Veteran killer and trigger-happy standover man Gavin Preston allegedly killed by a 22-year-old

When Gavin Preston was gunned down at a Keilor cafe it didn’t take long for Melbourne’s gangland circles to suggest there was a Sydney connection to the murder.

It did not take long for Melbourne’s underworld jungle drums to beat hard about suggestions of a Sydney connection in the Gavin Preston murder.

Within days, the city’s gangland circles were abuzz with talk that a hit team had travelled south to carry out the killing at Sweet Lulu’s Cafe in Keilor.

How people knew about what would be expected to be a closely guarded secret is anyone’s guess but it seems there may be – allegedly – some substance to what was being said.

The truth of mail that a $1 million price was on the head of Preston – which accompanied the Sydney suggestions – is not known.

It’s thought there was a $1m bounty on underworld figure Gavin Preston’s head.

But what is clear is that someone as dangerous as the veteran killer and trigger-happy standover man would not be taken out for a slab of VB.

At dawn on Wednesday, 46 days after Preston was fatally blasted with gunfire by two shooters, police made their first move.

Heavily armed New South Wales officers, acting on information from Victorian homicide squad officers, dragged a 22-year-old Jaeden Tito from his bed in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Bradbury.

He was charged hours later with the murder of Preston.

Police with 22-year-old Bradbury man Jaeden Tito in custody. Picture: NSW Police

As Victoria Police detective Supt Janet Stevenson said on Wednesday, there is a long way to go in this inquiry.

Supt Stevenson did not go into detail but anyone who has watched CCTV of the Preston ambush and the shooters’ flight from the scene knows there were at least two killers.

Also exercising the minds of investigators will be the issue of which players had an interest in ordering the murder and why.

Then there are matters of others who may have been involved in arming those directly involved with a plan, guns and cars.

Preston was shot dead at Sweet Lulu’s cafe in Keilor. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Things have progressed a lot more quickly than might ordinarily have been expected.

Murders of underworld figures are frequently long-haul investigations involving a high degree of planning and a background of criminal expertise which can smother clues and evidence.

There is speculation one element of what happened on September 9 may have accelerated the process in this case.

Video of Preston’s murder shows it was a ruthlessly effective crime, carried out almost before the victim realised he was about to die.

His mate Abbas Junior Maghnie was able to stagger out of Lulu’s with his life but he was, most likely, not the priority.

In the aftermath, it would quickly emerge there was one element which had left the shooters exposed.

They drove the Audi they used at Sweet Lulu’s to nearby Blair Court where the plan was to jump in another getaway car.

If the intention was to incinerate the Audi and destroy forensic evidence like DNA, it was an abject failure.

The fire was quickly extinguished by a resident with a garden hose as one of the masked men tried to put out flames which had engulfed his hand.

Preston’s murder was the second of three brutal gangland killings in Melbourne within two months, all of which followed a similar script.

The victims died at the scene as gunmen pounced in public places, probably forearmed with knowledge of their targets’ movements.

Multiple vehicles were used in each case and – apart from the Preston case – were successfully incinerated afterwards.

The other killings – of Mohammed “Afghan Ali” Keshtiar at South Yarra in August and that of Comanchero Robert Issa this month – remain unsolved.

They are believed to have separate motivations to the Preston matter.

Keshtiar’s is suspected of being linked to his involvement in illicit tobacco trade warfare and Issa’s may have been caused by his role in a separate gangland dispute.