Former Adelaide gang leader Vince Focarelli voluntarily leaves Australia, ahead of being deported
EXCLUSIVE: Former gang leader Vince Focarelli has fled Australia — and is unlikely to be allowed to return.
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FORMER gang leader Vince Focarelli has fled Australia — and is unlikely to be allowed to return.
The Advertiser can reveal Focarelli left Adelaide on Thursday night and flew to Melbourne, where he boarded an international flight bound for Italy.
He fled Australia fearing he would be taken into custody and held in a detention centre while fighting moves by the Immigration Department to revoke his visa.
The Advertiser revealed last month that Focarelli was served with a notice of intent by the Immigration Department that it intended to cancel his visa on character grounds.
He had 28 days to put a submission to the department justifying why he should be allowed to remain in the country.
He was allowed an extension until April 3, but has opted to leave the country prior to the adjudication process beginning.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton confirmed Focarelli had left Australia.
In an interview earlier this week Focarelli – who survived five assassination attempts at the hands of gangland rivals – signalled his intention to fight his visa cancellation from overseas.
“If I stick around and wait for them, then there’s a chance I could be taken to a detention centre,” he said.
“Once I settle down, my wife and daughter will come along.”
Focarelli last week closed his Carrington St restaurant and has put it up for sale.
Focarelli last year said he had reformed since embracing Islam and becoming a Muslim.
However, despite his claim that he had left his criminal life behind him, Focarelli was still abiding by the bikie code of silence.
He has consistently refused to provide police Major Crime detectives with a statement that would allow them to arrest and charge the bikie who shot and killed his stepson Giovanni, 22, and wounded Focarelli in an ambush attack at Dry Creek in 2012.
Focarelli, who was a key figure in more than a decade of gang-related violence in Adelaide, is the 42nd South Australian to be targeted under the strengthened provisions of the Immigration Act.
Calling himself Imran Salaam, Focarelli is the second high-profile Adelaide bikie gang figure to be targeted under the measure, with Mongols treasurer Andrew Peter Stevens still fighting his deportation through the courts.
Stevens was forcibly removed from his home and flown to the Christmas Island detention centre last June, along with another lesser-known Adelaide gang figure, ex-Comanchero Paul Burgess.
In 2014, Albanian organised crime figure Leonard Gjeka — who ironically was the gunman in one of the failed assassination attempts on Focarelli — was also deported from Adelaide under Section 501.
The Federal Government has so far cancelled the visas of more than 1000 foreign nationals since the provisions of Section 501 of the Migration Act were strengthened.
They include 138 members of bikie gangs.
Under Section 501 of the Immigration Act, individuals’ visas can be cancelled on character grounds if the individuals “are or have been a member of a group or organisation or had or have an association with a person, group or organisation that the minister reasonably suspects of being involved in criminal conduct”.
The cancellation of key outlaw motorcycle club gang members’ visas has had a significant disruptive effect on the day-to-day operations — including criminal activity — and command and control of several gangs in Australia.
Focarelli has been a key figure in outlaw gang activity in Adelaide. As head of the now-defunct New Boys street gang, he was targeted by rival Hells Angels members and later, as head of the Comancheros, other crime figures for assassination. He survived five attempts on his life, with the latest claiming the life of stepson Giovanni.
In that incident, Focarelli and his son were lured to a meeting at Dry Creek, near the Descendants bike gang clubrooms, as part of a planned execution.
The suspect, a former Descendants member, fired eight shots into Focarelli’s car, wounding him and killing Giovanni. Focarelli drove the car from the scene and flagged down a police car on Prospect Rd at Prospect.
A .357 Magnum was found tucked in Giovanni’s trousers, but forensic testing later discovered DNA belonging to Vince was on the trigger. The drug liquid fantasy was also found in the car.
Focarelli was later jailed for 19 months with a 14-month non-parole period after pleading guilty in the District Court to possessing a firearm without a licence and one count of possessing a controlled drug.
A $200,000 reward is still available for anyone who provides information leading to a conviction over Giovanni’s murder.
