‘It’s the police’: Gunmen’s unique tactic in attempted Homebush assassination of Fetaiki Tupoulahi

Fetaiaki Tupoulahi narrowly escaped with his life when masked gunmen pretending to be police walked up to his Homebush unit and fired shots as he opened the front door.

Would-be killers pretended to be police when they knocked on the door of a man and opened fire in an attempted assassination in Homebush last week.

Fetaiaki Tupoulahi, 29, narrowly escaped with his life when masked gunmen walked up to the door of his unit in Sydney’s west about 3am on Friday and fired shots as he opened it, with multiple hitting him in both arms.

Police sources said while Tupoulahi is refusing to help them with their enquiries, CCTV captured him answering the door to loud bangs - similar to the method used by officers when carrying out a search warrant - and three gunmen standing on the other side telling him they were police.

Fetaiaki Tupoulahi was the victim of Friday's shooting in Homebush. Picture: Facebook

“They can be seen banging on the door and then when he enquires who is there, they say it’s the police,” a source said.

“He opened the door slightly and they fired shots through at him, before he managed to shut the door. He (Tupoulahi) isn’t talking, but it is all captured on CCTV.”

In the aftermath of the attack, the gunmen fled the apartment block and hopped into a stolen white Land Rover SUV and drove to Dalley St in nearby Lidcombe.

There they set the car alight, before escaping in a separate vehicle off into the night.

Forensic police dust for prints on a gate at the front the Homebush apartment block. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

“Police were called to the location by the partner of the person who was shot ,” Auburn Police Area Commander Robert Toynton said at a press conference on Friday.

“This is a very unfortunate incident, we are treating this as a targeted attack. One of the things we’re seeking from the community is the movements of the three offenders after they’ve dumped the car in Dalley Street.”

Police are understood to have warned Tupoulahi about a bounty on his head in late 2023 and sources said they were convinced the early morning attack on Friday was not a failed home invasion or warning shots.

“They weren’t there to wound him, they were there to kill him,” one underworld source said.

The Homebush apartment block was a crime scene on Friday. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Tupoulahi last year made headlines after assaulting a barber in the wake of the brazen daylight shooting of two brothers in Marrickville.

William, 33, and Eric Siale, 20, were shot when a masked gunman ran into Adel’s Salon on the afternoon of Friday, July 7 2023, hitting the older brother in the buttock and back, and younger sibling in the chest.

In the hours after the attack, as two barbers from Adel’s Salon waited outside Marrickville Police Station to give statements to detectives, Tupoulahi - an associate of the Siales - approached them and punched both men in the face.

The scene of the barber shop shooting in Marrickville in 2023, where William and Eric Siale were wounded. Picture: Facebook

Tupoulahi pleaded guilty in Burwood Local Court to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and reckless wounding, and was sentenced to a 14-month intensive correction order (ICO).

The attack on the Siale brothers came less than a week after the shooting death of Comanchero bikie gang kingpin Alen Moradian at Bondi Junction and later formed part of the major investigations of Taskforce Magnus - set up to look at a spree of fatal attacks in the middle of 2024, as gangland tensions escalated.

Neither the Siale brothers, nor Tupoulahi, are accused of wrongdoing in relation to any of those attacks.