Undercover cop invited to John Ibrahim’s weekly poker night

Only a select few are invited and even then they are warned not to show up if they can’t handle losing thousands of dollars. Welcome to John Ibrahim’s weekly poker game. FIND OUT WHO MAKES THE LIST

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For three decades, Sydney has regarded the House of Ibrahim with fear and fascination.

Now, for the first time, we take you inside the private world of this complicated family thanks to an enormous cache of surveillance material tendered to a NSW court.

There are more than 880 phone calls and texts that were covertly recorded by police over more than a year, revealing the truth about feuds, grudges and family lore, including the secret tunnel under patriarch John Ibrahim’s Eastern Suburbs mansion.

There are hundreds of police photos taken inside Ibrahim homes during police raids, and an even larger collection of surveillance photos taken by police tailing family members and associates through the city’s streets.

The material sheds new light on the family’s networks, reaching beyond brothers John, Fadi, Michael and Sam to the far reaches of entertainment, night-life, property and crime. On their private calls, the brothers and their associates detail their rivalries and power struggles, as well as moments of “us against the world” camaraderie and black humour.

The invitation list is strictly need-to-know and the competition is ruthless with players warned not to turn up if they can’t handle losing thousands of dollars.

Welcome to John Ibrahim’s weekly poker game.

Every Monday night at about 7.30pm, a select group of businessmen, developers, restaurant owners, family and close friends file into John Ibrahim’s Dover Heights mansion to test their nerves in the face of merciless sledging in a high stakes game of poker.

New entrants are savaged and are required to stump up an $8000 initial buy-in.

The details of the poker night can now be revealed because one of the attendees was almost the undercover police officer who infiltrated the Ibrahim clan.

John Ibrahim would host an invite-only poker night every Monday night.

The undercover received a number of invitations to the poker game, including from John’s younger brother Michael when he went to lunch with the wire-wearing cop at exclusive Asian eatery China Doll on Woolloomooloo Wharf on January 25, 2017.

Michael warned the undercover “You’re going to need a couple of grand … At least” before talking up the cut throat nature of the game.

“Put it this way, I go there and I lose,” Michael said.

Michael said he had lost $400,000 to a well-known Sydney restaurant owner since the inception of the poker game.

Before he accepted the invitation, the undercover said: “First check with your brother if it’s all right.”

Michael responded that he would let the undercover know if one of the regular players dropped out.

John Ibrahim’s Dover Heights mansion.

A picture of a poker night posted on John Ibrahim’s page, with Simon Main seated bottom left.

In meetings during February and March 2017, Ibrahim family confidant Ryan Watsford told the undercover not to go to the poker night, warning: “You’ll lose five grand like that.”

“I can’t play. I’m an idiot, I lose the money,” Watsford said on February 21, 2017.

In a tapped phone call on March 8, 2017, which was tendered in court, Michael lamented his losses at a recent game to car dealer Nasser Elkordi.

When Elkordi asked “How did you go the other night?”, Michael responded that he “lost three grand”.

David Freeman playing poker at John Ibrahim’s house. Picture: Instagram.

Simon Main was also on John’s poker night invite list.

The call revealed one time convicted drug dealer Simon Main was one of the poker players.

“Let me guess,” Elkordi said when asked by Michael if he knew who won. “Yeah, well Simon Main told me he cleaned up.”

Michael replied: “He won eight grand, the f**king p**k.”

The pair joked about what that would mean for Main.

“Oh, he’s be f**kin rapt …” Elkordi said. “That’s like a f**kin’ … That’ll pay his rent for the next two months. He’ll be rapt.”