Bikies in Australia: Brawls, beefs and bloodshed in 2022
It’s been a bloody year for bikies and their associates across the nation — with feuds leading to killings and bloodshed. This is how the gangs have changed forever.
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It’s been a big year for bikies around the country. From the Comanchero in Sydney to the Mongols in Victoria and Queensland — and everywhere in between — the outlaw motorcycle gangs have faced some upheavals.
News Corp’s Bikies Inc. eight-part podcast lifted the lid on Australia’s outlaw motorcycle gangs, who now control more than $3 billion worth of illegal drugs each year.
We take a look at the brawls, deaths, feuds and bloodshed across the nation involving the ‘big six’ — the Comanchero, Mongols, Hells Angels, Bandidos, Finks, Rebels — throughout 2022.
NSW
The bikie gang war erupted across Sydney as the Alameddine v Hamzy clan rivalry intensified in 2022.
The Daily Telegraph’s released a special video documentary series called The War, taking a look at the gang deaths and why the tit-for-tat violence is occurring.
Here are some of the major incident inciting the war on Sydney’s streets:
* Ghasson Amoun, the brother of notorious criminal Bassam Hamzy, was killed on January 6 after a gunman opened fire as he left a laser beauty clinic in South Wentworthville.
* Mohammad Chami was shot dead on March 3 in Holroyd.
* Notorious underworld figure Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad, 39, was shot dead on April 27 outside a home in Greenacre. Pierre Abou-Sleiman, 26, was in November charged with the alleged murder and remains on remand. Three others were also arrested over their alleged involvement in Ahmad’s murder and charged with lesser offences.
* High-ranking member of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle group Tarek Zahed, and his brother Omar, were shot outside a gym in Auburn on May 10. Omar was killed while Tarek, a Comanchero sergeant-at-arms, was shot 10 times and survived. He recovered after a couple of months and was arrested in Sydney in August over the 2014 murder of Youssef Assoum at Bankstown. He is currently on remand in jail awaiting court appearances.
* Rami Iskander, Brownie Ahmad’s nephew, was shot dead on May 14, 2022. Two men have been charged in connection to the murder.
* Former Lone Wolf bikie Yusuf Nazlioglu was gunned down at a basement car park in Rhodes in June. Nazlioglu was found not guilty of shooting Comanchero boss Mick Hawi in 2018.
* Lametta Fadlallah and Amy Hazouri were shot dead as they sat in a car at Panania in August. Ms Fadlallah, 48, was believed to be the target of the shooting as she was known to be mixing with members of the Comanchero bikie clan and Alameddine crime network. Ms
Hazouri, 39, a hairdresser, was an innocent bystander.
While Sydney was engulfed in the gun war, other violence erupted between alleged gang members after two separate brawls involving associates of the Alameddine and Comanchero crime gangs.
One was believed to have involved a well-known Comanchero associate clashing with members of the KVT street gang, who are Alameddine associates, at a Kings Cross nightclub on October 5.
The other was a melee after alleged crime figure Mohamad Alameddine was involved in a high-speed car crash at Eastern Creek later that same month. Alameddine survived the crash with only minor injuries. But soon after there was a clash between spectators, which was caught on video. There is no suggestion he was involved in the melee at the track.
VICTORIA
Comanchero
In 2022, the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang saw some changes to its hierarchy after national president Mick Murray was arrested and charged over the 2019 murder of gangland figure Mitat Rasimi.
The Comanchero boss has been in jail on remand since the arrest in April, which led to him stepping down from his role.
Allan Meehan rose to power as national president of the “Comos”. He was raised in Sydney and is mainly based there but travels frequently to Melbourne.
This comes as Australian law enforcement agencies launched Operation Condor in November to target the Comanchero bikie gang. At that time, there was currently 16 members of the gang in prison, including Murray.
Mongols
In April, underworld figure and one of Victoria’s highest-profile bikies, Toby Mitchell, was ousted from the Mongols.
The new regime is being led by Queenslanders Nick “The Knife” Forbes and Phillip Main.
In June, former Mongols boss Sam Abdulrahim was shot at the Fawkner Cemetery while attending a funeral in June — and survived.
Abdulrahim, nicknamed ‘The Punisher’ was shot eight times, later saying he remembers “getting pumped with bullets”.
In September, an 18-year-old was charged with attempted murder over his alleged role in the shooting.
Abdulrahim left the Mongols outlaw bikie gang a few weeks before he was shot but his departure is not related to the shooting.
QUEENSLAND
The Mongols bikie gang is in turmoil after 10 members were charged with murdering notorious Gold Coast bikie Shane Bowden, who was a former Finks bikie enforcer turn Mongols heavyweight.
Their Gold Coast-based national president Nick ‘The Knife’ Forbes and his son Haydn were hit with drug trafficking charges while Toby Mitchell and other high-profile members Mark Balsillie, Jason Addison and kickboxer Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim left the club amid a bitter power struggle.
Addison, who was the Bandidos national president before patching over to the Mongols, was assaulted at a motorbike show in regional Victoria in early 2022, just weeks after he was kicked out of the Mongols. Police charged three men with drug and weapons offences as part of the investigation.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Eight South Australian men, alleged members of the Rebels bikie gang, were charged over two alleged brawls in Mildura in May, where a woman in her 20s and a man, 29, were allegedly assaulted.
Seven of the men appeared in the Mildura Magistrates’ Court in November where three pleaded guilty to affray and two to violent disorder charges.
Giovanni Lisastro, 45, Clifford Aisack, 50, John Habkouk, 27, Mitchell Crump, 27, and Guy Clift, 49, all pleaded guilty to charges including violent disorder and affray and received hefty fines.
Asiack and Clift were convicted of affray and fined $2500. Lisastro was also convicted of affray but fined $3500 due to having more significant priors.
Crump and Habkouk pleaded guilty to one charge each of violent disorder and were convicted and fined $2500 each.
Michael Mazzone and Justin Mason will return to court for further contest mention. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Joshua Kelly who did not appear in court in November.
Bradley Daniele, who was a member of the Rebels who made headlines for bashing a sex offender in prison before posting the vision online, was aged 29 when he died suddenly in hospital in April.
Originally published as Bikies in Australia: Brawls, beefs and bloodshed in 2022
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