Monday 16 May 2022 12:34 AM How Sydney has turned into a gangster's paradise: Guns, drugs and bodies piling ... trends now
Sydney's streets have erupted in violence with the race to re-supply the nation's largest drug market sparking bloody gangland battles and among teenage groups fighting for 'territory' in their post codes.
Bodies have been piling up in the Harbour City in the past 18 months, with 13 contract killings linked to the bitter feud between the Hamzy and Alameddine crime clans.
The highly-planned hits - which have sometimes involved using secret tracking devices attached to cars - have been so precisely executed that investigators are mostly powerless to stop the war from escalating.
Terrified witnesses are are often too scared to speak over fears of retaliation, making it nearly impossible to prosecute the perpetuators.
Police in New South Wales are so overwhelmed that Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith told cabinet ministers and senior public servants in a secret briefing 'we're [police] swinging a pool noodle and they've [crime bosses] got guns', Sydney Morning Herald reported.
In a desperate move to quell the violence, state police are teaming up with the Australian Federal Police and intelligence agencies in a new 'super taskforce' dubbed Erebus.
Meanwhile, postcode gangs operating at the bottom of the criminal pyramid in the rugged streets of western Sydney may be lacking the same level of criminal sophistication, but their crimes are equally as ruthless, with several fatal stabbings and bashings connected to the neighbourhood beefs.
The gangs flaunt their status online by posting images of themselves with weapons, designer clothes and expensive jewellery.
Bodies have been piling up in the Harbour City in the past 18 months with at least a dozen contract killings linked to the bitter feud between the Hamzy and Alameddine crime clans
Postcode gangs operating at the bottom of the criminal pyramid have been at war for control of the street
Postcode feuds are thought to have been the reason for several fatal stabbings and bashings in recent years
'During the pandemic lockdowns, many people lost contact with their drug suppliers on the street level,' organised crime and dark networks expert Professor Mark Lauchs told Daily Mail Australia.
'I would say that has caused a lot of built-up tension, and the rush to get back in business and create new illicit opportunities may be part of the reason for this run of violence.'
Wastewater testing by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission in August 2021 - a time when much of New South Wales was under lockdown - found use of heroin and meth decreased significantly while cocaine consumption fell to its lowest levels on record.
Now that international borders have reopened along with pubs and nightclubs, international drug cartels are trying desperately to fill the void.
This was tragically highlighted by the death of a suspected drug smuggler who was found floating in the Port of Newcastle.
Organised crime detectives believe the South American wearing technical dive gear was trying to bring ashore about $20million haul of cocaine attached to the hull of a Panama-flagged cargo ship.
A man has been arrested in connection with the death of a diver who was trying to recover $20 million of cocaine from the hull of a ship in Newcastle
Police divers are pictured in a recovery operation after a diver was found dead close to a massive cocaine haul
Australia's largest coal port, along with neighbouring Lake Macquarie, has long been a beacon for international drug importers, with the nation's most lucrative market for illicit substances - Sydney - just a two-hour drive south.
The route is often referred to among seasoned organised crime detectives as Australia's drug 'superhighway'.
But the NSW Police and the AFP admit it's one of many locations on Australia's east coast currently being targeted by international drug syndicates.
Once the product makes it ashore, it's distributed among organised crime groups who divvy it up and offload it among lower-level dealers who in turn sell the drugs to runners below them.
Assistant Commissioner Smith said in his high-level briefing that incoming drug cargo is 'put out to auction and sold to the highest bidder' with the illicit packages delivered via an entrenched corrupt 'transport network'.
Once in the hands of larger players, drugs like cocaine are often sold down dozens of times before reaching recreational users.
With a wave of newly imported narcotics recently flooding the market, experts say it's left a lot of room for competition at all levels of the drug business.
Comancheros Outlaw Motorcycle Gang have been providing muscle for the Alameddine crime groups
Bullet holes can be seen in the glass window of the Bodyfit Gym in Auburn after the shooting
Tarek Zahed (pictured, right) and brother Omar (left) were gunned down outside a gym on Tuesday night - with Omar dying at the scene after being shot in the head
A new taskforce has been set up to investigate the fatal shooting of the nephew (Rami Iskander, pictured) of slain gangster Mahmoud Ahmad as police chase three theories to why he was killed
Since August 2020 there have been 13 murders linked to the turf war between the Hamzy and Alameddine crime familes.
The latest shooting happened on Saturday when the nephew of slain gangland figure Mahmoud 'Brownie' Ahmad was shot dead at his western Sydney home - the third fatal shooting in recent weeks.
Rami Iskander, 23, was shot in the torso in front of his pregnant wife and two-year-old child at his home on Knox Street at Belmore just before 4am on Saturday.
Iskander was killed just days after his uncle Ahmad was sprayed with bullets outside a Greenacre home on April 27 after a $1million bounty was placed on his head.
Detectives are chasing down three theories trying to explain why Iskander was killed, including whether or not his enemies were trying to prevent him from avenging his father's death.
The community was already reeling from the May 10 hit on Commanchero bikie Sergeant-at-arms Tarek Zahed and his brother Omar, who were both peppered with bullets while working out at the Bodyfit gym in Auburn, Sydney's west, on Tuesday.
Omar - who is also a notorious underworld figure - died at the scene while Tarek was shot ten times including in the face and survived.
It's understood the bikie gang have built an alliance with the Alameddine syndicate, who are now regarded as Sydney's most powerful and dangerous organised crime group after picking off hamzy associates 'like flies' in recent months.
'Muscle is the skill set that bikies naturally have,' Professor Lauchs said.
'They're big boofy blokes with the propensity for violence and that is a service they have been providing to crime groups since the 1960s.
'Debt collection is one of the main things, but also protection and intimidation.'
Strikeforce Erebus has now been established to try and stop the bloodshed with the Australian Federal
