, had been shot in the head by a hit man after pulling up outside his Cremorne home on Sydney’s lower north shore in September 2009.
Danny Nikolic hugs Victoria Samba after riding Patezza over the line to win the Doncaster Handicap at Randwick Races in 2005. The couple would later split and her ex-husband would be questioned about her dad’s death
Victoria Samba’s marriage to Nikolic had collapsed about 18 months earlier and her father had been reportedly meddling with the settlement.
Nikolic was interviewed by police after the murder, but had a sound alibi he had been in Sydney at the time of the murder.
‘Obviously I’m very surprised and very shocked that Les has been killed,’ he told a newspaper a day after the murder. ‘I didn’t have much to do with the bloke so I wouldn’t know anything about why this could happen.
‘I’m up here in Sydney and got hundreds of calls and texts from people saying that Les had been shot … That’s how I found out.’
Nikolic’s brother John was also interviewed by police on the Gold Coast where they seized computers and mobile phones from a property.
In March, he was sentenced to 23 years in a Fiji jail after being convicted of drug smuggling and possession of undeclared weapons.
Les Samba (centre) with daughter Victoria (left) and wife Deidre. Samba was gunned down in cold blood on a summer’s night in Melbourne
Medich shocked no-one when he told police he had nothing to do with Samba’s murder.
Danny Nikolic had never been far from the news even back then and was notorious for his suspensions from the track.
Racing Victoria banned him from riding in late 2012 for threatening behaviour towards racing stewards.
He later reapplied for a jockey’s licence, but was denied on the basis that he was ‘not a fit and proper person’.
His ex-wife made an emotional appeal for information following her father’s death and labelled suggestions that Nikolic or his family were involved in the murder as ‘ridiculous’.
Victoria Samba fronts the media in 2011 after her father Les was murdered. She cried as she pleaded for the pubic to come forward with information
Victoria Samba clings to hope that her father’s killers may one day be brought to justice
In 2012, police offered a $1million reward for information leading to a conviction.
Police believed it was the ‘right amount’ to coax someone with information about the murder to come forward.
Two years later, a mystery caller rang Victoria Police and offered up some information on the murder they believed was significant.
The following year, police went public with their belief Samba’s murder was ordered by an international organised crime syndicate, whom he allegedly owed a $200,000 drug debt.
The head of the police’s Paruna taskforce confirmed Samba had ‘another side’ to him – one involving drugs, drug money and connections to an international crime syndicate.
The investigation spread across Australia, with detectives travelling to Western Australia and Sydney to interview people.
Les Samba was captured on CCTV leaving Crown’s Metropol Hotel in Melbourne on the night he died. Why he left there to travel to Middle Park where he was shot dead remains a mystery
Police pleaded with the mystery caller to phone them back, but they feared he had already met with foul play.
They said an indemnity from prosecution would be considered by the Department of Public Prosecutions for anyone who helped identify the principal offenders.
In 2017, State Coroner Sara Hinchey said it was unlikely anyone would ever be charged with the murder.
In an industry where people like to talk, theories of why Samba was killed linger.
Was he killed over a drug debt?
Or did he demand a piece of a race fixing scam that earned him instead a couple of bullets?
‘I’m not giving up hope. It (the investigation) will stay open,’ Victoria Samba told the Herald Sun following the coroner’s report. ‘Hopefully, we’ll know one day.’
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit the website www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.