Melbourne gangland figure Ahmed Al Hamza ‘living it up’ in Dubai

Grinning in a sombrero at a swank restaurant, northern suburbs gangland figure Ahmed Al Hamza looks to be living his best life in his new home of Dubai.

Melbourne gangland figure Ahmed Al Hamza is the latest Australian criminal to relocate to the Middle East.

Al Hamza, regarded as a significant player in the world of Middle Eastern organised crime, is believed to have made the move to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, several months ago.

In September, Al Hamza was seen at the popular Puerton99 Mexican seafood and grill restaurant, where he posed for a photograph while wearing a blue sombrero.

Smiling and looking relaxed, he was joined for dinner in the desert city by two Melbourne women who work in the real estate industry.

Puerton99 is said to have a “hip vibe” and its prices indicate Al Hamza is not struggling for money in a country where the good life does not come cheap.

TripAdvisor says a feed at the swank eatery costs between $135 and $749.

Underworld sources said Al Hamza had been “living it up” in the luxurious city and was somewhat of a regular on its buzzing nightclub scene.

It is unclear when he intends to return.

Ahmed Al Hamza (right) photographed in Dubai with Melbourne real estate figures Picture: Supplied

Al Hamza has for some years been a target of police investigating Middle Eastern crime in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

He is aligned with some of the heaviest identities in the MEOC sphere.

Despite being aged 25, Al Hamza has been building a heavy reputation for a decade.

One source said he was streetwise and ultraconfident.

“He’s been in that world for a long time. He’s up to his eyeballs in everything,” one source said.

He’s got people scared. People won’t go against him.”

In 2021, Al Hamza was acquitted in the Supreme Court over the murder of 21-year-old Anwar Teriaki, who was shot three times in his porch of his Roxburgh Park home.

Teriaki was chased through streets after being beaten with a baseball bat on the night of August 9, 2017.

Al Hamza was in 2016 on the wrong end of a gun in a shooting ambush near the Al-Diwan restaurant in Campbellfield, suffering a nasty leg wound.

Two years later, he was busted holding weapons stolen in a major armed robbery on the O’Reilly’s Firearms store in Thornbury.

Jesse Marrogi with big brother George Marrogi.

Former Comanchero boss Amad “Jay” Malkoun moved to Dubai before surviving a car bombing attack.

Al Hamza was watched by covert police as he moved guns hidden in pillow cases from his Docklands apartment to an Audi vehicle.

He told investigators a loaded gun found in a fire hose cabinet was for protection.

Al Hamza – who is a suspect in at least one unsolved shooting – was once close to Jesse Marrogi, the younger brother of NCF boss George Marrogi, but they are believed to no longer be on good terms.

Jesse Marrogi recently returned from an extended spell in the Middle East.

Al Hamza is also said to have been an associate of Omar Bchinnati, who was wounded in a fatal boxing event shooting at Kensington in 2019.

A long line of Australian crime figures have lived in the Middle East in the past decade.

Former Comanchero boss Amad “Jay” Malkoun moved to Dubai in 2013 before moving to Greece, where he survived a car-bombing outside a gym.

Two other Comancheros, Mark Buddle and Hakan Ayik, have also spent time in Dubai over the years.

Buddle was earlier this year extradited back to Melbourne to answer high-level cocaine trafficking charges.

Two teenage suspects in the June shooting of former bikie Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim flew to Dubai shortly after that ambush, which the kickboxer survived.

Comanchero Hasan Topal, a suspect in two Melbourne wrong-victim murders, is believed to be in Turkey after heading overseas in 2019.