Global hunt for Hells Angels bikie Angelo Pandeli
Australia’s most wanted cocaine kingpin Angelo Pandeli, a former Adelaide bouncer, has hooked up with a notorious billionaire crime cartel. See the video and listen to the Cocaine Inc. podcast.
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Australia’s number one cocaine kingpin has joined forces with a notorious billionaire Irish crime cartel to move tons of drugs across the globe.
Hells Angels bikie Angelo Pandeli has become a key global drug figure following his alliance with the Kinahan clan.
The connection emerged as part of Cocaine Inc., a joint investigation and podcast between True Crime Australia and the UK’s The Times and The Sunday Times, which is out today.
The investigation, based on reporting across six countries, exposes how criminals are evading authorities in a “cat and mouse” game, as the annual street value of the global cocaine market hits $180 billion.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) has revealed the supply of cocaine was at “the highest level in 30 years”.
As many as three million Australians were expected to use cocaine over their lifetime despite paying some of the world’s highest prices.
“The profits are immense and organised crime are here and they are focused,” ACIC deputy CEO intelligence Matt Rippon said.
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“In the almost 30 years of being in law enforcement and intelligence, I haven’t seen the scale of cocaine that we’ve seen consistently hitting our shores in the last 12 to 24 months before in my career,” Mr Rippon said.
Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the Hells Angels and the Kinahans have been working together as the global business of cocaine smuggling streamlines into the hands of fewer players.
The Kinahans and Pandeli were under investigation over the seizure of 300kg of “high grade” cocaine from Shannon Foynes Port, in Limerick, Ireland, on December 19 last year.
Those drugs had been ordered from Colombia and travelled to Europe via a four-month stint in Canada, highlighting the patience of the criminal groups and the volume of drugs being moved.
Crime godfather Christopher Kinahan (also known as Christy), and his sons Daniel and Christy Jnr have been suspected of being the world’s most influential money launderers and key cocaine distribution players.
They were accused of using the Islamic banking system to launder hundreds of millions of dollars, which funded Iranian-backed terrorists in Lebanon.
The alliance has signalled that Pandeli has moved beyond simply supplying cocaine into Australia but has instead become a key global player.
Ireland’s national police and security service, the An Garda Síochána, confirmed investigations were ongoing but declined to comment on the allegations that Pandeli and the Kinahans were behind the shipment.
The AFP also declined to comment on individual cases.
However Pandeli remains on the Australian Priority Organisation Targets list – the national most wanted roll call.
Pandeli’s increased influence was based on the strength of the Australian cocaine market.
Australians collectively spend $3.5 million a day on cocaine each year, with as many as one in eight people aged between 18 and 24 using the drug.
Cocaine prices in Australia, where it sells for more $350 a gram, are only outstripped by Saudi Arabia, where drug dealers are subject to the death penalty, and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The profit margins to be made in Australia have made Pandeli a key link in the global cocaine supply chain.
The sky high prices across Australia put hundreds of millions into Pandeli’s pockets, but also made him a lucrative contract for the Kinahans because of his distribution network of bikies on the ground here.
Pandeli, a former Adelaide bouncer, was a key broker in an ongoing business deal between the Hells Angels and Australia’s Comanchero bikie gang.
He took over as Australia’s primary deal maker following the arrest of Comanchero boss Hakan Ayik in Turkey last year. Alex Vare has assumed the role of Global Commander for the Comanchero.
Australian Federal Police has been monitoring Pandeli for more than a decade, with information in a report from 2012 listing Pandeli as having an “extensive criminal history” when he was president of the Sydney Hells Angels chapter.
His activities were on the radar of the AFP, and police in New South Wales, the Northern Territory and South Australia.
The Australian Taxation Office tried the Al Capone tactic on Pandeli, taking him to court for failing to file a tax return in 2014/15.
However that charge was dismissed at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court in 2017.
Pandeli’s accountant told the court it was his error for failing to lodge the paperwork, not the bikie, who was Hells Angels Sydney chapter president at the time.
Pandeli moved to Dubai soon after that court case, leaving behind a four-bedroom apartment in Pyrmont that boasted sparkling waterfront views of Sydney Harbour.
He sold the 300 sqm apartment for $8.6 million in 2022, netting more than $6 million on the sale.
In Dubai, Pandeli met Daniel Kinahan, a boxing promoter who was friends with British heavyweight Tyson Fury, who was in the process of taking over the business from his father.
The Kinahans had moved there around 2018 to avoid jail in Europe.
The Irish crime family had become friends with the rich and powerful in Dubai, which has helped them avoid extradition to Ireland despite the best efforts of police and Irish politicians.
However, the pressure has been rising on the Kinahans after US President Joe Biden’s administration slapped them with a $22 million bounty on the heads of Christy, Daniel and Christy Jnr.
The US suspects the Kinahans of working with Iran’s government to supply cash to Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group.
They were also suspected of working with Russian criminals and have been linked to gold shipments through Africa.
“The Kinahan Transnational Criminal Organization …. have engaged in money laundering, firearms trafficking, and murder,” the US State Department reward notice said.
Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram told the Cocaine Inc. podcast that cocaine detections had increased, but organised crime was increasingly targeting Australia.
“It’s a bit like cat and mouse. We’ve really massively improved our strike rate in terms of detecting drugs at the border, particularly cocaine,” Commissioner Outram said.
“But despite improvements in our strike rate, we know through the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission wastewater analysis that we’re only detecting about 25 per cent. So there’s more we have to do.”
Commissioner Outram was behind Operation Tin Can in late 2022, which involved almost 60 customs services across the globe.
They seized almost 100 tonnes of cocaine in just six weeks.
That operation provided intelligence on how criminals were moving drugs, and who was involved.
Commissioner Outram also pointed to statements from Royal Canadian Mountain Police that warned the “slow burn of organised crime” was a “bigger issue than terrorism”.
But law enforcement can only do so much, with senior politicians calling on Australians to take their share of the responsibility for the suffering linked to the cocaine trade.
Senator James Paterson, federal opposition Home Affairs spokesman, said he was concerned about how socially acceptable cocaine use had become.
People often spoke to him about their cocaine use, he said.
“Surprisingly openly sometimes, given my role, which is very closely related to law enforcement and intelligence,” Senator Paterson said.
“But it has become quite socially acceptable, certainly in particular classes.
“I don’t think they spend a minute thinking of the consequences of that (choice to use cocaine).
“And it’s kind of ironic because we’re all very concerned about buying coffee, which is fair trade beans and ethically sourced. I can tell you there is no ethically sourced cocaine.”
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