Triggermen and ‘wannabe gangsters’: Underworld crime has changed since Melbourne’s gangland wars
The bloodshed and murders linked to Middle-Eastern organised crime gangs have dwarfed Melbourne’s infamous gangland wars of the turn-of-the-century, as a grim statistic emerges.
Police & Courts
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Middle-eastern organised crime figures have been linked to at least 19 Melbourne homicides in the past decade.
All were shot dead and much of the fatal gun crime is linked in some way to the activities of a handful of people – or their allies.
Police sources say the number of people willing to get involved in MEOC gun crime has expanded over the years.
Many of the ambushes have been carried out in public places as killers are forced to zero in on targets who already know they are under threat.
The violence has dwarfed that linked to other crime groups such as bikie gangs and the Mafia.
Charges have been laid in eight of the homicides and convictions have been secured in four.
Almost all of the bloodshed happened in the northern suburbs and most of those involved were from that part of the city.
Exiled drug lord Kazem Hamad or his affiliates have been previously linked to a number of the homicides.
In two other cases, people close to Hamad were the victims.
One was Kadir Ors, shot by George Marrogi at Campbellfield Plaza in 2016, and the other was Khaled Abouhasna, fatally wounded at Altona Meadows a year earlier.
Notorious Crime Family gang founder Marrogi and runaway Comanchero bikie Hasan Topal are others investigated over more than one.
Police say the underworld era of today is vastly different to the gangland war of the turn-of-the century.
In that conflict, Carl Williams had a small stable of trusted shooters he used to carry out his contract killing work, among them Andrew Veniamin and Rodney Charles Collins.
One investigator said there were now vastly more people willing to get involved in murders, either as triggermen or getaway drivers.
Suspects implicated in homicides had emerged with almost no criminal history.
“Most of them are wannabe gangsters,” the source said.
Much of the chaos of more recent years is being orchestrated from the Middle-east where former Melbourne criminals are sitting on fortunes made from their old home town’s drug and illicit tobacco black markets.
“These guys have lots of cash now, so they can get things done,” an underworld source said.
In some cases, those calling the shots have ordered repeated attempts to eliminate their targets after failures.
There had been multiple bids to murder Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim, including a 2022 funeral ambush that nearly killed him, before he was gunned down in a Preston car park last month.
Former Comanchero Hawre Sherwani survived a hail of bullets while walking his dog at Fraser Rise in March last year but a hit team posing as police got him at Caroline Springs on January 8.
Despite what is regarded as the successful introduction of firearm prohibition orders and some major seizures, guns remain plentiful.
One police source said they ranged in quality from semiautomatic pistols to older models.
He said a 9mm semiautomatic would currently fetch about $25,000.
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