Masood Zakaria: Alleged Alameddine heavyweight has ‘money and connections’

Even when young, alleged Alameddine heavyweight on the run Masood Zakaria was “cold and calculated”, an ex-Middle Eastern Organised Crime investigator says.

A young Masood Zakaria was so “staunch” he refused to talk to police, even after his little sister was shot in a 2013 attack intended for him.

Not much has changed since and that is why, as NSW Police closed in last December to charge him over his alleged involvement in a failed plot to kill Ibrahem Hamze at North Sydney, Zakaria fled overseas instead.

Former NSW Police officer Ryan Jeffcoat remembers a young Zakaria well.

He was one of a number of members of Brothers 4 Life investigated by Mr Jeffcoat when Jeffcoat was part of the now defunct Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOCS).

Today Zakaria is on the run, believed to be somewhere around Lebanon or Turkey, having fled the country on a fishing trawler off the Western Australia coast.

Masood Zakaria – an alleged Alameddine clan heavyweight – was so “staunch” as a youngster he refused to talk to police, even after his little sister was shot in a 2013 attack intended for him, former NSW Police officer Ryan Jeffcoat has told. Picture: John Grainger

Mr Jeffcoat, a former detective in the Middle Easter Organised Crime Squad, was interviewed as part of The Daily Telegraph’s video series “The War” on Sydney’s current gang feud. Picture: Richard Dobson

“You could tell back then he was quite cold and calculated with how he operated,” Mr Jeffcoat said.

“A lot of people don’t give Masood credit for how clever he is. He’s brazen, he’s pretty staunch as a crook, he will never roll – it’s just ingrained in him not to.

“He’s not to be underestimated by anyone who is investigating him – I mean look at how he managed to put together his exit plan out of Australia.

“That takes money, that takes connections. You don’t get out of this country without those two things.”

As part of his interview for The Daily Telegraph’s four-part video series The War, on the current gang feud that has seen more than a dozen murders in less than 20 months, Mr Jeffcoat spoke about his experiences in dealing with many of the current alleged main players years before they rose to prominence.

Between 2006 and 2017, MEOCS specialised in investigating the players involved in Middle Eastern crime.

Alleged Alameddine organised crime network members Mustafa Hafizi, Ali “Ay Huncho” Younes and Zakaria. Picture: Supplied

Top among them was the crackdown on the Brothers 4 Life gang, whose chapters caused chaos on Sydney’s streets for years before turning on each other in a deadly war.

That conflict – which Mr Jeffcoat believes is the closest thing to the current feud Sydney is experiencing – ended after the investigations of Strike Force Sitella, which arrested more than 20 people and resulted in the three main offenders being jailed for a total of 140 years.

Weapons, including a 223 M1 Carbine, were among those recovered by NSW Police Strike Force Sitella. Picture: Supplied.

A 38 snub nose revolver which was used in the murder of Joe Antoun was also recovered. Picture: Supplied

One of Mr Jeffcoat’s major focuses was to get guns off the street with one list containing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of firearms, belonging to just one gang.

“A lot of people I guess don’t like to talk about it … but the rolling of crooks is a vital cog to the investigation of organised crime,” he said.

“There’s a list (of weapons) we were supplied … that a crew had. I got a chrome plated Uzi that would be a $50,000 firearm on the black market.

“A police issued Glock is a $10,000 pistol. There were five pump-action shotguns, a fully automatic TEC-9 and two AK-47s.

“The general public would be mortified if they knew what weapons were out there.”