Cocaine kingpins revealed: Men behind Australia’s drug trade

Fifteen men are suspected of controlling almost all the cocaine, heroin and MDMA trafficked to Australia - and surprisingly most run legitimate businesses.

Fifteen men are suspected of controlling almost all the cocaine, heroin and MDMA trafficked to Australia, branded global top tier criminals with elaborate offshore networks moving drugs and money in the billions of dollars.

And surprisingly most of them run legitimate businesses to disguise their operations, working as investors and property developers, brokers, telcos, logistic freighters, restaurateurs, car salesmen, and casino operators.

Four of the men are even direct investors in China’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative, laundering millions of dollars made through successful drug imports to Australia, to fund the Chinese development trade route project through the Middle East and Africa.

It can be revealed the AFP has also tracked in detail Australia-linked dirty money being moved through shelf companies and “banks” in Hong Kong, Macau, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and even the tiny St Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean.

Hakan Arif (Little Hux) and Hakan Ayik (Big Hux) are considered Australian Priority Organisation Targets (APOTS). Picture: Network News

The extent of their networks has been reinforced, as revealed last week, with the existence of the AFP and FBI encryption communications platform called AN0M which Australian drug baron Hakan Ayik inadvertently promoted among hundreds of criminals globally.

A top-level investigation by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the AFP has meticulously pieced together the most comprehensive picture ever of how the global flow of drugs – largely cocaine, MDMA and heroin – end on Australia’s doorstep and the “intelligence assessed” men who top the list including six new names added since last year.

Surprisingly the bulk is controlled by just 15 men and entities, at least 12 of whom have set up overseas but now designated by the ACIC as Australian Priority Organisation Target (APOT) for their facilitating of bulk narcotics imports, largely through sea and air imports, “black flight” below-radar air movements, airfreight and transfers at sea to local fishing and other small vessels.

Such is the wealth to be gained, intelligence shows multiple traffic runs are being made to Australia with the knowledge that if nine out of 10 are seized by authorities the one that gets through still pays for the losses.

According to well-placed sources, the APOT list stems from one of the most comprehensive multinational, multi-agency intelligence including from overseas partner agencies such as the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Homeland Security Investigations, to get behind the top tier criminal suspects acting as conduits between the offshore drug manufacturing in countries like China and Myanmar and controlling cartels in countries like Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans.

Former Comanchero boss Mark Buddle is also considered a prized target.

Those drugs are then passed through to the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCG) and other Australian-based criminals – the top two dozen of which are listed on State-based law enforcers as Regional Priority Organisation Targets (RPOTS).

The AFP formally declined to comment on the APOTs but law enforcement sources said the list renewed focus on taking the fight offshore.

“On the face it, these men control or are involved in the bulk of the drugs trafficked to Australia, most are based offshore, living overseas, and know we’ll pick them up if they come back here,” one said.

“But they are the focus, they are steering the supply here and becoming very rich from it and living lavish lifestyles. Laughably, their biggest problem is they have so much money here (Australia) they are struggling to move it out and are constantly looking for new ways to do it.”

Bitcoin and other crypto currencies remain the most effective way to launder money but it is understood some criminals are even buying bulk meat and wine consignments as genuine foreign trade to ship overseas to clean money, setting upfront companies. Luxury cars are being purchased and shipped overseas for sale, with a price discount on the vehicle still making it a viable launder and consortiums to buy expensive multimillion dollar homes in Australia ostensibly for buyers overseas.

Former Hells Angels boss Angelo Pandeli is also listed as an APOT. Picture: Matthew Vasilescu.

News Corp Australia has chosen not to identify by name the bulk of principal APOT suspects at the behest of law enforcers for operational reasons.

Two designated APOT men are currently based in the Netherlands from where they direct ecstasy and cocaine trafficking, including one who was implicated, arrested and jailed, over the world record 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy trafficked to Melbourne from the Dutch Belgium border via Italy in 2007.

In the five years since he has been released he is suspected of reconnecting with the criminal milieu including the Calabrian Mafia and another APOT based in Cambodia for MDMA and cocaine shipment plots to Australia.

Another APOT is an Adelaide man who was forced out of South East Asia 18 months ago when Australian authorities actively sought to cancel his passport and thus forced his deportation.

That man is associated with a notorious bikie gang and suspected to have been heavily involved in multiple multimillion-dollar plots to smuggle methamphetamine and cocaine for national distribution.

In one 2017 plot, drugs were hidden in a Piper Warrior aircraft frame, while others in aircraft parts all shipped to Melbourne from Malaysia. One intercepted 112kg meth haul, consigned to Yarrawonga Aerodrome on the Victoria-NSW border, stunned ABF and AFP agents due to its elaborate smuggle plot and high purity.

Michael Tu who is believed to be in Hong Kong and involved in money laundering.

There are two APOTs living in Turkey, former Sydney drugs boss Hakan Arif, known as ‘Mr Billionaire’, and 40-year-old dual Australian-Turkish national Ayik, sought by police for questioning since he fled Australia a decade ago over a $230m heroin import largely for the Melbourne and Sydney market and now on the run from police and other gangster wanting to kill him over the AN0M revelations.

According to the ACIC, both men are suspected to be at the forefront of international drugs trafficking with extensive underworld networks including Asian Triads, Balkan Organised Crime Groups, Greece-based gangsters and the Australian Comanchero OMCG which they use as the distribution arm for their drug shipments.

Australia's Cocaine Crisis will be explored on Sunday in a Sky News doco.

Four APOTS are based in the United Arab Emirates including Mark Buddle in self-imposed exile in Dubai where he has amassed a $100 million fortune allegedly from huge-haul drug shipments to Australia. Despite him being aligned with the Comanchero as the OMCG former national boss he has been linked to a former rival bikie boss also now living in Dubai who police hope can assist with information relating to under radar “black flight” drug runs to Australia from the US. Former Hells Angels boss Angelo Pandeli is also listed.

Two APOTs are overseas based “middle men brokers” who act as agents for Buddle in the movement of money and drugs.

The biggest scalp for the AFP in decades was a man arrested last month after years on the top of the APOT list, Chinese-Canadian crime lord Tse Chi Lop.

* Watch Australia’s Cocaine Crisis Sunday 7.30pm on Sky News.

Originally published as Cocaine kingpins revealed: Men behind Australia’s drug trade