Notorious ‘Balenciaga bikie’ set to be back on the streets
One of Australia’s top Comanchero bikies, known for his love of designer goods, is expected to reconnect with his Victorian associates when he walks from a Sydney jail.
Police & Courts
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One of Australia’s top Comanchero bikies is set to be freed from jail and back in Melbourne by the end of the year.
Tarek Zahed has spent the past two years behind bars after pleading guilty to destroying evidence in the Sydney execution of family friend Youssef Assoum in December 2014.
The kingpin, dubbed the “Balenciaga Bikie” and “Gucci Gangster” due to his penchant for designer items, was originally charged with murdering Assoum alongside his brother Abdul.
But those charges were dropped on the eve of the trial in 2022 when Tarek pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of ordering the destruction of the car in which Assoum was shot.
Abdul pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the murder.
Tarek Zahed will be up for parole at the end of this year and is believed to be intending to reconnect with his Victorian associates.
Underworld sources and police expect him to resettle in Victoria, where he has strong connections and, under current arrangements, would face less stringent restrictions from authorities.
Before he was shot in a Sydney gym ambush that killed his brother Omar in 2022, Zahed was viewed as a potential successor to Mick Murray, the Melbourne-based national supremo.
Ultimately, Sydney’s Allan Meehan got the job.
Meehan later that year returned to Melbourne with Zahed and other Comanchero heavies for a kick-boxing event at Wantirna.
Amid a string of firebombings targeting bikie-aligned businesses last year, the Herald Sun revealed that Zahed was closely linked to Salim Aschna, a trainer at the Fighters Xpress boxing gym in Dandenong.
That business was completely gutted by fire in June last year.
The pair had previously been snapped side-by-side on a private jet.
According to a psychological report tendered to the NSW Supreme Court, Zahed moved to Melbourne in 2021 with his wife and children to distance himself from the Comancheros.
He would return to a Melbourne gangland dynamic which has heavily altered since he left just over two years ago.
The underworld has been up-ended by the aggressive intervention of exiled crime boss Kazem Hamad and the subsequent tobacco wars.
Some former allies and associates remain in custody after being swept up in the sweeping AN0M law enforcement operation of 2021.
One of them was Mark Buddle, who is currently in Melbourne on remand over high-level cocaine trafficking charges.
Despite the impact of AN0M, the Comancheros remain a major organised crime force in Victoria.
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