Colin McLaren is an Australian documentary filmmaker, crime writer and former police detective sergeant and task force team leader. A feature-length telemovie Underbelly Files: Infiltration about his life by Underbelly Productions, starring Sullivan Stapleton in the title role, aired in 2011 in Australia and other territories.
Police career
McLaren reportedly joined the police academy at the age of 24 and worked in law enforcement during the 1980s and 1990s. When asked to join a covert surveillance unit, he began spying on drug importers and the ringleaders of organized crime, before going undercover and organizing covert sting operation. As a member an Australian task forces, McLaren worked as a suit and tie detective. He contributed on the Walsh Street murders of police constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre, the Mr Cruel child rapes, the murder of thirteen-year-old Karmein Chan, and the bombing of the Adelaide NCA police headquarters where he was task force leader. McLaren then went undercover, where for two years he infiltrated Australia's mafia in the guise of a money laundering art dealer. It is often referred to as the largest undercover sting in Australian history. Eleven Mafia bosses received sentences of up to 13 years each for major drug trafficking and racketeering. He also went undercover for another year to gain evidence on the mafia responsible for the NCA bombing. Six Mafia members were jailed. He ended his police career as a permanent lecturer at the detective training school, his subjects being 'crime scene management' and 'field investigations'.
After leaving police work, he developed his interest in Italian style gourmet food and wine, designing the Italian villa 'Villa Gusto' in the countryside in northeast Victoria, Australia.
Writing career
McLaren began writing in 2005, commencing on his first book, which became a best seller. McLaren's first book, Infiltration, is a non-fiction book detailing his efforts as a suit and tie detective and undercover agent who infiltrated the Mafia. McLaren followed this up with On the Run, a non-fiction book about McLaren as his Mafia alias, Cole Goodwin, which has been adapted to a screenplay. McLaren's third book, Sunflower, is a historical work depicting the experiences of his grandfather, one of Australia's longest-serving foot soldiers from the First World War.
McLaren's book JFK: The Smoking Gun was based upon Howard Donahue's theory that United States President John F. Kennedy was accidentally shot by a secret service agent in the car behind Kennedy's limousine. McLaren's investigation was a continuation of Bonar Menninger's earlier book about Donahue's theory, Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK.
From 2016 to 2018, McLaren researched the case of the murder of Bob Chappell in Hobart, where Susan Neill-Fraser was convicted of killing her de facto husband on their yacht. For two years, McLaren spoke to hundreds of people, witnesses and police and produced a book called Southern Justice, to be released in 2019. It details an alternative view of the murder and shows that other persons may have been involved and that Neill-Fraser may be innocent. His hypothesis have seen him called to give evidence at the Supreme Court, in early 2019.
TV series and episodes
McLaren's police career has been the focus of various television documentaries and the Underbelly Files: Infiltration telemovie series screened on Channel 9.
McLaren is a technical advisor for many TV series and films in the crime genre, among them the Screentime Films trilogy of Tell them Lucifer was Here, The Man that Got Away and Infiltration. Also the TV series Squizzy about Squizzy Taylor, a gangster from the 1920s, for which McLaren wrote storyline material. McLaren also contributed to Killing Time, the television mini-series based on once corrupt lawyer Andrew Fraser's life, produced by Fremantle Media, TV1 and Film Victoria. McLaren has narrated episodes on Crimes That Shocked Australia and many other one-hour TV episodes about crime families, gangs and his knowledge of them.