Crime feud spills over into jailyard attack
THE alliance between the Hells Angels and Melbourne’s outlaw Chaouk family has ended with a jailhouse beating.
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THE alliance between the Hells Angels and Melbourne’s Chaouk family has ended with a jailhouse beating.
Two members of the well-known western suburbs family were set upon in an ambush at maximum security Barwon Prison this week.
Sources have told the Herald Sun a bust-up with members of the Hells Angels was the reason for the attack.
The Chaouk victims have been separated from the mainstream prison population since the attack.
The trio who launched into them outside the jail’s medical centre are not believed to be Hells Angels members.
One is a convicted killer, another a violent neo-Nazi and the third a member of a ruthless drug syndicate.
The onslaught happened without warning in front of other prisoners, none of whom attempted to intervene.
It is believed the alleged attack happened outside the prison’s medical centre, during the morning medication roll call.
It was quickly quelled by nearby prison staff but not before the Chaouk men suffered head wounds, which required treatment.
The attackers are now the subject of a police investigation into what happened.
Investigators are expected to examine CCTV footage to help determine how the violence unfolded.
It is unclear what level of co-operation they have received from victims, suspects or attackers.
Prison sources told the Herald Sun, before Monday’s incident, the Chaouk’s had said they were nervous the bust-up with the Hells Angels could lead to some form of retaliation.
Members of the Chaouk family have for years had strong links to the Hells Angels.
The riders were conspicuous among the congregation at the funeral of family patriarch Macchour Chaouk in 2010.
After his death, prominent Hells Angels figures also placed death notices in the Herald Sun.
One Chaouk family member has been implicated in violent crime with the gang in the past.
It is not yet clear what led to the relationship between the two groups becoming so frayed.
It is hard to get a read on the possible impact of Monday’s prison beating in the fluid world of Middle Eastern organised crime.
Leaving aside the formidable Haddara family, few have been keen to take on the Chaouk’s.
The Chaouks blamed the Haddaras for the still-unsolved murder of Macchour, who was fatally ambushed in his backyard.
The machinegun spraying of a fast-food restaurant on Millers Rd, Altona North, almost a decade ago was attributed to conflict between the families.
Geelong Rd was once the mythical boundary that supposedly separated the families.
Haddaras were said to control the south with the Chaouk’s running things to the north from Brooklyn.
Nowadays, the more tangible separation is between maximum security prisons.
Authorities keep the Haddaras and their affiliates in Port Phillip and the Chaouks at Barwon, trying to avoid exactly the kind of brutality of Monday morning.
As with a number of Melbourne’s other Middle-Eastern crime families, bikies have forged alliances with them to provide muscle and drug distribution avenues.
The Haddaras have in the past been known to maintain ties with the Comanchero motorcycle gang.
The Comancheros and Mongols both hold links to a range of other feared and, at times, erratic senior Middle East organised crime figures.
Beneath that level are a legion of foot soldiers whose relationships are even more opaque.
One week, two old mates might be doing a brisk business in drugs.
The next, one party is invited to an outer-suburban park or somewhere else far from prying eyes for a late-night meeting.
The invitee is left with a gunshot wound to the leg, courtesy of his former friend or someone appointed to do the shooting.
One of the few predictable things is that the victim will try to get to hospital without using an ambulance.
The near certainty is that he won’t help the police find out who did it.