I’M NOT DEAD YET

GATTO DEBT COLLECTOR, ALL THAT GLITTERS

What do you mean ‘was like a son’? I’m still alive!

PART-TIME Gold Coast debt collector Anthony Swords – who trades using underworld identity Mick Gatto’s surname – has an important announcement.

He wants you to know he is still alive. The Gatto Corporate Solutions boss rang ATG this week to clarify he was still breathing and working after the

Bulletin referred to him in the past tense.

In the article on Wednesday, new Nicolinis restaurant boss Toni Celona said Mr Swords “was like my son”. An amused Mr Swords revealed the past tense reference sparked a flurry of frantic calls and texts from family, friends and clients.

“What do you mean ‘was like a son’? I’m still alive!,” he clarified on the

Bulletin site, before calling to say: “I’m getting family from all over Australia going ‘What’s happened to him?’ They are ringing me missus.

“Did you hear that text message go off? That was another one asking ‘are you all right?’.

“I’ve got clients on the Gold Coast left, right and centre, and they’re calling me up going ‘are you still alive?’.”

His mentor Mr Celona, 61, has dived back into the restaurant scene while Victorian police probe “compliance issues” at a security company in Melbourne where he was CEO. He and Mr Swords have known each other three decades.

Mr Swords said at age eight he started unloading break trucks at markets for the Celona family. In December, he brought his kids to the Coast when Mr Celona took over Nicolinis so the latter could “teach them the same work ethic”. “I would have done years of jail if it had not been for Toni saving me and putting me on the right track. I was one of those teenage kids no one could control,” Mr Swords said.

“Mention my name for a good table at Nicolinis.”.