By Perry Duffin
Six months before an underworld figure was gunned down in front of diners on a busy inner Sydney street, an equally brazen plot to kidnap him in broad daylight ended with a ute crashing through a pizza shop.
Nedal Acherkouk, on Friday evening, was cornered by cloaked assassins in the forecourt of a Surry Hills service station.
The poncho-clad pair concealed their faces, eyes and bodies before ambushing the 31-year-old with pistols as he sat in a blue car at the BP service station on Cleveland Street.
It was “outrageous”, police said, that diners had to flee gunshots as Acherkouk scrambled for safety.
Acherkouk died in a pool of blood, just metres from the Erciyes Turkish restaurant where he had been eating dinner with friends.
Nadal Acherkouk was gunned down in Surry Hills on Friday evening.Credit: Nine
The assassins fled in a Porsche which was later found burned out in nearby Kensington.
It was not the first time Acherkouk had been targeted in public this year.
Acherkouk walked out of Punchbowl gym in July just before lunchtime when a man in a balaclava emerged and forced him into his own car.
The 30-year-old wrestled his attacker inside the black Ford Ranger as the ute smashed into the front of a Domino’s pizza shop.
Acherkouk’s black Ford Ranger smashed into a pizza shop after he fought off an abduction attempt in July.Credit: Nick Moir
The attacker was not alone – he fled the scene with other men in balaclavas in a white van.
Acherkouk briefly fled but returned as paramedics and police swarmed. He was uninjured.
Photographs taken by the Herald show the Ranger with its door flung open and guarded by police.
Police sources, at the time, were investigating whether Acherkouk had a connection to or conflict with the Comanchero motorcycle gang.
A CCTV still from the scene of the fatal shooting in Surry Hills on Friday night.
The gang controls the city’s drug trade, and has been involved in violent crimes to secure the market in recent months.
Professional hit
Since his death, media reports have suggested Acherkouk had been involved in a drug rip-off plot which may have earned him enemies.
Acherkouk had been warned recently that there may be a contract out on his life.
Police did not respond to questions on Monday about whether the kidnapping in Punchbowl and the shooting in Surry Hills were related.
The execution has all the hallmarks of a professional hit – multiple gunmen, disguises to counter witnesses and CCTV, high-performance vehicles burned out within minutes.
It also marks an escalation in Sydney’s underworld which was believed to have been contained after a spate of shootings this year.
Police are keen to prevent retaliatory attacks and further escalations in violence.
“Police are working very hard to identify and arrest those involved … we’re coming for you,” Superintendent Andrew Garner said over the weekend.
Police urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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