Nine charged over gangland ambush on Mongol bikie
Nine suspects have been charged over the attempted hit on Mongol bikie Rocco Curra, with two men hit with attempted murder charges following a series of raids. See the chilling CCTV footage of the incident.
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Nine people have been charged by detectives investigating the dramatic attempted hit on Mongol bikie Rocco Curra, including two men for attempted murder.
Investigators from the Echo taskforce this morning executed nine warrants as part of their probe into the near-fatal ambush of Curra at Bulleen last August.
A 26-year-old Clyde north man and a 24-year-old Mickleham man have been charged with attempted murder and arson.
A man from Meadow heights, 31, has been charged with attempt to pervert the course of justice, accessory after the fact to attempted murder and drugs related charges.
Graphic footage released this week showed two men get out of a BMW late at night in Bourke St and immediately open fire on a car containing Curra.
Police believe the 37-year-old victim was lured there for a meeting.
Those charged on Friday were picked up in a series of raids across Melbourne involving the special operations group.
Warrants were executed at an outlaw motorcycle gang club house Cranbourne West, as well as properties in Clyde North, Narre Warren, Mickleham, Werribee, Altona Meadows, Brunswick West and Meadow Heights.
A number of other people were charged after the raids, including a Werribee woman, 29, with trafficking cocaine, an Altona Meadows man, 36 with trafficking a drug of dependence.
A 25-year-old Werribee man was also charged with drug offences and another man from Werribee, 18, was cautioned for possessing cannabis.
Eleven people have now been arrested in total.
Curra, a close mate of high-profile Bandido-turned-Mongol Toby Mitchell, was shot in the head and upper body.
Police are amazed he survived.
The BMW used by the gunmen and their getaway driver was later found torched in Templestowe.
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It is a ruthless and reckless crime that looks more Tijuana than Bulleen.
And CCTV shot from a nearby house clearly shows just how lucky Rocco Curra is to be still breathing today.
The 37-year-old is sitting in his car with the lights on in Bourke St, Bulleen, when a BMW sweeps in from behind and parks diagonally in front of him.
The driver remains at the wheel as two men armed with pistols climb out and fire without hesitation, visible muzzle flashes marking the shots.
Seconds later, as gun smoke drifts in the winter air, they run back to the BMW and take off before torching it in nearby Templestowe and leave the area in another getaway car.
The would-be contract killers might have been congratulating themselves on a job well done but for one key failing; their target was tough enough and lucky enough to survive.
Curra, badly wounded in the head and chest, was able to get to a nearby house where the alarm was raised with emergency services.
Just hours before the frightening ambush, Curra caught up with a bloke who knows a bit about surviving a gangland ambush.
He had been with Bandido-turned-Mongol Toby Mitchell, himself twice wounded by gunfire in Melbourne shooting attacks.
Mitchell most famously cheated death in 2011 when he was blasted at close range by two gunmen outside the Bandido headquarters in Weston St, Brunswick.
Two years later, the burly bullet magnet was again injured by gunfire — this time near a clubhouse in Melton affiliated with the Bandidos.
Mitchell, a good mate of Curra, signed on with the Mongols this year but investigators believe the shooting was not directed at him.
The way it was carried out certainly placed the public in danger.
As detective acting Sen-Sgt Justin Mercovich of the Echo taskforce said, the nature of the shooting meant Curra was not the only one in grave danger.
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“We’re also lucky that other people weren’t inadvertently injured or killed,” Sen-Sgt Mercovich said
And other things can also go wrong, as a long line of Melbourne hitmen have shown in the past with a lack of attention to detail.
Too bad if someone else with a vehicle similar to Curra’s had pulled over to make a phone call or check directions at the wrong time.