Fugitive Comanchero Hasan Topal found to be directing criminal activity in AN0M sting

A one-time model turned fugitive Comanchero bikie boss has been found to be directing criminal activity from his foreign bolthole.

One-time-model turned Comanchero bikie boss Hasan Topal has been busted by authorities for directing criminal activity via the ill-fated AN0M app.

Fugitive Comanchero Hasan Topal directed criminal underlings to do his dirty work in the streets of Melbourne while being monitored by police.

The name of the Melbourne bikie boss was revealed in court documents showing he gave sophisticated orders to his Australian underlings via the ill-fated ANOM app.

Those messages were among millions intercepted by the Australian Federal Police and the United States Federal Bureau of Intelligence.

The documents show that on May 19 and 20, 2021, an “H Topal” was on ANOM instructing Melbourne criminals on how to collect $250,000, later determined to be the proceeds of crime.

The Saturday Herald Sun has confirmed it is the same Hasan Topal who left Australia in 2019 as police scrutinised him over a series of underworld shootings.

According to the documents, Topal, a former male model, was directing the criminal gang from the Middle East.

Hasan Topal.

Topal during his Chadwick modelling days

Topal told one of the men to plan and co-ordinate the exchange of the money, to be collected in Sydney with a Toyota van which had a purpose-built secret compartment inside.

That man was then directed to park the van at his worksite, take the $250,000 from its hiding place and put it in a shopping bag on a rear shelf.

He then placed a $5 note on the package, photographed its serial number and sent it to another syndicate member to be used as a token to indicate the transaction was complete.

Topal, after being told of the van’s location, directed that the “$250” be handed to the co-ordinator of another syndicate.

Less than 30 minutes later, another man who was a former Uber driver arrived.

He checked that the van had yellow number plates before photographing the token and sending it on to confirm the cash had been collected.

The former Uber driver was arrested by the Echo task force in Preston soon after and police seized $250,000 in three vacuum-sealed bags.

Authorities found the fugitive had directed the deal from his foreign bolthole.

He would later say he was paid between $300 and $400 for the assignment and, when asked where the bagged cash came from, replied in Mandarin: “Can I not answer this?”.

Underworld talk has persisted since Topal left Australia that he was one of the proponents of ANOM, a platform used by criminals in the wrongful belief that it was surveillance-proof.

Authorities were able to harvest a colossal number of messages, many of them allegedly linked to international drug-smuggling plots and the planning of violent crimes.

Many Comanchero and Mafia figures were swept up in the Australian side of the operation.

Topal, who has Australian and Turkish citizenship, headed abroad two years before the conversations held over ANOM were captured discussing the collection of the money.

Although he remains in exile he is considered a priority target for law enforcement.

Both the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police remain interested in Topal’s activities.

Topal remains a suspect in two wrong-victim homicides carried out in 2017.

Police say the victims were wrongly identified by their killer whose intended targets were linked to the Mongols outlaw gang.

Muhammed Yucel, 22, was shot at Keysborough and Zabi Ezedyar, 26,was gunned down as he was greeted at the door of a Narre Warren property where a senior Mongol bikie lived.

Topal, a one-time model turned wild man, is also suspected as being one of the triggermen who shot Comanchero Robert Ale.

Ale was shot by two men wearing balaclavas who stormed into the Nitro Ink tattoo parlour in Hampton Park in 2018.

The attack was so frenzied that bullets pierced the walls of adjacent businesses.

Topal is also a suspect in the shooting of Bandido bikies on top of the Bolte Bridge, another ambush in which his former Comanchero comrade Mark Balsillie was wounded and a drive-by attack on a Richmond auto business.