Business owned by Mick Gatto collapses with $3 million tax bill

A business owned by Mick Gatto has collapsed, with the underworld figure blaming a bank for failing to provide promised funding to pay off the Tax Office.

Elite Dogman & Riggers, a company that employed staff who worked with Gatto’s crane drivers, was placed in liquidation yesterday, reportedly owing between $3 and $3.5 million to the Australian Taxation Office.

Gatto told the Herald Sun that a bank had promised to lend the business money to pay off its tax bill.

“They have been stringing us along for eight months and they have come back to us at the last minute saying that they don’t loan money to pay tax,” he said.

Liquidator Glenn Crisp of RSM Bird Cameron Partners, appointed yesterday, was contacted for comment this morning.

Gatto expects to find work for the company’s 60 employees at other businesses he owns.

“The liquidator will come in and work it all out and whatever they want to do we will work with them and try to do the right thing.”

Gatto is the son of two Calabrian immigrants turned professional heavyweight boxer who featured in the television series Underbelly. His businesses include Elite Cranes and Elite Crane Services.

He raised eyebrows in 2008 by heading off to Singapore in search of money lost through the collapse of failed Melbourne stockbroker Opes Prime, as part of his industrial mediation business Arbitrations and Meditations.

Last year he was said to have stepped in to quash a conflict between Gold Coast conman Peter Foster and a former colleague over fees related to the failed diet spray SensaSlim.