Boss of squad charged with cracking down on underworld crime says courts too soft

Taskforce Falcon boss Jason Box says teen and gangland offenders caught with guns need to face the full force of the law. And its one specific element of teenage involvement that has him alarmed.

The Head of the new super squad cracking down on Sydney’s underworld war has taken aim at courts for their soft stance on juveniles and gangland figures who are caught with guns.

Jason Box was tapped on the shoulder in May and charged with leading Taskforce Falcon, a collective of more than 100 officers investigating rampant gang shootings and murders – and preventing more from happening.

Every morning, Detective Superintendent Box gathers his troops at State Crime Command headquarters in Parramatta and runs through each of the 13 strike forces that make up Taskforce Falcon, discussing updates and any breakthroughs.

Two of the most concerning incidents his detectives are investigating are a shooting at Merrylands in March, in which a mother and her four children were sleeping when they were wrongly targeted, and another drive-by at Guildford West, when a young woman was home alone when gunmen targeted her boyfriend.

Taskforce Falcon detectives this week charged a 15-year-old boy with carrying out both shootings while on bail for, of all things, gun-possession charges.

Detective Superintendent Jason Box is head of gangland Taskforce Falcon. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“You know, if it was an adult, I’d be very confident that they’d still be in custody,” Supt Box said.

“We’ve got very strong rules and laws around possessing firearms in Australia, and just because it’s a juvenile, I don’t really think we should relax what we’ve been doing historically.”

Forensics officers investigating the Merrylands shooting in March. Picture: NewsWire/Julian Andrews

Police at the scene of the Guildford drive-by in April. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NewsWire

It is impossible to say definitively how many murders Taskforce Falcon has prevented since it was formed.

But the stats suggest it is probably many, with more than 40 “kill cars” uncovered parked on suburban streets and ready for use in an act of extreme violence at a moment’s notice.

Detectives have also charged 52 people, but of those, more than 10 have been “willing” juveniles – something even an experienced crime fighter such as Supt Box finds “hard to comprehend”.

“I think the willingness of a lot of juveniles to commit these serious crimes, you know, I really can’t get my head around it,” he said.

Strike Force Fireant officers on the job.

“You know, I’ve seen a lot of juveniles drawn into serious matters in the (organised crime) murders, where they’re used in some capacity, for the promise of money or something, and they don’t really know what they’re doing.

“But these juveniles are willingly taking these jobs on … letting off 28 rounds into a house (in Merrylands in March) occupied by a lady and four kids.”

In that Merrylands shooting, bullets sprayed into the home hit the bedhead of a child.

As we discuss that incident, Supt Box holds up his iPhone to give an idea of how far the bullets were from the sleeping child’s head – centimetres.

Taskforce Falcon was formed the day after Dawood Zakaria was shot dead on Church St in Parramatta, occurring in the same week innocent young plumber John Versace was killed in the driveway of his family home at Condell Park.

While Mr Versace’s family and even detectives are scratching their heads at why the 23-year-old was shot dead, at the centre of Taskforce Falcon’s other investigations are incidents largely linked to an internal feud in the Alameddine crime clan.

Supt Box had been monitoring divisions within the Alameddines for months in his usual role as head of the Criminal Groups Squad, before being seconded to Taskforce Falcon.

Dawood Zakaria was shot dead in Parramatta.

John Versace was gunned down in his driveway.

A central figure to the conflict is Samimjan Azari, an alleged former member of the Alameddines, who has since defected and was the target of the May 25 shooting at Parramatta that claimed Zakaria’s life.

Police believe gunmen followed Azari from Parramatta Police Station, where he checked in for bail, and then opened fire as he sat in a ute on nearby Church St.

When police arrived at the scene and searched the ute, they found a gun which they charged Azari with possessing – but he was granted bail the next day.

Within three weeks of the Parramatta shooting and Azari being bailed, he had been shot at twice more – a late-night attempt at Rosehill and the much-publicised broad daylight attack at a kebab shop in Auburn. Azari is yet to enter a plea over the gun-possession charge.

Police talk to Samimjan Azari after a shooting at Granville in May. Picture: Rohan Kelly

“There’s a lot of queries about him being on bail in the first place,” Supt Box said of the multiple attempts on Azari’s life.

“We put forward all the concerns that we had to put forward (about) what we thought could potentially happen.

“We made it quite clear about his standing, his involvement, his associates, where he stood in terms of violence in the community.

“We couldn’t have been any clearer that it comes back to, you know, a decision that’s outside our control, but a lot of these issues would have been alleviated if you remain in custody.”

When asked what success for Taskforce Falcon looks like in coming months, Supt Box said he wanted to take everyone involved in the underworld war down, “from those at the top, to the middle, to the bottom”.

“They’re all involved … so I hope we remove them, I hope we restore the community back to a more peaceful and safe environment,” he said.