Pasquale Barbaro: Police study whether tracking device led gunmen to shooting site

POLICE are investigating whether the black Mercedes of slain kingpin Pasquale Barbaro had been fitted with a secret tracking device by a rival that led his executioners to the Earlwood location.

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UNDERWORLD mobster Pasquale Barbaro knew he was a dead man walking when he accepted an invitation to dinner at the home of construction identity and friend George Alex’s on Monday night.

Yet he let his guard down. Detectives are investigating if his black Mercedes had been fitted with a secret tracking device by a rival that led his executioners to the Earlwood location.

There’s nothing to suggest Mr Alex had anything to do with Barbaro’s death.

Sydney crime figure Pasquale Timothy Barbaro was gunned down outside the Earlwood home of George Alex.

Brash and aggressive, the heavily tattooed Barbaro had been living on the edge all his life, even abandoning his infamous Mafia family upbringing to go it alone with his own drug network at the age of 21.

Police, who raided Mr Alex’s house on Tuesday night, are focusing on a theory a rival gang pushing for power may have used Sydney’s recent gangland shootings as cover for taking Barbaro out.

On $300,000 bail for ­charges of manufacturing 2kg of the drug ice five years ago, Barbaro had ­apparently recently ripped off $1 million from a Pacific ­Islander gang. About six months ago he fell out with close mate and organised crime figure Dallas Fitzgerald.

Sydney underworld identity Pasquale Barbaro who was murdered in Earlwood on Monday night, November 14, 2016.

Barbaro was shot dead outside the house of friend George Alex.

“Barbaro was apparently shooting his mouth and taking credit for deals he was not responsible for. Dallas was not happy,” an underworld source said.

With a growing criminal record ­including armed robbery by the age of 21, Barbaro’s arrogance led Mafia ­bosses in the NSW town of Griffith to hold a meeting in 2002 to assess his drug distribution network, which he had set up in the ACT to rival that of his uncle Frank Barbaro.

Despite posting bail in 2013, after being charged a year earlier, Barbaro refused to lay low.

The Joe ­Antoun murder trial heard yesterday he had gone to Antoun’s house to kill him but ­decided against the hit when his wife answered the door. Antoun was killed by a hired gunman in December 2013.

Detectives walk along the Earlwood street where Barbaro was shot. Picture: John Grainger.

Among the Italian community in Leichhardt, where he had lived in a Norton St unit with his wife and two children in the Italian Forum for more than five years, Barbaro was known for ­always being closely followed by a bodyguard dubbed “The Shadow”.

He drove a string of luxury cars ­including a $2 million black Lamborghini, which he boasted was the most expensive car in Australia, and flashed a range of gleaming Rolex watches.

Police are investigating whether barbaro’s luxury Mercedes had been fitted with a tracking device by a rival gangster. Picture: Bill Hearne

During Barbaro’s court case, for which he faced a lengthy jail term if convicted at trial in February, he moved between at least three addresses.

A gym junkie, he was a menacing figure at Anytime Fitness. “You just did what he said,” one employee said.

Pasquale Barbaro’s associates.

Before his death he was supposedly living in the Western Sydney suburb of Harrington Park, near Narellan, but was reporting daily to Rose Bay Police Station 70km away. It is understood he was living there with his girlfriend.

A woman at the home yesterday said: “All I’m going to say is he’s not a police informer.”

Police investigate the firing of shots on Balmain Rd, Leichhardt, when Barbaro was targeted by a gunman. Picture: Bill Hearne