Police and customs officials searched the yacht in Apollo Bay and found bundles of cash, false passports and drivers’ licences.

The stash, found in 2006, belonged to father and son Gino and Mark Stocco and they were named the ‘Port Fairy Pirates.’

The pair gained national notoriety in 2015 when, after eight years on the run, they shot at police during a high-speed chase near Wagga Wagga.

They were eventually caught by heavily armed police and later charged with the murder of a 68-year-old man.

The break-in at the yacht club would prove to be the tip of the iceberg when it came to the Stoccos’ offending.

Port Fairy Sergeant Mick Wolfe said it was a long and slow process to track the men to Apollo Bay.

The investigation was called Operation Kiwarrak and Sergeant Wolfe said he rang every port between Adelaide to Apollo Bay to find out if they moored in the area. 

“We knew they had to be somewhere,” he said. “We didn’t know if they were heading towards Tassie or where because we didn’t know who they were at that stage. They were just drifting into Port Fairy for a few days and then headed off… we knew they had to be somewhere and by a slow process we found them down in Apollo Bay.”

Sergeant Wolfe said the yacht was a mess of food and clothes.

“What was of interest to us was the money that they had,” he said.

“They had a couple of thousand dollars in cash and part of that was the proceeds from the yacht club. They had a couple of tea towels from the yacht club which helped us put them there.

“We didn’t really know what we were coming across. We were after them for the burglary, but we didn’t know who they were. 

“They were very vague and lying so we thought ‘well they’re up to something’... so we called the canine unit down from Melbourne to go through the yacht in case there were false panels.

“That was for drugs and explosives but nothing along that nature was located. They were both lying, neither of them were telling the truth at all.

“If we were talking about their relationship one would say ‘that’s my father’ and the other would say ‘nah he’s my friend’. It was quite challenging, rather than just shut up and make no comment they were trying to lie their way out of it.

“It wasn’t til hours later that we were able to really nail them down to what we thought might be the case.”

Macarthur policeman David Rook assisted Sergeant Wolfe with the investigation and yacht search.

He said the men were cunning and deceitful and he had no doubt there were crimes they committed that they were never pinned for.

“When they were separated, they were still cunning,” he said.

“They still gave false names. It took hours and hours to establish who they were.”

In a bizarre twist of fate, leading senior constable Rook ran into the two fugitives while he and his wife were holidaying in mid New South Wales in 2010.

Leading Senior Constable Rook said he’d stopped at Dunedoo and recognised the Stoccos at a service station – the same town the men would be arrested in five years later.

He said he recognised the men straight away and luckily they couldn’t place him.

He said he called the police and was told a patrol car was coming.

He headed to the caravan park where the men were staying but once they cottoned on they “took off in great haste”.

“They were throwing their wet clothes off the line into the car, they spun the wheels as they left,” he said.

“Like us, the police were probably stretched fairly thin and for whatever reason the planets didn’t align. This was before the whole world was after them.”

The Stoccos are the subject of a new book written by former crime reporter at The Age Nino Bucci.

Raised in Port Fairy, Mr Bucci said the Stoccos may have underestimated the local police force and the fact there was little crime in the town.

“If you get someone doing something like breaking into the yacht club then they’re probably going to bother finding who it is,” he said.

“The police certainly had no idea when they raided that yacht in Apollo Bay who exactly they were dealing with. They found the whole thing so weird that they had these two guys travelling around on a yacht, (there were) lots of passports in different names and drivers’ licences, phone bills and big bundles of cash. It was the start of something in the sense that once that yacht was taken from them and they were arrested … after that they started their real incarnation as the crooks that we came to know in 2015.”

Gino and Mark Stocco spent eight years on the run before their trail of destruction came to an end.

In those years it was common for the pair to work as farmhands in New South Wales and Queensland then leave in the middle of the night after a disagreement. They would then return to the properties and cause significant damage.

Mr Bucci started digging into the Stoccos after they shot at police and gained national attention.

Sergeant Wolfe said he recognised the men straight away when news of their more serious offending broke.

“We were certainly on guard in case they did come back to this area and so were my members here,” he said. “Because they had been down here before so you just didn’t know if they were going to head back this way. We got them before they really ran riot. At the time it was an interesting one – we called them the pirates.”

Despite Mr Bucci’s long investigation into the pair it was difficult for him to say what made them tick.

“I think ultimately Gino was one of those people that felt that life owed him and he hadn’t got what he deserved out of life and so he sort of spent his life trying to take back what was his and once he convinced Mark of the merits of that strange sort of quest they were always destined to become fairly destructive,” he said.

“The thing that’s kind of most fascinating is why Mark followed his Dad into that. 

“I don’t completely have any answers into that other than to say that Gino was a very controlling person and Mark was quite a meek person, and when you combine that with them being father and son that obviously became an absolute power that Gino could have over Mark. 

“I also wonder if there was something in Mark that he was also pretty willing to cut himself off from everything.

“But when it came to the most serious offences, ultimately you have to see that through the prism of them seeing the way of life that they’ve cherished being threatened and impinged on and they thought they had no other option other than to strike back.”

In 2017 the men were sentenced to a maximum of 40 years behind bars.