Australian criminals hiding out overseas on the move again after ANOM bust
Underworld travel routes across international borders have been busy as Australia’s most wanted fugitives are on the move. Find out where they are heading.
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Underworld travel routes across international borders have been busy as Australia’s most wanted fugitives hiding overseas are on the move in the wake of learning that their encrypted chats had been monitored by cops.
Among them is drug kingpin Hakan “Big Hux” Ayik, 42. Tricked by the FBI sting into promoting the Anom app throughout organised crime networks, he is believed to have fled his luxurious hideout in Turkey with a target on his back from furious fellow crooks as well as law enforcement.
Ayik’s mate, Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle, 37, had already left Dubai for Iraq or Iran but is on the move again to Cyprus on his way to Lebanon to catch up with another former Sydneysider Bilal Haouchar, 36, according to law enforcement sources.
Codenamed Ironside, the Anom operation which handed 25 million messages to the FBI and the Australian Federal Police, has given Australian law enforcement the upper hand.
“There is no doubt that Ironside has caused a massive disruption in the criminal sphere,” AFP Detective Sergeant Matt Stocks told The Daily Telegraph.
He is part of the AFP’s Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team which was revealed two months ago to be targeting at least 43 offshore fugitives wanted for murder, manslaughter, drugs trafficking, money laundering and serious fraud.
Buddle fled Australia in 2016 as a person of interest in the fatal shooting of Chubb security guard Gary Allibon. Haouchar left two years later and is a person of interest in three murders.
“The aim is disruption and eventual apprehension,” Det Sgt Stocks said.
Last month, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller and the state’s Police Minister David Elliott personally met with Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews to work on a national Memorandum of Understanding designed to strengthen ties between the country’s crime fighting agencies including Australian Border Force and AUSTRAC.
“For the first time, we will see the NSW Police Force, Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force work hand in glove from investigation and detection, right through to raids and arrests,” Mr Elliott said.
“A Memorandum of Understanding across agencies is currently being finalised.
“Let me be clear, organised criminals who operate large scale networks both on our shores and beyond, will have nowhere to hide.”
The move coincides with the passing of new laws fast-tracking the time it takes Australia’s law enforcement agencies to obtain overseas-held data from months to days and serve warrants directly on communications providers based overseas including Facebook and Google.
The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill would “usher in a new generation of international crime co-operation agreements with trusted foreign countries”, Minister Karen Andrews said.
But despite all the big-talking, bringing the overseas crooks home to face justice has had little success.
James Dalamangas, 51, who has been on the most wanted list the longest at over 20 years, remains on the run in Greece where as a dual Australian and Greek national, the Greek government has refused to extradite him. They have agreed to prosecute him in Greece if he is ever caught.
He was involved in a brawl at Star City Casino where his brother Peter was killed in 1998.
He fled Australia in 1999 after fatally stabbing father-of-two George Giannopoulos inside a Greek nightclub in Belmore. He is also wanted over the shooting murder of bouncer Tim Voukelatos.
But police sources said Dalamangas, who is believed to have put on weight and has a $200,000 bounty on his head, has not got away with it.
He was seen out clubbing in Athens with underworld figure John Macris weeks before Macris was assassinated in late 2018.
“It is not impossible that he will be grabbed. When we get information about him, we pass it on to the Greek authorities,” a police source said.
Seven of the 17 men indicted by a US grant jury for racketeering offences over the Anom app are Australians who now have the FBI on their tail.
They include Ayik, and one of his mates Baris Tukel, 35, a former brothel owner and ex-Comanchero sergeant-at-arms who is hiding in Turkey.
“The NSW Crime Commission provides intelligence analysis and passes on information from its human sources whenever relevant,” Crime Commission boss Michael Barnes said.
“Efforts by various national and international law enforcement agencies to bring Australian persons of interest residing overseas to justice continues as a high priority.”
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