Who was Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim and why was he a marked man?

After years on the run as the most-hunted man in Melbourne’s underworld, Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim has been shot dead.

The former bikie-turned-boxer was gunned down in front of his girlfriend at the Quest hotel in Preston on Tuesday morning, as a hit squad lay in the wait in a car park. Abdulrahim had recently gone “underground” to escape a $1 million murder contract on his head, after surviving multiple assassination plots down the years, and a race is now on to discover who in his inner circle betrayed his location. His killers remain on the run.

Sam Abdulrahim was a champion boxer.Credit:

Who was Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim?

At just 32, Abdulrahim had been the target of three murder contracts, a prison bashing, three assaults, a dozen firebombings and seven shootings. He’d finally gone into hiding in May 2024 after narrowly escaping an ambush outside his northern suburbs home, where gunmen shot at him 17 times. Years earlier, he’d survived being shot eight times, including in the chest, during another failed hit. The Australasian cruiserweight champion couldn’t even box in his own city because someone kept burning down the venues.

Abdulrahim rose to infamy in 2015, four years after he debuted as a professional boxer, when a wild brawl outside a Melbourne court made headlines. Abdulrahim had crossed paths with a rival kickboxer on the court steps and was photographed shirtless and doused in capsicum spray being hustled into the back of a divvy van.

Just four months later, he slammed his Ferrari into oncoming traffic while speeding on a suburban street in Reservoir, killing a great-grandmother and injuring 10 others.

It soon emerged, as he was arrested on bail for possessing methamphetamine, that he’d become a minor player in Melbourne’s underworld, running with various Middle Eastern organised crime groups and a bikie club.

Those friends later became enemies, and threats and firebombings shut down his local boxing career – his last competitive boxing match in Australia was in May 2023. It had to be patrolled by heavily armed police. He had since taken his career international (he even appeared to be working as a bodyguard for a Russian mixed martial arts star as recently as September).

But since he went underground last year, Abdulrahim had mostly become a ghost – bouncing between Melbourne, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand as he tried to stay one step ahead of his enemies. His Lalor home, shot up in another drive-by and then later firebombed, was abandoned and unliveable. His Instagram account was littered with false trails, including a photo purportedly posted from Lebanon with the message “Feels good to be in motherland”, when he was actually seen partying at a Melbourne bar.

He had a young daughter, and his family and friends have been targeted in a recent string of unsolved, violent attacks.

Why was he a marked man?

In 2016, as mini-wars between rival crews and bikie clubs erupted into regular shootings, Abdulrahim decided to back what would turn out to be the wrong side.

And he quickly fell out with the friends he did have, including the bikie club he used to ride with in his 20s, and the notorious underworld figure Nabil Maghnie, who dropped Abdulrahim after he supposedly failed to adequately back him up during a brawl inside Crown casino in 2016.

Abdulrahim made enemies when he fell out with Comanchero bikie mates, but he later joined the Mongols Motorcycle Club.

Then came the murder of Kadir “KD” Ors, the best friend and member of a rising crew run by Kazem Hamad. Ors was shot dead in an ambush in Campbellfield by rival drug trafficker George Marrogi, and some believed Abdulrahim had helped lure Ors to the scene.

Hamad started a campaign against Abdulrahim, but any protection from the Mongols bikies was short lived. The boxer was booted from the club after just six months, over concerns he was bringing too much heat to their door.

Hamad was, after all, a dangerous enemy - rising rapidly to the top of Melbourne’s underworld on a wave of violence funded by his takeover of the illicit tobacco market.

What do we know about Tuesday’s shooting?

Police say Abdulrahim had been at the Quest serviced apartments in Preston for only a day when he was gunned down in the car park in a meticulously planned ambush. His girlfriend managed to escape the spray of bullets unharmed and rendered first aid to Abdulrahim, but he died at the scene.

Police are now combing through CCTV, and two burnt-out getaway cars they believe were used in the targeted attack, as they urge witnesses and associates of Abdulrahim to come forward with information.

The execution was apparently staged at short notice: Abdulrahim had returned to Australia only a week ago, and changed accommodation at least once before checking into the Preston apartments where he was killed. He had been planning to fly out of Australia on Thursday, sources said.

Police say they had not picked up any fresh threats to suggest an attack was imminent, or they would have shared them with Abdulrahim. The boxer had already been offered “options” regarding his protection numerous times over the years, they said.

Distressed relatives of Abdulrahim gathered at the scene of the shooting Tuesday, and friends and associates have posted tributes on social media as news of his death spreads.

Police said they would leave no stone unturned hunting for his killers.

What attempts on his life had there been before?

Rivals began shooting up businesses and venues linked to Abdulrahim in 2017, starting with his panel shop in Epping. But things got really hairy when he was released on parole in March 2019.

Five days later, his parents’ home was sprayed with bullets. A close relative escaped a shooting two months after that. And then an associate’s home was hit with more than 20 bullets in another drive-by. No one has ever been arrested over the attacks. By June 2019, Abdulrahim’s parole was revoked because of safety risks, but that was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

In May 2022, police warned Abdulrahim that he could be killed at an upcoming boxing match – but the actual attack came as he left his cousin’s funeral on June 25 that year. While driving his Mercedes in a funeral procession outside the Fawkner cemetery, he was ambushed by another car swerving his way. A gunman pumped at least eight bullets into Abdulrahim, four of them across the chest, but he managed to drive to a local police station and survived again.

Two of the suspected shooters had links to an old enemy, Al Hamza, the cousin of Hamad who has since fled Australia, and the attack is believed to go back to the grudge against Abdulrahim over the murder of Ors.

Abdulrahim claimed he died twice before reaching hospital that day and left with a bullet still lodged in his kidney, which was considered unsafe to remove.

When Hamad himself was released from prison in 2023 and deported back to Iraq, the danger only grew. A Moonee Ponds tobacco shop linked to Abdulrahim was firebombed three times that year within days of opening. A $1 million bounty was reportedly put on Abdulrahim’s head.

Police had repeatedly warned Abdulrahim over the years about contracts taken out against him. They even uncovered murder plots against “The Punisher” during a major international sting on organised crime, known as Operation Ironside, which used a secretly compromised app crooks thought was encrypted and anonymous.

But Abdulrahim lived by a motto: “My time is up when my time is up.”

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