Police forced to drop gun charges against gangland figure Fadi Haddara

Police have been forced to withdraw charges allegedly linking gangland identity Fadi Haddara to a deadly gun stash, in what comes as a blow to the taskforce tackling Melbourne’s illicit tobacco trade.

Police have been forced to drop gun charges against Melbourne underworld identity Fadi Haddara and pay $20,000 of his legal fees.

Haddara, 47, was due to front Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for a contested hearing on Thursday, but the prosecution had notified him days earlier the charges would be withdrawn.

Top criminal lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson appeared on behalf of Haddara before magistrate Vincenzo Caltabiano on Thursday where the four charges relating to possessing firearms, handling stolen goods and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm were struck out.

Haddara, from Altona North, did not attend the administrative hearing.

Ms Garde-Wilson told the Herald Sun the prosecution had dropped the charges on the eve of the hearing as they knew they had limited prospects of succeeding.

She said the case against her client was weak with “grossly insufficient evidence”.

Police have been forced to drop gun charges against Fadi Haddara. Picture: Mark Stewart

“The charges should never have been laid in the first place,” Ms Garde-Wilson said.

“The only evidence was a partial DNA match on one of the weapons.”

She said Haddara had vehemently denied the allegations and planned to fight the charges.

The withdrawal of the charges is a blow to the force’s Lunar Taskforce, which was set up to extinguish the escalating war in Melbourne’s illicit tobacco trade.

It was detectives from the specialty unit who swooped on Haddara in December 2023 after allegedly linking him to firearms found at a property neighbouring his Altona North home three months earlier.

A fifth charge of affray, also laid against Haddara by the Lunar Taskforce, was withdrawn last year.

The Docklands restaurant Karizma is among the many Haddara businesses to have been firebombed amid the tobacco turf war. Picture: Victoria Police

That related to an alleged fight between Haddara and a 40-year-old tobacco shop owner in Altona North on November 29, 2023, where a gun was fired, but no-one was injured.

It is understood Haddara has been under the watchful eye of the taskforce as they suspect he is the boss of Victoria’s biggest tobacco syndicate.

Many of Haddara’s businesses, including tobacco shops, Docklands restaurant Karizma, and a smash repair workshop in Williamstown North, have been firebombed amid the tobacco turf war that has plagued Melbourne in the last two years.

In 2015, Haddara was jailed for 23 months after admitting selling $155,000 of methamphetamine, two handguns and a sawn-off rifle to undercover officers.