Tarek Zahed shooting leaves Comanchero gang rudderless

Tarek Zahed was poised to take over the Comanchero gang. Now he’s in hospital full of bullet holes and his bikie club is rudderless, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

Comanchero enforcer Tarek Zahed was aware he was a target and didn’t care.

Zahed’s move to Melbourne in January was to break free of the control order NSW police had him under, which restricted his ability to take care of bikie business.

Among the first things the national sergeant-at-arms did after his move down south was take part in the Comanchero’s national run, riding side by side in the club’s colours with boss Mick Murray.

Together they showed defiance, riding from outside Murray’s gym in Hallam in the southeast to one of the state’s maximum security jails, Port Phillip Prison, in Melbourne’s west.

It was there the 50-plus bikies rode into the car park behind a Rolls Royce and revved their engines as a sign to their “brothers” over the wall they would not be defeated by the mounting pressure police were applying.

Tarek Zahed and brother Omar were ambushed in a Sydney gym.

Since, Murray has been charged with murder and Zahed was last night ambushed by gunmen who blasted at least 10 rounds into him at a west Sydney gym.

Zahed, 42, is understood to have been shot in the head, stomach, legs and arms, and was rushed to hospital in a critical condition.

Although he survived, still conscious when paramedics arrived at the scene, he watched his brother, Omar, die as they were attacked in the gym’s foyer.

Outlaw bikies like Zahed live with the knowledge their life is in danger.

With Murray on long-term remand he was tipped to become the gang’s new national president.

But he had other things on his mind.

It’s believed Zahed was critical to the Comanchero several years ago during a period of turmoil between NSW and Victorian factions.

As national sergeant-at-arms he helped Murray retain his position as leader and secured his own power in the gang.

He was acutely aware of talk a contract was on his head before last night’s hit, as revealed by The Daily Telegraph last week.

The Comanchero is intricately linked to Middle Eastern Organised Crime (MEOC).

Police forensic teams process the scene the morning after the shooting. Picture: John Grainger

These figures have become entrenched with the Comanchero and Mongols outfits as either members or associates.

Most of the “Big Five” gangs have involvement with MEOC crews.

Like bikie gangs, they work in groups and are not afraid of tit-for-tat violence.

Commercial drug trafficking and gun violence underpin their operations which cross state and national borders.

They do not fear outlaw bikie gangs because they move in the same circles.

MEOC groups work with outlaw motorcycle gangs, beside them and against them.

Melbourne underworld players such as Mohammed Oueida, Hasan Topal, George Marrogi and hitman Nabil Maghnie straddled the worlds of Comanchero and MEOC.

It has its drawbacks.

Marrogi and Oueida are in jail cells, Topal is in exile and Maghnie is dead.

Alliances are often fluid.

Hits can be ordered anywhere and anytime and shootings occur at houses, shopping centres and even outside a mosque.

But Zahed took his chances by returning to Sydney and ignored advice from his own gang to mix up his routine.

There was also speculation Zahed had made an enemy in Melbourne causing him to head back to his home town several weeks ago.

He also had a funeral to go to of Lone Wolf boss Erkan “Eric the Wolf” Keskin.

Victoria Police were aware he had left the state as were their counterparts in NSW who would lay charges against the bikie soon after he arrived.

Tarek Zahed is fighting for life.

Tarek Zahed in Como gear. Picture: TikTok

Zahed, however, was used to getting what he wanted.

In September he flew to Turkey after Australian Border Force granted him a visa, despite NSW Police twice previously blocking him from leaving the country.

But he came back ready to set up home in Melbourne after NSW police made his life “unbearable”.

Before he left Australia he was arrested and fined for Covid breaches and also an assault at an up-market restaurant.

While he travelled overseas, NSW Police applied for and were granted extensive powers to restrict Zahed’s lifestyle with serious crime prevention orders.

Under the orders Zahed was banned from wearing Comanchero colours or possessing or wearing other bikie garb.

It was thought Zahed may stay in the Middle East, joining an ever growing list of powerful Comanchero’s who have escaped the law in Australia.

Melbourne’s less restrictive laws gave Zahed an option.

In Victoria, our Charter of Human Rights protects his right to wear his club’s colours and his movements were not restricted here.

One of his outings with the Melbourne “Comos” was to the boxing at Kensington where one of their sponsored fighters was on the card.

Tarek Zahed (middle) was tipped to be the next national president.

Zahed allegedly got into a fight himself that night and has been under investigation by Victoria Police over a blue with security outside the venue in April.

But as soon as he crossed back over the borderline into NSW his movements were being watched even more closely.

The orders dictate he tell police the registration of the vehicle he is driving, he can only use one mobile and his lavish lifestyle is clamped by a $10,000 bank account limit.

But there was talk Zahed’s move to Melbourne bothered his Sydney chapter “brothers” who have had their issues with the Melbourne chapter.

The gang has been under siege since last year’s arrests of scores of Comanchero and their associates who had been using AN0M encrypted devices.

The Comos and their associates, including Italian mafia, had no idea that AN0M was in fact introduced to crime networks in a covert operation by the FBI and AFP, who were able to capture all their communications.

Zahed and Murray were among those who had slipped the worldwide sting.

Both now are in the fight of their lives.

Mick Murray is facing a murder charge. Picture: David Crosling

On April 28, Murray was arrested and remanded in jail over the murder of Mitat Rasimi, a former associate of Tony Mokbel who was gunned down on March 3, 2019.

It stood to reason Zahed would step into the leadership role as a known key player who is close to Murray and powerful exiled former president, Mark Buddle.

Murray, 44, has been either a state or national boss of the Comanchero for almost a decade amassing serious wealth.

Under Murray’s reign the gang became a top police target, both domestically and nationally.

The Comanchero even bragged they had set a tax on other criminal syndicates to get their illicit drugs through the docks.

Millions, if not billions of dollars are at stake for the Comanchero, with the club now rudderless.

The attempted murder of Zahed, as the club’s primary enforcer, will require a response.

The highly connected and ambitious Zahed will demand so if he lives.

His shooting will however make it likely his lifestyle will be hampered.

The Australian Open organisers, for one, will almost certainly have him on a ban list.

For those who may not have known his movements, Zahed’s muscular frame was beamed across television screens as he unintentionally disrupted play during the men’s tennis final between Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev.

It was a sign Zahed was settling into life in Melbourne, his new home town, before Tuesday night’s murderous attack in Sydney.

In his game, there are no rules.