Convicted Melbourne Comanchero drug crew runner Fawzi El Cheikh charged with assault: Court
A former Melbourne lieutenant in an international Comanchero-linked drug syndicate allegedly attacked and threatened a woman.
Melbourne City
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A flashy former Comanchero associate who was a key player in an international drug syndicate has landed back on the radar of anti-bikie police.
Fawzi El Cheikh fronted Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday charged with assault and threatening to inflict serious injury.
Echo Taskforce detectives arrested El Cheikh after he allegedly attacked and threatened a woman at Melbourne on May 19 this year.
El Cheikh, who used to get around town in flashy stolen luxury cars, was well known to the specialist anti-bikie police crew who took down his former boss Domenic Luzza in late-2019.
Luzza was exposed as the former high-ranking Comanchero bikie who controlled an international drug-smuggling syndicate linked to underworld violence.
Luzza, a former Comanchero treasurer, was nabbed after police launched “Echo-Maine 2018”.
The lengthy covert op established that Luzza imported and trafficked various drugs including MDMA, ketamine and 100kg of meth precursor ‘MAPA”.
The MAPA could have yielded 80kg of high-grade worth tens of millions of dollars had it hit the streets.
Luzza also attempted to import 200kg of 1,4 butanediol – a legal industrial cleaner that turns into GHB when ingested.
Luzza shopped around for the best prices on Chinese factory produced analog drugs, including methyl alpha-acetophenylacetate (MAPA), fluorodeschloroketamine and MDMA mirror Eutylone.
He was linked with a Hong Kong middleman who provided a full service one-stop shop for overseas traffickers.
The service included packaging and shipping the drugs to Australia disguised as eyelash curlers and other items.
Fraudulent paperwork, fake addresses and bogus tracking and consignment numbers were all included.
Syndicate lieutenant El Cheikh, on Luzza’s orders, enlisted Koray Biricik to collect a methyl alpha-acetophenylacetate consignment.
The court heard Biricik firebombed a Reservoir man’s car who owed the crew a drug debt.
The victim was also shot at twice — and struck four times — in a three-day period.
Officers from Echo, the ABF and the AFP’s national anti-gang task force monitored spy cameras and bus installed multiple properties and vehicles including Luzza’s Docklands’ apartment.
Luzza’s syndicate used false names and addresses and encrypted phone apps in an attempt to keep their clandestine operation hidden from police.
Police listened, via a device installed in Luzza’s apartment, while the Comanchero boss discussed drug business with El Cheikh and other syndicate lieutenant Lorenzo Carbone.
Luzza was also recorded having a conversation with fugitive Comanchero boss Hasan Topal in which the pair discussed how the government could not monitor encrypted telecommunication services.
Luzza was recorded telling an associate they needed to fly to Europe to meet Topal to give him “$10,000” each because he was “red hot”.
The pair later met Topal – on the run for suspected murders – in Europe.
Investigators observed Luzza receive fluordeschloroketamine at his Docklands’ apartment on August 1, 2019.
Luzza was captured on spy cameras weighing and mixing the drugs before delivering the gear to an unknown third-party outside the apartment block.
Police also intercepted a Wickr conversation in which Luzza discussed an MDMA deal on September 11, 2019.
Luzza was helping an associate source some ‘Blue Grenades’ (MDMA).
A few days before the deal Luzza obtained 1kg of a substance he described to be ‘MD’.
Luzza was caught with steroids and $20,000 cash after he was arrested waiting for a pizza at Caroline Springs on September 11, 2019.
Police seized 929.9 grams of eutylone (MD) and multiple mobile phones after raiding Carbone’s Hillside home the next day.
El Cheikh was linked to various stolen luxury vehicles with cloned number plates.
Luzza was jailed in October for a maximum seven-year stretch after pleading guilty multiple offences including import a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.
Carbone was sentenced in 2022 to a maximum five years and six months with a minimum of four years after pleading guilty to trafficking a commercial quantity of drugs.
Biricik was sentenced in 2022 to a maximum three years and 11 months with a minimum two years after pleading guilty to drug trafficking and arson.
El Cheikh, who was sentenced in 2022 to maximum 20 months with a minimum of 10 months for his drug offending, will face court on the latest charges at a later date.
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