There were already two BFL chapters operating within southwestern Sydney. The more dominant crew was centred in Bankstown, a honey pot of drug supply lines and standover opportunities. Shopkeepers would pay “protection money” to ensure their businesses wouldn’t get firebombed.

A second chapter was based in Parramatta and led by a seasoned gangland figure, Ramin*, a man who’d held lieutenant positions in several bikie gangs. His Parramatta crew was a fledgling chapter with a mostly Persian membership, his people hailing from either Iran or Afghanistan, like the Qaumi brothers.

At a meeting in Blacktown, Qaumi proposed an amalgamation with Ramin’s crew to even up the ethnic numbers; he didn’t trust the Lebanese-dominated Bankstown faction and effectively saw them as a rival gang. Ramin agreed and accepted the offer, combining the two crews under one banner.

Under Qaumi, the Blacktown BFL was subjected to a military-style structure that placed him at the top as “General” and gave his two brothers, Mumtaz and Jamil, deputy leadership positions.

Ramin was appointed the gang’s “enforcer”, effectively placing him third-in-charge. When conflicts emerged with rival gangs it was his job to meet with their emissaries and bring matters to a head, either through a one-on-one fight, a blood money payment, or a shooting if necessary, a measure that only Qaumi could authorise.

Beneath them were a handful of key “soldiers” and misfits who were easily bossed around. There was Ario*, a disturbed young man who, at 25, had spent most of his adult life in prison. He spoke in the calm tones of the truly dangerous and would go on to become Qaumi’s unflinching triggerman, murdering two men on his orders.

There was Ramin’s younger brother Pouria*, a pot-smoker who helped design the gang’s logo but really wasn’t inclined to violence — he vomited once when he was ordered to kill a man. And there was Vayu*, a developmentally troubled and depressed teenager who walked around generally confused and once told a psychiatrist he wanted aliens to take him to another planet.

A rubbish-strewn warehouse on Forge Street, Blacktown, became the gang’s official headquarters. Qaumi had the space cleaned out and converted into a swish, fortified clubhouse replete with plush lounges, gym weights, a chandelier, flat screen TVs, disco lights, a pool table and a bank of CCTV monitors

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Members were expected to pay a $50 weekly maintenance fee and attend compulsory Saturday night meetings where discussions centred on vulnerable drug runs ripe for takeover, or safehouse locations primed for looting. During these meetings Qaumi would sit back with a revolver and point it menacingly at people, occasionally pulling the trigger to punctuate his points about discipline.

“Everything has consequences in life,” a gang member recalled him saying. “Don’t think boys for a second youse can just walk away; no one walks away without a bang.”

Severe punishments were doled out over perceived slights.

At one meeting, Qaumi ordered everyone to bash a young BFL member who’d hung up a phone call on Ramin without saying “goodbye”. A few weeks later Qaumi attacked the same man with a gym weight, splitting open his head and refusing to let him call an ambulance. Fellow gang members used cigarette ash to stem the bleeding.

New recruits were welcomed with BFL-branded jumpers shipped from Thailand, each one featuring the gang’s logo — two AK47s crossed over each other — and the words “southwest chapter” emblazoned on the chest and sleeves. Within a month, Qaumi had an entourage of nearly two dozen underlings rolling through Sydney in a convoy of muscle cars and Harley Davidsons, making their presence known to police.

“Why are you making a scene?” Qaumi taunted an officer, Jacob Cavallero, after being pulled over in Penrith one night.

About 20 of his BFL cohorts formed a circle around Cavallero as he and his partner inspected Qaumi’s licence. A scuffle ensued but Qaumi intervened, calming his men to defuse the situation.

“You’ll need more police to control my boys,” he said. “All I need to do is make a phone call and get the whole country here.”

Similar interactions were recorded in Kings Cross, Croydon, Lalor Park and Wentworthville.

A Hornsby smash repairer told police that BFL members were demanding $40,000 or his shop would be blown up. The owner of a restaurant on Church Street, Parramatta, reported a similar extortion plot.

Police learned of drug rips in Ryde, Chatswood, Merrylands. At Eagle Vale they were called to a house where a shotgun was fired several times into the windows. The premises, they learned, was a safehouse being used by Assyrian gangsters to store drugs and cash.

At Castlereagh, near Penrith, Qaumi’s men raided a house expecting to find $50,000 in cash. Instead they returned to the clubhouse with only a trail-bike and news that the raid had badly —

a german shepherd named Barbie had been shot (she survived) during the home invasion and the homeowner escaped over the back fence.

Quami was furious.

One gang member would later say that Qaumi pulled out a gun and pointed it at him during this rage, calling for bullets.

“I’ve killed people for less than this,” he said.

In the video at top of page: Farhad Qaumi (”Who the f... are you, you f...ing gronk?”) is heard talking to Finks sergeant-at-arms Kochin Roshidi in December 2013. Video: Qaumi brothers and others being observed by police in CCTV footage, driving out of Sydney’s Star Casino carpark in November 2013.