Melbourne crime boss Kazem Hamad’s journey from homeless teen to feared kingpin

Police thought they had banished Kaz Hamad when they sent him to Christmas Island, only for immigration officials to demand they take back the agent of chaos. A decade on, his mess remains.

It has been a long journey with many casualties as Kazem Hamad made his way from homeless kid to organised crime kingpin.

And those on both sides of the crime divide are in full agreement about the impact this agent of chaos is having back in his old hometown since being banished from Australia.

“The guy in Dubai, Kaz is causing mayhem,” a well-connected underworld source told the Herald Sun.

“He’s more trouble than when we f--ed him off,” a seasoned detective said.

Hamad is said to have since been refused residency in Dubai and is back in Iraq but no one is in any doubt that he is directing a criminal operation in Melbourne from the Middle East in a way that would have been unimaginable two decades ago.

Instant encrypted methods of communication mean his finger is always on the pulse.

Hamad’s word remains law among his acolytes here as he makes maximum money and generates extraordinary chaos in the process.

Kaz Hamad at the footy with Toby Mitchell and senior Mongol bikie Tyrone Bell. Picture: Instagram

In fact, distance is making him even more of an issue for his foes, particularly those in Melbourne’s volatile illicit tobacco sphere, whose shops have been regularly blown up in fires suspected of being ordered by Hamad.

“Not much he (an illicit tobacco industry enemy) can do. Kaz isn’t around to do anything to him. He is getting a lot of pressure from Kaz,” one underworld observer said.

“I didn’t know that much about him before he got out (of prison).”

Hamad – known to crims and cops alike simply as Kaz – finished a long jail stint for heroin trafficking this year.

During that time he had maintained a strong power base and retained the loyalty of some key Middle Eastern organised crime players.

Even if implicated in serious crimes in Melbourne, it’s debatable how desperate the authorities would be to have him back.

Police still ruefully recall how they nearly had Hamad banished a decade ago, sending him to immigration detention on Christmas Island.

It was not long before they were contacted by federal officials complaining about his behaviour and asking that Victoria take him back, such was the trouble he was causing among other detainees on the Indian Ocean outpost.

Kaz Hamad on a night out with Toby Mitchell and a mate. Picture: Supplied

In April 2015, Hamad was present when his brother-in-law Khaled Abouhasna was shot dead outside his family home in Altona Meadows.

The murder remains unsolved, though taped prison conversations later indicated Hamad and his family had some firm opinions on who carried it out.

The then-wife of Hamad found herself in trouble with prison authorities a year later.

She was banned from the prison system for 12 months after being accused of sending two parcels of the opioid drug buprenorphine into the Melbourne Remand Centre.

That meant she was prohibited from visiting Hamad at Barwon Prison where he was on remand on heroin charges.

Prison intelligence during this period indicated Hamad and George Marrogi, who later founded the Notorious Crime Family gang, appeared to have been on good terms.

Both were connected with Mohammed Oueida, a powerful northern suburbs identity who was in a maximum security jail at the time for drug trafficking.

A Corrections Victoria report later tabled in court showed Oueida had been on the phone with Hamad and Marrogi, using what were described as “Delphic utterances”.

“It would appear that Marrogi and Hamad are assisting Oueida with obtaining money/goods owed to him,” the report stated.

George Marrogi, who would later found the Notorious Crime Family gang. Picture: Supplied

Powerful northern suburbs identity Mohammed Oueida. Picture: Supplied

But any willingness to work together was long gone by 2016 when Marrogi murdered Kadir Ors at Campbellfield Plaza in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

In a killing that has had long-term repercussions in Middle Eastern organised crime circles, Marrogi pulled up at a bus stop and blasted Ors with shots.

The cold-blooded execution was completed with more shots in front of an Officeworks outlet.

Maytham Hamad, the younger brother of Kaz, had travelled with Ors to the shopping centre in a Jeep but was not at the bus stop.

When he saw what happened, he chased Marrogi’s Commodore through the streets until the gunman was forced to pull over and return fire at the Jeep.

Marrogi dumped the damaged car in Broadmeadows, abandoning any plans he may have had to hide or burn it and destroy evidence.

It was probably Maytham’s actions in pursuing Marrogi that brought the killer undone.

A small scrap of cardboard from a bullet box was found in a footwell of the Commodore, which the prosecution successfully argued was left there by Marrogi when he hastily and unexpectedly reloaded to fire at Maytham.

The cardboard bore traces of Marrogi’s DNA and became something of a smoking gun for prosecutors.

Richmond Tigers player Jake King alongside Kazen Hamad at a fight starring Anthony Mundine in 2014. Picture: Supplied

Hamad has had at least one thing in common with Marrogi, who is serving 32 years for the Ors murder.

The pair were able to maintain enormous underworld influence over recent years despite the constraints of being kept in maximum security jails.

Those trying to get a handle on Hamad’s uncompromising approach could do worse than look at a 2010 bail hearing.

In it, Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth referred to elements of his upbringing and to a report prepared by forensic and clinical psychologist Patrick Newton.

That report said Hamad, born in the Iraqi city of Basra, had experienced “significant trauma” during and after the first Gulf War. Seeing bodies, some mutilated, had left him inured to violence and conflict.

His family spent time in refugee camps before migrating to Australia when Hamad was 14.

He began using drugs as an adolescent, quit school early and wound up on the streets while still a teenager.

“He describes the applicant as somebody who tends to be impulsive,” was how Justice Hollingworth summarised Mr Newton’s findings on Hamad.

“(Hamad) is unlikely to retreat if faced with conflict and tends to respond to confrontation in ways that escalate rather than defuse the situation. He describes the applicant as ‘an unsophisticated and concrete individual’.”