Hakan Ayik arrest: Two big mistakes that led cops to Australia’s most wanted man

Hakan Ayik dropped the ball leading police in Turkey to his arrest as part of a major crackdown on the Comanchero bikie gang.

Australia’s most wanted man Hakan Ayik knew he was on borrowed time in 2021 when the FBI-devised encrypted messaging app AN0M blew open the underworld.

He’d been tricked into spruiking it to associates — a way for them to openly communicate, or so it went — but with authorities monitoring their every call, he unwittingly helped them build a case against him and others.

Eighteen months earlier, Ayik put a second — and somewhat unusual — foot out of touch, posting a personal video on the Instagram account of Istanbul Kings Cross hotel.

It offered a crucial clue to his whereabouts, two kilometres from the sapphire-blue Bosphorus River, a key tourist destination of Istanbul.

Turkey had been his base since he left Sydney in 2010, wanted in connection to a $A230 million heroin importation bust.

He’d lived a life there of luxury and privilege, amassing a personal wealth of more than $A1 billion.

Ayik was often photographed topless to show off his bodybuilder’s physique. Picture: Network News

Ayik, who was often photographed topless to show off his bodybuilder’s physique when he was in Australia, had married Dutch national Fabienne Fleur, had two children and resided for some time in the exclusive Kemer Country gated community in Istanbul.

As a son of Turkish migrants, “Big Hux” as he was known would be hosted in dingy bars by owners he trusted and meet close associates at their homes.

A photo of a birthday dinner, posted by one of Fleur’s friends, unveiled a tattooed Ayik ensconced beside glamorous women in designer garbs.

It was a rare image of Ayik, as since arriving in Turkey he had largely shut down his social media, refraining from posing in designer clothes with fast women and cars for posts that back in Australia had earned him the sobriquet “the Facebook gangster”.

‘Big Hux’ lived a life there of luxury and privilege. Picture: Network News

Another clue to his life in Istanbul was a cosmetic surgery clinic that also “liked” the Kings Cross Hotel account, which featured on its own homepage a photo of Ayik’s nephew undergoing a hair transplant.

Fleur, a striking brunette who was listed as the owner of the clinic, appeared in photos at the same hotel.

Ayik owned the Kings Cross Hotel under the false name Hakan Reis where he conducted clandestine meetings.

Among those he would meet at the luxury hide-out included Hakan Arif and Erkan Keskin – the former of whom is known as among crime circles as “Little Hux” and was also netted in the Thursday dawn raids.

Hakan Ayik’s wife Fleur Messelink posted this photo of a dinner in 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey.

The raids also resulted in the arrest of Australians Baris Tukel and Erkan Dogan and the seizure of an estimated $A250 million.

Before he was ensnared, the NSW Trustee and Guardian took out a full page advert in Turkish newspapers in 2020 warning that Ayik owed them $4 million and if he didn’t pay up they would sell his Sydney car spots, a Harley Davidson and shares he owns to repay a debt is from an unexplained wealth order the NSW Supreme Court made in 2016. Ayik ignored them.

He went deeper underground when Turkey deported former Comanchero boss Mark Buddle in arrests linked to the AN0M app in 2022.

As he circulated around Europe and the Middle East, he wrote in a social media post taunting police to “Catch me if you can.”

Ayik, however, could only take advantage of under-resourced policing agencies in safe havens abroad for so long.

Originally published as Hakan Ayik arrest: Two big mistakes that led cops to Australia’s most wanted man