Featured image credit: Ben Thomson
We don’t know which clandestine laboratory first started pressing pills with the Mitsubishi logo, or where, but there are many theories about how the first batches got to Australia. One popular example was that Carl Williams was the first large-scale importer, before he began pressing inferior copies to cash in on their cult status. But one former raver told us that they were around as early as 1993, before their quality began slipping around 1996, which is a timeline that predates the bulk of Carl’s criminal career. Another theory suggests that Tony Mokbel had masterminded the lot in Australia, and it was him who’d exported them to the world—but again, it’s impossible to know.
What is known is that in an era when most people didn’t have the internet, the Mitsubishi print became a cult favourite via word of mouth. By around 1998, the logo had become synonymous with the Sheffield-based nightclub GateCrasher. “[mitsubishis] were such a big thing that there were Gatecrasher kids who tattooed the Mitsubishi logo on themselves or had it shaved into their hair.
You can read the story about the pill that terrified Australia in full here.
Via: Vice