Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle extradited to Melbourne upon arrival back in Australia

Comanchero boss Mark Buddle was charged with importing 160kg of cocaine after arriving in Darwin on Wednesday.

AFP officers escort Mark Buddle. Picture: Australian Federal Police

Comancheros bikie boss Mark Buddle’s suspected involvement in other major drug importations into Australia and his possible connection to a murder will be closely analysed after he was dramatically deported from Turkey and arrested for allegedly sending 160kg of cocaine to Victoria.

Buddle was one of Australia’s most wanted men until he was escorted home by Turkish authorities on a charter flight, in an operation kept a closely guarded secret to prevent his potential escape after six years of living overseas and out of reach.

On his arrival in Darwin on Wednesday, he was immediately arrested for allegedly importing $40m worth of cocaine concealed in a shipment of air filters.

The drugs were sent to Melbourne, via Sydney, from Hong Kong in May last year.

Buddle, 37, was the subject of an Interpol red notice, and is one of more than 20 worldwide targets of Operation Gain, a previously undisclosed taskforce led by the Australian Federal Police focusing on “offshore disruption”.

Turkish authorities made an independent decision to deport him, and federal police were waiting with an arrest warrant, AFP Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan said.

Intelligence reports suggest Buddle was behind a significant number of drug importations, and it is likely authorities will seek to establish whether they have admissible evidence to prove it now that he is on home soil.

Buddle left Australia in 2016 after becoming a person of interest in the murder of security guard Gary Allibon, 59, who was shot in the back in a robbery of a cash-in-transit van on Sydney CBD’s Sussex St in 2010.

He can expect renewed scrutiny from NSW police over the murder.

Mark Buddle with AFP officers.

The two charges he is facing for alleged cocaine importation each carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

“The AFP will allege that Operation Ironside South-Britannic linked the man to a transnational criminal syndicate operating out of Hong Kong and Turkey,” Mr Ryan said.

Operation Ironside was a covert investigation in which the AFP worked with the FBI to secretly run encrypted phone platform AN0M.

Crime networks used the encrypted phones to facilitate drug trafficking and to plot murder and other serious offences, unaware police were storing and reading all their messages.

The AFP will allege Buddle was using the AN0M platform.

In October 2021, the AFP consulted the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions about arresting Buddle.

In January this year, a full brief of evidence was provided to the CDPP for assessment.

In mid-July, the Melbourne Magistrates Court issued an arrest warrant in relation to the alleged cocaine importation. Later that month, an Interpol red notice was issued for Buddle’s arrest.

“This man has been a target of an AFP-led transnational offshore disruption taskforce, known as Operation Gain, since March 2021,” Mr Ryan said.

“This is the first time the AFP has publicly revealed the existence of this taskforce, which targets Australia’s biggest organised crime threats offshore, and disrupts their criminal activities and ultimately ensures these criminals face prosecution.”

A number of Operation Gain’s targets are in Turkey.

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AFP Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan addresses media in Canberra about the arrest of Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle who is facing charges under Operation Ironside. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“We are working very closely with our Turkish counterparts to try to bring those people back here to face justice,” Mr Ryan said. Buddle took over the Comanchero leadership after former president Mick Hawi was jailed over a 2009 Sydney Airport bikie brawl in which Hells Angels associate Anthony Zervas was stabbed and bludgeoned to death.

He spent time in Dubai, Turkey, Greece and Iraq before being granted a residency permit to live in Northern Cyprus because of his high income.

Northern Cyprus police later decided his presence was “inconvenient in terms of public peace and security”, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman, and he was deported to Turkey in July.

Behind the scenes, the AFP has been scrambling to have Buddle returned to Australia.

Buddle faced court in Darwin on Wednesday, appearing by telephone from the Palmerston police watchhouse.

Northern Territory Local Court Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris heard the unusual arrangement was because police had security concerns related to his arrest.

He spoke only briefly to confirm his identity and say he could hear the court.

Commonwealth prosecutor Naomi Low applied for an order that Buddle be transferred into AFP custody and extradited to Victoria to face two charges.

Defence lawyer Robert Welfare told the court his instructions were to not oppose the application.

Chief Judge Morris ordered Buddle be held in jail in Darwin until he could be transferred into AFP custody and extradited to Victoria to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court.