Paid to kill: NSW’s hitmen exposed
They get paid to take a life in cold blood, a lifestyle most of us could never imagine. These are some of NSW’s most notorious hitmen and killers for hire.
The South Coast News
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Whether it‘s over jealousy, hate, anger, love, revenge or power, contract killings capture the imagination of the public for their cold blooded nature.
A recent study by the Australian Institute of Criminology found contract killings accounted for just two per cent of murders in Australia, with the majority related to the dissolution of a domestic relationship.
Here we take a look at some of the state‘s most notorious contract killers.
MILLIONAIRE TAKES OUT BUSINESS ENEMY
In 2018, millionaire property developer Ron Medich was sentenced to a minimum of almost 30 years for the 2009 contract killing of his business enemy Michael McGurk.
At Medich’s request, father-of-four McGurk, 45, was shot dead in front of a young relative as he climbed out of his Mercedes near his Cremorne home in 2009.
The court heard Medich first ordered the killing after a series of protracted legal battles, and because he believed he was owed millions of dollars.
It took nine years and two trials before Medich was finally found guilty of the murder by a jury.
The teenage getaway car driver Christopher “The Kid” Estephan and the “likely shooter” Haissam Safetli also pleaded guilty and were sentenced for their roles in the killing.
The court heard Safetli was with Estephan in a car when the fatal shot was fired, hitting McGurk behind his right ear with a 0.22 calibre bullet.
Safetli was paid up to $80,000 to buy eight weapons for the job, the court heard.
Safetli was also allegedly at a meeting with Ron Medich and Lucky Gattellari in March 2009 when Medich is alleged to have said he wanted McGurk “gone”.
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SHOCKING KILLING OF BRAYDEN DILLON
It was one of NSW’s most shocking crimes.
In 2017, Conrad Craig, 29, shot 15-year-old Brayden Dillon in the head while he slept in his Greenfield home.
Abdul Abu-Mahmoud was later found to have been the mastermind of teenager’s execution, which Justice Ian Harrison said was done in an act of revenge.
Craig, 29, a career criminal who had been groomed and adopted into the Brothers For Life gang, was jailed for at least 30 years for murder after admitting being the hooded gunman who murdered the teenager.
A judge-alone trial found Abu-Mahmoud guilty of murder by organising the hit and paying Craig $20,000.
He was also found guilty of soliciting someone known only as witness F to murder Brayden on an earlier occasion, and soliciting another person known as witness A to murder his older brother Joshua Dillon.
At the time, Brayden’s older brother was charged with the stabbing murder of Abu-Mahmoud’s nephew Adam during a brawl at Panania.
He was eventually acquitted of the killing after arguing he acted in self-defence.
Abu-Mahmoud will be sentenced in May.
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REBEL BIKIE’S “EXECUTION” BY DRUG DEALER
Louise Catherine Spiteri-Ahern was just 23 when she paid hitman Daniel Haile at least $4000 to hide in the shadows and shoot her ex-lover in Pendle Hill in 2013.
Haile, who was jailed in 2016 for murdering Rebel bikie Raymond Pasnin for at least 24 years, was described in court as a high-earning “completely amoral” drug dealer.
The NSW Supreme Court jury rejected Haile’s claim he acted in self-defence. Acting Justice Robert Shallcross Hulme said he felt neither “ jealousy, hate, anger, love, or revenge” were reasons behind the killing.
In fact Haille’s motive for the “execution-style” killing was not known until the conspiracy between him with Spiteri-Ahern to kill her former lover was uncovered by police.
The judge accepted evidence from a man who said he drove Haile to the scene. The witness said Haile returned to the car saying he had seen a man with a child but wasn’t sure whether it was “the right person”.
After Haile made a phone call and apparently confirmed the victim’s identity, he shot Mr Pasnin who was returning to his car.
Haile told the jury at the time of the shooting he was earning a minimum of $10,000 a week from drugs and conceded he was receiving at least one government pension.
Spiteri-Ahern was later sentenced by Justice Stephen Rothman to 30 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 18 years, for organising and procuring the murder.
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FORMER KINGS CROSS BOUNCER EXTRADITED
Alani Afu was sentenced in 2018 to 20 years behind bars with a non-parole period of 15 years for the murder of the wife of former high-flying Sydney restaurateur Mark Caleo.
Caleo was jailed for 12 years with a non-parole period of nine years, for paying Tongan national and father of six Alani Afu, 51, to kill his wife Rita.
Afu was convicted of fatally stabbing Ms Caleo 23 times in the bathroom of her Double Bay home as her daughters slept in the room next door in 1990.
He was extradited from Tonga for the trial, during which the judge labelled him a thug motivated by greed.
The court heard Afu, a former Kings Cross bouncer, planned to carry out the contract killing and frame it as a robbery gone wrong, after being paid $10,000 by Caleo.
A jury acquitted Caleo, a former used car salesman, of organising the murder of his brother-in-law Michael Chye, who was shot in the head at his home in Woollahra in October 1989.
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HAMAD “H” ASSAAD LIKED TO BRAG
Hamad Assaad was a hitman who liked to brag.
The father-of-one wasn’t ashamed of what he had done and he didn’t try to hide it.
Etched around the 29-year-old’s neck was the word “Executioner” and below that on his chest he had inscribed; “The souls I have taken will never haunt me... only the ones I haven’t will...”
The contract killer was gunned down by two masked men at his Georges Hall home in 2016, in front of his mum.
He had been considered by authorities as a key suspect in the murder of Wally Ahmad in 2016 as well as other high profile shootings.
Plumber Osama Hawat was charged with his murder but never accused of being one of the two shooters or the getaway driver of the black Audi SQ5 which raced up to Assaad’s property that morning.
A jury found him not guilty in 2019.
Police later revealed they believed Kemel “Blackie” Barakat was one of the gunmen, however he was executed himself in 2017.
Police said they also believed he was behind the hit on Adrian Buxton, a Nomad’s affiliate who was murdered as he put out the bins at his Colyton home in 2016.
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COMMANDO TURNED “MEREWETHER HITMAN”
Notorious “Merewether hitman” Sean Waygood was a school dropout, turned elite Australian Army commando, turned contract killer, and arguably Goulburn Correctional Centre’s most dangerous man.
The former One Company commando died from bowel cancer while in prison in 2014.
Waygood was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2010 for conspiring to murder Sydney drug dealer Terry Falconer.
Waygood, along with convicted Australian murderer Anthony Perish, posed as police officers in 2001 and lured convicted drug dealer Terry Falconer into their car.
They drugged him and placed his body in a toolbox before driving his body to a remote property.
The pair then dismembered him and discarded of his body parts in a nearby river.
Waygood, a former occupational health and safety officer, received a 50 per cent decrease on his sentence due to his assistance to police.
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“THE KID” WITH BLOOD ON HIS HANDS
The young gun-for-hire — who is referred to as The Kid for legal reasons — has become a notorious killer willing to take out anyone for the right price.
On the streets sources claim the well-read psychopath may have up to 10 bodies to his name. He allegedly got his first taste of blood as a 19-year-old when he kicked to death a young man as part of a bikie feud. He was one of the youngest bikie chapter bosses in Sydney before “going freelance”.
His crime boss employer — whose alias is The Mercenary — is a drug-dealing kingpin described by hardened detectives as one of the most dangerous and evil men to walk the streets of Sydney.
He has spent millions of dollars on contract killings, which are normally conducted while he is overseas.
The Kid is the son of law-abiding immigrants from a war-ravished country.
When he can, he even returns to his parents’ homeland to work in villages to help the poor.
For more on this story click here.
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