Bikie Boss’ Mark Buddle lavish life in Iraq revealed

Details of Comanchero Mark Buddle’s time in exile have been aired in court, as a hotelier spilled on the former guest’s personal staff and favourite hangouts.

Comanchero Boss Mark Buddle leaves the County Court. Photo: Jake Nowakowski

Comanchero boss Mark Buddle had a personal driver and translator who chaperoned him to restaurants, bars and an upscale gym while he was in exile in war-torn Iraq, a court has heard.

Buddle, 39, spent six years in the Middle East and Europe before he was extradited to Australia from Turkey nearly two years ago to face charges over the alleged importation of more than 160kg of cocaine into Melbourne.

Fresh details about Buddle’s time abroad were revealed in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this month, including that he lived out of a hotel in Erbil in northern Iraq for two months in 2021.

With the assistance of a Kurdish interpreter and an on-the-ground Australian Federal Police agent, three Iraqi witnesses including the hotel’s owner and a translator beamed in via video link to give evidence at the four-day committal hearing.

The translator told the court that he and a driver accompanied Buddle while he ate out at restaurants, drank at bars and worked out four times a week at the “Alpha Gym”.

The gym, which is in a gated community known as Dream City, describes itself online as “one of the leading premium fitness centers in Iraq” and offers a large workout area equipped with modern machines and a boxing ring.

Comanchero boss Mark Buddle worked out at the Alpha Gym while he was in exile in Erbil in northern Iraq in 2021.

The translator said an AFP agent approached him in October 2021, months after Buddle left the country, and asked him about Buddle and another man who stayed with him at the hotel for about a week.

He was also shown a photo of a bald man wearing sunglasses.

Another witness, the hotel owner, told the court he spoke with Buddle about three or four times during his stay and on one occasion took him out to his father’s farm.

He said he was also questioned by an AFP agent who described Buddle as a “bad guy”.

A man who worked at Alpha Gym told the court a heavily tattooed, muscular, bald man who was accompanied by a body guard and a translator signed up to the gym in May 2021.

The Alpha Gym where Buddle worked out was in a gated community in Erbil known as Dream City.

Police allege Buddle used encrypted messaging app AN0M — which was set up and monitored by the FBI and AFP — to organise a shipment of about $40m of cocaine into Melbourne in May 2021.

The drugs were allegedly sent to Melbourne, via Sydney, from Hong Kong in a shipment of air filters.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Craig O’Brien told the court Buddle left Australia in 2016 and lived in Dubai then Erbil where he was under surveillance by a “friendly agency”.

In his statement, the federal agent said an AN0M device with the handle “condor” sent and received more than 3000 messages which allegedly discussed the shipment of drugs.

Buddle was subject of an Interpol red notice and deported from Iraq in July 2021 before he was extradited to Australia from Turkey on a charter plane in August 2022.

Buddle, who had extra security brought in for his hearing, will return to court next week.

Originally published as Bikie Boss’ Mark Buddle lavish life in Iraq revealed