The Road To War: The mystery of Sydney’s missing rocket launchers

NSW cops, the AFP and the city’s criminals have never given up looking for Sydney’s now-legendary missing rocket launchers. Here’s what happened.

NSW cops, the Australian Federal Police and the city’s criminals have never given up looking for Sydney’s now-legendary missing rocket launchers.

Around the time the Darwiche and Razzak clans were shooting each other on the city’s streets, there were rumours some Harbour City crims had laid their hands on a number of military-grade rocket launchers.

A lot of cops scoffed at the whispers, while the Australian Defence Force does not talk to the media at the best of times – let alone to respond to rumours like these.

But in 2006 when ­Detective Superintendent Ken McKay drove into Bankstown Police Station with a rocket launcher in the boot of his cop car, it was clear the Australian Army had a major ­problem on its hands.

The rumours became fact after Adnan Darwiche was arrested and two detectives visited him in jail where he spoke about having rocket launchers. He said wanted to make a deal.

Darwiche himself didn’t have much negotiating power, but Supt McKay knew that his mother had issues with the Crime Commission over asset seizures, so he went to Lithgow Jail for a face-to-face sit down with Darwiche.

Rocket launcher that could be one of the 10 rocket launchers stolen from the Australian Defence Force.

One of the rocket launchers.

“I said give us the rocket launchers and we will not pursue your mother,’’ Supt McKay recalled. “Later I got a call from one of his brothers who said, ‘I have those things for you’.”

Darwiche’s mother was never accused of any criminal wrongdoing.

Eager to get the weapon off the streets, Supt McKay rang the NSW Bomb Squad and asked what he should do when he went to collect the rocket launcher.

“All they said is, ‘don’t do it’, but anyway I went and got it and took it back to the squad room,’’ Supt McKay said.

The Road To War: First episode released Monday, June 23

The Daily Telegraph's The Road To War

It would be nearly seven years before the true story of how 10 M72 portable anti-tank weapons were stolen by a former army captain and ended up in the hands of murderous Sydney crims and terrorists.

Police later charged Shane Malcolm Della-Vedova, who admitted stealing 10 launchers between 2001 and 2003 and handing them to a friend who was a former Rebels bikie, who in turn sold them to criminals.

Then, when police began investigating the early-2000s gangland war, Adnan Darwiche confessed he bought six of the lethal weapons and negotiated the recovery of one of them. Darwiche also claimed he gave five of them to a man later convicted of planning a terror plot.

But where the outstanding nine weapons are now remains a total mystery – one which haunts counter-terrorism and NSW cops to this day.

You can watch The Road To War episode one ‘Til Death Do Us Part from Monday, June 23 on The Daily Telegraph

Originally published as The Road To War: The mystery of Sydney’s missing rocket launchers