More bad news for AN0M exiles and Comanchero bikie gang

Police are closing in on key players in the notorious Comanchero bikie gang, as experts reveal how taking out the Mr Bigs will change their relationship with Australia’s criminal underworld.

This could be the summer of reckoning for notorious bikie gang, the Comancheros.

Until now, the gang has maintained a stronghold over Australia’s illegal drug importation, with local foot-soldiers enforcing the orders of international drug kingpin Mark Buddle, who has been ruling the club in absentia from the Middle East for several years.

This has included the establishment of the “commission” by Buddle, a mafia-style drug cartel, which demands all criminal players pay Buddle a tax on drugs imported into Sydney, enforced by violent recriminations on any who dare disobey.

But recent months have seen the club troubled by a series of raids and arrests resulting from the AN0M sting ‘Operation Ironside’ and now the Australian Federal Police and state officers are believed to be closing in on three top players, Hasan Topal, Hakan Ayik and Buddle.

Watch our latest True Crime Australia YouTube episode on Mark Buddle below:

The AN0M app was the ‘Trojan horse’ of law enforcement – an encrypted mobile phone app designed by the FBI which undercover officers used to trick organised crime syndicates into using, under the mistaken belief their conversations could not be tapped or tracked by police.

The long established law enforcement tactic to ‘cut off the serpent’s head’ – with police focusing efforts on pursuing the most elusive and powerful organised crime players such as Buddle, Topal and Ayik – works to the theory that taking out key figureheads will destabilise the lower echelons and diminish a gang’s power.

But can this work with the Comancheros?

A bikie gang with such tenacity, that even with Buddle delivering orders from secret locations in Dubai, the Greek Islands and most recently Iraq, they have managed to help turn over an estimated $1.5 billion per year in drug smuggling profits.

Comancheros Boss Mark Buddle leaves the County Court. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Buddle and Akin were recently named by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission as being among nine men who posed the greatest organised crime risk to the nation, called the “Aussie Cartel”.

“I think the interesting thing about the Comancheros is that they’ve shown a real resilience to police pressures,” said Dr John Coyne, an expert in serious and organised transnational crime, and Head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“Across Australia, we’ve seen this huge amount of collaborative effort across the various jurisdictions. In the majority of states they can’t even wear their colours [and] their patches as they ride motorbikes anymore. They’re fighting it out in those suburbs of Western Sydney in a drug war. And yet, they still seem to be able to move drugs internationally, like they’ve proven to be a really resilient, organised crime group.

Dr John Coyne is the head of strategic police and law enforcement programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gary Ramage

“So if they’re able to take out one or two key players, they may be able to certainly influence the Comancheros’ ability [to function]. Especially if they’re key facilitators or leaders that can’t be easily replaced, it is likely to have some lasting impact. But I don’t think it will have a lasting impact on overall drug supply or availability in our communities,” he said.

He believes that historical international examples suggest the result could be a fragmentation of the drug market, with several smaller drug players stepping up to fill the void.

Hakan Ayik is one of Australia’s most wanted drug lords with links to outlaw motorcycle gangs Picture: Network News

“If you look at the New York crime families, when they took out the original ‘Teflon Don’ himself, it really had no long term influence on the Italian crime families there,” said Dr Coyne, referring to American gangster John Joseph Gotti Jr., infamous boss of the Gambino crime family.

“We took out [Colombian drug lord] Pablo Escobar and it didn’t really have any impact on the supply of cocaine to the US. In fact, you’d argue that the situation got significantly worse. Because what you saw was a fragmentation the market.”

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Originally published as More bad news for AN0M exiles and Comanchero bikie gang