Key players in Melbourne’s underworld in 2022

A seismic shift in Victoria’s organised crime landscape will reverberate for some time after alliances were shattered and drug empires exposed.

Big names fell, alliances shattered and drug empires were exposed in a year of dramatic change in Victoria’s organised crime landscape.

The Mongols bikie split, the dismantling of George Marrogi’s Notorious Crime Family gang and the arrests of Mick Murray and Mark Buddle will reverberate for some time.

Despite the instability, there has been a corresponding decline in gun violence, in no small way related to the increased use of firearm prohibition orders.

Detective Inspector Graham Banks, the head of the Victoria Police Echo taskforce, said there had not been an outlaw motorcycle gang-related shooting in Victoria for almost two years.

George Marrogi’s Notorious Crime Family gang was dismantled.

Expected bloodshed after the fracturing of the Mongols eight months ago did not eventuate, despite it being a gang with a history of violence which Inspector Banks said had its share of “big personalities”.

New leadership took control in April and, not long after, prominent members including Toby Mitchell, Mark Balsillie, Sam Abdulrahim and Jason Addison, were among the first of dozens who parted ways with the feared outfit.

The club was taken over by now-national president Nick “The Knife” Forbes with Victorian-based Phil Main acting as sergeant-at-arms. The duo’s takeover has led to ongoing friction with ousted and departed members.

In June, former Mongol Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim was shot eight times in a daylight ambush attack outside Fawkner cemetery.

Sam Abdulrahim was shot eight times in Fawkner.

Abdulrahim’s Mercedes was sprayed with bullets. Picture: Brendan Beckett

However Abdulrahim has insisted the shooting had nothing to do with former gang mates.

In the aftermath of the attempt on his life he said: “Their day will come … legally of course.”

In September, 18-year-old Yasir Al Qassim, of Epping, was charged with attempted murder over his alleged role in the shooting.

Two suspects are believed to have fled the country, according to police, in an investigation which is ongoing.

Inspector Banks said the Mongols had been weakened by the removal of Balsillie, Mitchell and Abdulrahim.

He said those who did not swear allegiance to the new regimen were deemed to be against them.

“They couldn’t remain members of that group,” Inspector Banks said.

Toby Mitchell is among the prominent bikies who parted ways with the Mongols. Picture: Ian Currie

A number of reasons, some inflammatory, have been touted about why the split happened.

But Inspector Banks said the biggest were a mix of commercial and personal factors.

He said there had since been a relaxation of recruitment standards and that the membership of newcomers was being expedited.

The Comancheros have also hit some serious turbulence with one-third of their membership currently incarcerated.

Already battered by dozens of arrests as part of the AFP-led Operation Ironside of 2021, the “Comos” had hoped to spend the year rebuilding, but were dealt two massive blows.

Long-time president Mick Murray was in April arrested by Victoria Police and charged with the 2019 Dandenong murder of gangland figure Mitat Rasimi.

Mick Murray.

Tony Mokbel.

Rasimi, a former associate of jailed drug lord Tony Mokbel, was allegedly murdered over a $300,000 debt his brother owed the gang.

Murray is set to fight the allegation, which was the subject of what Assistant Commissioner Bob Hill described at the time as “an incredible amount of work” spanning years.

Despite constant police scrutiny on him and his associates, the most serious of Murray’s legal difficulties were, until April, to do with allegations he failed to pay his taxes.

There was more bad news to come.

In August, the Australian Federal Police arrested Mark Buddle, after he was detained by Turkish authorities in a disputed part of Cyprus, where he was living in exile.

Buddle, it is alleged, imported 160kg of cocaine with a street value of about $40 million.

His arrest came about as another legacy of Ironside, which targeted the Comancheros’ alleged role in the global drug trade by convincing key gang members to use an supposedly surveillance-proof app, AN0M, for their communications.

Investigators then harvested their messages.

Inspector Banks said Ironside had shown how much the Comancheros and other organised crime groups were prepared to work together for profit.

“It’s not just about owning territory but sharing opportunities,” he said.

Murray and Buddle’s arrest led to the rise of his childhood friend, Allan Meehan, to the gang’s national presidency

Mark Buddle was detained by Turkish authorities. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Meehan frequently visits Melbourne on gang business, and to avoid the restrictions of the serious crime prevention imposed on him by the NSW Supreme Court earlier this year.

But his rise also led to a bizarre, State-of-Origin style power play, with his sergeant-at-arms, Tarek Zahed, living in Melbourne and retaining the gang’s second most powerful role, even after being shot in the eye in an ambush in Sydney in May, which claimed the life of his brother.

Zahed is now also behind bars after NSW Police in August charged him with murder.

Despite its relatively small size, the Comanchero remains the most powerful and well-resourced bikie gang in the state, and the country.

Their most recent national rally featured four gang figures including senior member, housepainter Bemir Saracevic, and an associate, gym owner and cabinet-maker Kris Bjelogrlic, arriving in a pair of matching Lamborghinis worth more than a million dollars.

Among the gang’s most prominent local members, who are undoubtedly targets for law enforcement, are officeholders Mark Williams and Thomas Laslo.

NCF – a feared Middle-Eastern organised crime gang – still exists in name but there is no doubt it was diminished in 2022.

In the same month, the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police moved in a series of linked operations which resulted in more high-level international drug trafficking charges for Marrogi and his girlfriend Antonietta Mannella.

The Herald Sun revealed in November that Marrogi was suspected of importing drugs valued at over $1 billion while locked up.

“They’re nowhere near what they were before those arrests,” Insp. Banks said.

Unlike NCF, the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang have been around for decades and probably aren’t going anywhere.

Echo has repeatedly arrested Angel City chapter president Luke Moloney this year over a range of matters.

Separately, some members remain under scrutiny over the disappearance and murder of South Australian gang associate Kerry Giakoumis in 2020.

There has been fierce scrutiny over what happened to Giakoumis, who was last seen alive at the gang’s infamous Nomads chapter clubhouse in Thomastown.

Inspector Banks said some of the Angels’ chapters were not “completely aligned” and there was a degree of division between old-school members and the newer breed.

They remain busy, however.

“A lot of their offending goes underground,” Inspector Banks said.