Andrew Rule: Sydney gangland war on track to eclipse Melbourne’s own underbelly war

A new underworld conflict involving bikies and middle-eastern crime families is in full swing in Sydney. And according to veteran journalist and podcast host Andrew Rule, it could spill more blood than Melbourne’s own underbelly war.

Sydney’s gang war is on track to eclipse the infamous Melbourne conflict involving Carl Williams and the Morans, according to one of the men behind the original Underbelly TV series.

A total of 36 men were killed in the Victorian capital over 12 years between 1998 and 2010, while 23 people have been gunned down in the Harbour City in just over three years since 2020.

At the current rate, if Sydney’s gang war runs for the same length of time as Melbourne’s, the body count will exceed 70 – almost double the Underbelly conflict.

The violent feud in Melbourne across the 1990s and 2000s led Herald Sun journalist Andrew Rule and co-author John Silvester to pen their book “Underbelly: The Gangland War”, which not only went on to be a bestseller but also the inspiration for the hit TV franchise.

Now, more than a decade on, Mr Rule told The Daily Telegraph he believes the conflict that is ongoing on Sydney’s streets could end up being the worst gang feud Australia has ever seen.

“These last few years in Sydney have totally outstripped what we saw here in Melbourne,” the veteran crime journalist said.

“At this rate you guys (in Sydney) are going to catch some of those South American cities and countries like Rio and Venezuela.

“There are cycles to these gang wars … we had ours at the turn of the century and again when the Carl Williams and Moran crews were going at each other, but for sheer numbers what has happened in Sydney in the last few years looks like totally eclipsing that war.”

The comparisons between Melbourne’s feud and Sydney’s war are plentiful.

Carl Williams was a central figure in Melbourne’s gangland wars that led to the creation of the first Underbelly series.

Jason Moran, was at war with Williams until he and the rest of his family were shot dead. Picture: Paul Trezise

Carl Williams was a drug lord down south with a penchant for violence, much like a figure of the stature of Alen Moradian was in Sydney.

Where the deaths of half-brothers Jason and Mark Moran, and their father Lewis, shocked Melbourne, just as the wiping out of the Hamzys has shocked NSW.

Former NSW Police officer turned author Duncan McNabb says the “sad reality” of the current situation in Sydney is that innocent people are far too often being put in danger.

Alen Moradian’s execution in Sydney in 2023 marked a new chapter in the city’s ongoing gangland war.

Mejid Hamzy was murdered near his Sydney home in 2021 as the gangland war involving his family escalated.

“I definitely think if Sydney’s gang war keeps kicking along at the rate it’s going, it will eclipse the sad reality of Melbourne’s horrible body count,” Mr McNabb

“I still can’t get out of my mind the brazen murder of Jason Moran at Auskick in front of kids and families in Melbourne in 2003.

“What’s truly scary is that with automatic weapons and a point and spray mentality, the risk of more innocents being injured or killed is growing fast.

“These blokes just don’t care.”

The current conflict in Sydney is the subject of The Daily Telegraph’s new mini docu-series The War II: Kill or be Killed.