Home Affairs minister Bob Debus has defended the secrecy surrounding the return of former fugitive Tony Mokbel to Australia.
The operation reportedly cost more than $450,000 dollars but Mr Debus says it would be neither appropriate nor acceptable to allow Mokbel to remain at large.
The minister says the government had to do what it could to pursue Mokbel and to protect the operation to bring him back home.
Mokbel wakes up this morning, back behind Australian bars, a far cry from his life of freedom in sunny Athens where he was found in a cafe wearing a wig.
After Greece extradited him he was flown back and arrived at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne early yesterday afternoon.
He was taken straight to maximum security at Barwon Prison where he appeared in an out of sessions court hearing facing two counts of murder, failing to appear and drug trafficking charges.
The 42-year-old is due to face murder and drugs charges in court this coming Tuesday.
He is accused of killing underworld figures Lewis Moran in 2004 and Michael Marshall in 2003.
He is also still to serve the minimum nine-year sentence he was handed after he fled Australia in March 2006 during his trial for importing nearly two kilograms of cocaine from Mexico.
