Meet Detective Joshua Murphy — the ‘unofficial sheriff’ of Bondi
He is so well known to the Ibrahim clan they’ve coined their own phrase about him. Meet Detective Joshua Murphy, the one police officer who shadowed the family’s every move. LISTEN TO MICHAEL AND FADI COMPLAIN ABOUT DET MURPHY.
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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.
Here’s a well known saying among the members of the Ibrahim clan: “I’ve just been Murphed.”
It’s a reference to Bondi detective Joshua Murphy, the one time unofficial sheriff of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
With most of the Ibrahims and their associates living and doing business in the east, Det Murphy waged a one-cop campaign to make their lives hell and leave them in no doubt that he was watching them.
And it wasn’t long before being “Murphed” was part of the Ibrahim vernacular.
He pulled them over. He searched their cars. He busted them for driving unlicensed. He emptied their pockets. He turned up at their homes. He stopped them in the street. He asked where they were going? Who were they talking to? Is this your car?
He likely caused several of the Ibrahims’ ranks to up their anxiety medication.
In short, the East was Det Murphy’s town, not the Ibrahims’.
HEAR THE IBRAHIMS TALK ABOUT DET MURPHY
READ THE TRANSCRIPT: WARNING GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
Was he successful in getting under their skin? You bet.
“He’s a f**kwit, bro, he’s just a f**kwit, do you know what I mean?…” Michael Ibrahim said to Jaron Chester in a call on May 31, 2017. “He’s a f**king gronk. You’re a two dollar copper, you f**king dickhead …”
Chester was more articulate in expressing the emotional effect Det Murphy was having on his life: “Yeah, you feel like you’ve got this anchor and chain around you and it’s not fair.”
Det Murphy also looked the part.
Slicked hair. Three piece suit. Chiselled face.
Think a Bondi version of Eliot Ness, the smartly dressed 1920s American Prohibition agent. Ness took down Al Capone as a member of the squad known as The Untouchables before Kevin Costner immortalised him in the 1987 movie of the same name.
Det Murphy occupied a vast degree of their thought space.
Several of their members were convinced Murph was listening to their calls.
This included Fadi Ibrahim’s business partner Ben Scott who was pulled over by Det Murphy on numerous occasions.
Fadi relayed one of Det Murphy’s dogged pursuits to Michael in a call on July 1, 2017.
“Ben goes ‘Fadi … I don’t know if he’s listening to my phone calls because the guy was parked out the front of my house and as soon as I turned up he pulled me over’,” Fadi told Michael.
“(Ben) goes … ‘The guy was — had been sitting there all weekend’,” Fadi said.
“He goes, ‘because I’ve been at home for four days. I haven’t left the house for four days’. ‘Cause he’s been sick.”
That day, Michael was feeling philosophical about the attention he was receiving from Det Murphy and then joked they should give him a Ferrari.
“And he’ll think he’s Don Johnson, the f**king (actor) out of Miami Vice,” Michael said. “You know what I mean? Let him do what he’s gotta do, he’s a f**king moron.”
Michael said Det Murphy was trying to make a name for himself by taking down an Ibrahim.
“He’s a f**king idiot. I don’t give a f**king he can suck my d**k,” Michael said before adding his theory that Det Murphy’s actions to disrupt the Ibrahims’ social and business networks were a directive from the police hierarchy.
“Mate, he’s got it from higher above,” Michael said.
“They told him f**king go harass the people around them, try to rattle them, try to f**king scare them, try to get something on them to get the other information about these guys.”
Det Murphy was also living rent free inside Daniel Ibrahim’s head.
When AFP officers burst into Daniel’s apartment and arrested him in August 2017 over proceeds of crime charges he would later beat, Daniel’s first thought was Det Murphy.
“When they first came through I thought it was that dog Murphy,” Daniel told friend Nabih Hadid in a call on August 14, 2017.
“And I was waiting to see that f**king grub.
“I (said) ‘What do you f**king want?’,” Daniel said.
They go, ‘It’s the AFP, shut your mouth.
“My first thought was, ‘F**k, I’ve been bagging Jews in America too much on Facebook,” Daniel said.
Watsford and Chester became Murphy’s more frequented targets.
When the pair had their heads shaved for stealing more than $61,000 from Michael, Det Murphy paid them both a visit to check on their safety.
He also turned up unannounced at Chester’s home. Chester relayed the incident to Michael in the call on May 31, 2017.
Michael suggested they make official complaints about Det Murphy and then concocted a plan to send the officer on a wild-goose chase with a bogus story about Michael doing business from a Bondi apartment block.
“I’m telling you to do it …” Michael said.
“That’s to make him go sit somewhere for a week, staying there for the whole week, do you know what I mean?”
Later in the conversation, Chester said Det Murphy’s actions were “harassment”.
Michael told Jaron he was sick of the attention
“A lot better and a lot smarter cops have been trying to get me, you f**king idiot,” Michael said. “And you’re not gonna be (the) one that’s gonna get me, you f**king gronk, because I’m not doin’ nothing.
“You know at first … I didn’t care when you used to pull me over … I used to f**king accommodate him,” Michael said.
“Or (when) I was walking the street and he wants to try and pull me over and stop the person I’m talking to and wanna find out — f**king, enough is enough.”
Chester said it was unfair Michael was being targeted since being released from prison after serving a manslaughter sentence.
“You’ve served your time, you’ve done everything right, you’ve done nothing wrong, leave me the f**k alone,” Chester said.
Given the amount of drugs and tobacco Michael was smuggling into Australia, that wasn’t exactly true.
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