The brazen daylight murder of Kadir Ors was on another level of brutality, even for someone as feared as George Marrogi
A brutal ambush murder outside a shopping centre landed crime figure George Marrogi in jail – thanks to one small piece of cardboard.
Police & Courts
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Kadir Ors’ bus-stop ambush murder and its immediate aftermath were outlandish, even for a man of George’s Marrogi’s notoriety.
The area around Campbellfield Plaza had seen its share of big-name gunplay during that period but nothing quite like what unfolded the day Ors died.
In January, 2017, crime family figure Omar Tiba suffered a nasty bullet wound to the groin as he sat in his vehicle in the centre’s car park, the upshot of a simmering feud with a feared underworld boss.
Ahmed Al-Hamza, who would go on to become one of the more formidable characters in Middle Eastern organised crime, had survived being shot nearby a year earlier.
But the Ors killing was on another level, a brutal and brazen execution-style killing carried out in broad daylight as ordinary people went about their business.
On September 26, 2016, Ors had travelled to Campbellfield Plaza where he met with underworld figure Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim and another man, Alex Harouk.
Out of nowhere, Marrogi roared towards the trio in a stolen Holden Commodore HSV and jumped out in a hoodie, immediately zeroing in on Ors while the others scattered.
As shoppers watched on, bullets were pumped into Ors until he collapsed in parking spaces outside an Officeworks store.
Marrogi then went back to the car and returned to fire another succession of shots through a window into the stricken victim.
The shooting was so indiscriminate that bullets penetrated vehicles and a downpipe at the Officeworks.
Marrogi then took off as Ors’ friend Maytham Hamad and another man gave pursuit in a white Jeep.
The Commodore ran a red light on Camp Rd and a rear left tyre blew out somewhere before the roundabout at Riggal St, Broadmeadows
It was there that Marrogi climbed from the car and fired four times at the Jeep.
The Commodore, which had days earlier been sold to an old school-mate of Marrogi, was abandoned soon after at Katandra Crescent.
It is likely police would ultimately have worked out Marrogi pulled the trigger, but proving it would have been another thing.
The pursuit by Hamad was to be instrumental in that, despite his later refusal to cooperate with police.
That was because, while the shooter had been careful to wear gloves and grab a Selier and Bellott bullet box before he bolted to whatever pick-up he’d been able to hastily arrange, it was not the perfect clean-up.
A small scrap of cardboard had fallen from the box, presumably as he tore it open and reloaded to repel Hamad back at Riggal St.
It was later found to have traces of Marrogi’s DNA and would secure his conviction for murder at a third Supreme Court trial.
But it was not Marrogi’s deeds on the outside that propelled him onto the front page.
In April this year, the Australian Federal Police announced he had been charged with the rarely prosecuted offence of directing a criminal organisation.
It is alleged that being in prison for the previous five years has not impeded Marrogi’s activities.
In much the same way as Sydney’s Bassam Hamzy did years earlier, Marrogi allegedly started and controlled a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise from a jail cell.
Hamzy set up Brothers 4 Life; in Marrogi’s police say he set up an Assyrian-based outfit called Notorious Crime Family.
Established in 2019, NCF had a small but strong core membership whose unexplained wealth was evident from the kind of luxury vehicles, clothing and jewellery on display in their social media posts.
There was talk of links to bikie gangs but it was clear they were another example of how the stronger Middle-eastern crime syndicates stood on their own feet and the OMCG connection was secondary.
“The bikies didn’t recruit the MEOCs. The MEOCs recruited the bikies,” one seasoned investigator said.
There were dreams of going legit via something they called the NCF company.
A timber company, hairdressing, tipper hire, reblocking, underpinning and clothing sales were all to be part of the business model, though it appears higher margin outlaw enterprises were number one priority.
The Australian Federal Police’s target development team started closely examining Marrogi’s activities in 2019.
This led to an operation dubbed Eagle’s Peak, which identified companies linked to Marrogi and his girlfriend.
Intelligence suggested the pair were operating what is known as “The Door”, an international trafficking method in which corrupt supply chain personnel allow drugs to pass into Australia.
Eagle’s Peak would ultimately spawn a number of other probes, including the sprawling Fuji inquiry which would lead to the laying of these charges.
An ongoing series of ongoing 400kg shipments sent from Malaysia to an Australian company operated by Marrogi’s girlfriend came under top-secret scrutiny.
Those are believed to have contained methamphetamine and heroin.
When Fuji investigators made their move and charged Marrogi after 18 months of investigation, it was revealed he and his girlfriend were suspected of being behind another 400kg Melbourne-bound shipment of meth seized at Kuala Lumpur Airport in Malaysia late last year.
That haul would have been worth about $160 million.
The Marrogi syndicate was also linked to the seizure of 69kg of heroin and meth in Melbourne and connections traced to other big busts have extended to as recently as August this year.
“He is absolutely obsessive about running his business and his control over them,” a senior AFP investigator said.
“And he has nothing but time, nothing else to think about, sitting in his cell.”
As Fuji intensified, police believe Marrogi was willing to do whatever it took to enforce his will.
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Robert Hill, whose officers were also involved in the Marrogi swoop, said at the time that active plans to murder several people had been uncovered.
Police would later allege 31-year-old NCF member Joshua Fuller had been ordered by Marrogi, via his girlfriend, to carry out two murders.
The prospective hits were believed by police to be made in response to a $300,000 contract being placed on the life of Marrogi’s younger brother Jesse. No charges were ever laid by police.
The Ringwood Magistrates’ Court in May heard Fuller, 27, was to be paid $150,000 to shoot two men in retaliation for a rival group putting a $300,000 price on Jesse Marrogi’s head.
The order was allegedly relayed through Marrogi’s girlfriend.
Marrogi was arrested the day before Fuller was supposed to act on Marrogi’s orders.
No one was ever charged in relation to the planned hit-job but Fuller faced court for failing to provide the passcode to his phone.
The court heard “reconnaissance” had been done on the intended murder targets and that unspecified “items” had been obtained to carry out the killings.
Suspicions about Marrogi’s reach beyond jail walls were amplified in May last year when 22-year-old Korey Kesici was shot dead after approaching two men sitting in a BMW outside his family’s Bangalore Way, Mickleham, home.
There was immediate talk that the former Mongols prospect, who had some ties with NCF, was shot for “talking out of school”.
A post by a third-party on Marrogi’s Instagram account an hour after Kesici’s murder did nothing to diminish the possibility he knew something.
“Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart,” it read.
Questions have lingered about how Marrogi was able to call the shots from a prison cell at Barwon Prison.
He was under the highest-level of security classification and as recently as July last year assaulted two Barwon officers who had told him it was time to leave the phone room.
At one stage, a USB stick was uncovered but police allege most of his illicit business – including managing drug shipments, murder plots and other crimes of violence – was conducted via calls to hiss girlfriend in which he was meant to be talking to a lawyer.
Abdulrahim’s presence at the Plaza made him the subject of all manner of speculation.
In applying for his parole to be cancelled in 2019, police said two attempts had been made on the kickboxer’s life, though the reason for those was not made clear.
Either way, he remains under some threat, as was shown with June’s bungled attempt on his life at a cousin’s funeral at Fawkner Cemetery.
There are indications others who had been aligned to the Ors camp remain at odds with the NCF crew and its associates.
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