Farhad Qaumi: Police boss reveals detail behind Brothers For Life sting
In an extract from A Woman of Force, Crime Editor Mark Morri details how ex-gangs squad boss Deb Wallace wore a device inher bra in a bid to take down a bikie boss.
Police & Courts
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- B4L boss charged after slashing face, neck of prisoner
- Gang boss’s in-law freed on bail over gun charges
- B4L gang leader Qaumi goes off-script
“She is like me, a general in an army,” the now-imprisoned Brothers for Life leader Farhad Qaumi had said of Superintendent Deb Wallace.
The words on the phone tap had sat in the back of homicide detective Glen Browne’s mind since he’d first heard them uttered.
Deb had been flying back from a holiday in Thailand in early November 2013. She was on the red-eye from Thailand, talking to the man next to her.
The man sitting in front of them turned to look back at her a few times. She didn’t think much of it, but noticed he had a red cap on.
The flight was pretty empty, so the hostie soon moved Deb to her own four-seat section.
As the plane taxied into Sydney Deb saw a text from one of her investigators asking if she was on QF20.
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Deb rang the officer and jokingly asked if they missed her so much they wanted to pick her up at the airport.
“Qaumi was on your flight. We already have him under surveillance,” the detective told her.
At that point Deb had had very little to do with Qaumi. When the detective described his clothing, including the red cap, she suddenly realised why the man had kept looking at her.
Not long after, Qaumi was picked up on a telephone talking about how he had been on the same plane as the boss of MEOCS.
Homicide Detective Glen Browne had been investigating Mahmoud Hamzy’s murder when he heard Qaumi talk about Deb.
“She is like me, a general of an army. We are both generals,” he had said.
A veteran homicide detective, Browne knew killers, and this guy was one of the worst — an egotistical psychopath who had developed the misguided belief that he and Deb Wallace were equals.
Browne thought maybe he could use Qaumi’s imagined connection with Deb to his advantage.
Even after Qaumi was arrested in January 2014, he was still a powerful figure.
Some cops rightly or wrongly thought Qaumi was besotted with Deb.
Qaumi’s words had stuck in Browne’s mind, and the seed of a plan had started to form. It was an idea that would take months of planning. And now that Qaumi was in custody, he could put it into action.
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He was going to try to get Qaumi to confess to his role in the murders of Joe Antoun and Mahmoud Hamzy — Browne knew Qaumi had ordered the hits but needed evidence.
“I didn’t know Deb Wallace that well, but I wanted her to wear a wire and try to talk to Qaumi. It was a bit of mad idea but the boss of Homicide, Michael Willing, said if I could swing it, go ahead,” Browne recalls.
With his boss’s approval and the nod from Deb, all Browne had to do was make it happen.
“I got Qaumi to be brought to Long Bay Jail to be questioned about an old murder charge he had beaten,’’ he said.
“The timing had to be perfect. Deb was to walk past the room with one of the prison guards at the exact moment the door was opened, so Qaumi could see her.”
On the day, Deb met with the technicians, who wired her up with two listening devices. Then somehow, as if following a movie script, it all fell into place. When the door opened Qaumi saw Deb walking past and fell for the bait.
“Deb, Deb, it’s me Qaumi,” he called out.
After a few minutes of small talk, she said, “Hey, why don’t we go for a walk? You can have a smoke,” she offered.
She led him away from the interview room and down to some loading docks. A career crim, Qaumi would have been on guard talking in a prison facility, knowing it would have been wired. But outdoors, in a chance meeting, he would have been relaxed and off guard.
In the back of her mind, Deb knew he was a bloke who had a total disregard for human life. Deb remembered all the late-night phone calls telling her of yet another person who’d been shot by Qaumi’s crew.
As they walked around the dock, the guards kept a close watch.
Much as she hates to say it, Deb found him very charismatic. He was very passionate about what he did, and even said when he got out he wanted to do more work with the youth. He didn’t want them to end up in jail like him.
Qaumi spoke about his hard childhood in Afghanistan, insisting that he hadn’t started out bad. “You have been a soldier and worked your way up to the top, and so have I,” he told her.
But throughout the entire hour-long conversation, Deb was sure of one thing: Qaumi was in charge of the gang. While he never said he killed anyone or ordered the murders or bashings, it was clear he was a charismatic leader who had managed to get a bunch of young people to do whatever he asked.
After an hour the prison authorities began signalling to Deb to wind it up — they had to get him back to Goulburn.
In the end, Qaumi had not confessed to anything, nor had he mentioned his brothers or any of the other gang members. He’d merely waxed lyrical about what BFL were trying to achieve. It had been a cat-and-mouse game, each playing the other. Deb could sense that Qaumi, while friendly, had been trying to find out what cops had on him.
“I know he was in jail and there were armed guards everywhere but it was still a pretty gutsy thing to do,” Browne said.
Qaumi on Thursday said he was aware of the sting when details of the meeting were part of a police court brief.
He has told legal representatives and others he knew all long it was a set-up and rejects much of what Wallace and Browne have said.
A Woman of Force, by Mark Morri, out on Pan McMillan on September 22.