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

The nation’s most wanted man, Comanchero boss Mark Buddle, is back in police custody in Australia, and has been charged with importing 160kg of cocaine into Melbourne last year.

The 37-year-old faces extradition to Victoria, to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court this month, after touching down in Darwin on Wednesday.

He was arrested on arrival, under a warrant issued in late July, after being deported from Turkey this week.

Mark Buddle with AFP officers.

Mr Buddle had been the subject of an Interpol red notice, and Turkish authorities made an independent decision to deport him.

He is one of more than 20 worldwide targets of Operation Gain, a previously secret “offshore disruption” task force being led by the AFP.

Mr Buddle faced court in Darwin, appearing by telephone from Palmerston Police Watch House.

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 that he could hear the court.

Commonwealth prosecutor Naomi Low applied for an order that Mr Buddle be transferred into the custody of the Australian Federal Police and extradited to Victoria to face two unspecified charges.

The defendant’s lawyer, Robert Welfare, told the court his instructions were not to oppose the application.

Judge Morris ordered Mr 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 on or before 10 August.

Turkey deportation

Turkish authorities escorted Buddle on a charter flight to Darwin, where he was taken into AFP custody and arrested, Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan said.

“The AFP was well placed to respond to the man’s return due to the progress of an ongoing AFP criminal investigation and the AFP’s strong global law enforcement and intelligence networks,” Mr Ryan said.

Buddle is scheduled to appear in a Darwin court today, where the AFP will apply to extradite him to Victoria to face two charges for allegedly importing cocaine with a street value of $40m.

“Each offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment,” Mr Ryan said.

“The AFP will allege that Operation Ironside … linked the man to a transnational criminal syndicate operating out of Hong Kong and Turkey, which was using dedicated encrypted communications to co-ordinate the shipment of the cocaine from Hong Kong to Melbourne via Sydney.

“The AFP has been methodical and patient in putting a brief of evidence together to ensure that the man can face the justice system.”

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

Crime networks used the encrypted phones to arrange international drug trafficking, discuss murder plots and other serious offences, unaware all their communications were being monitored.

The AFP will allege Buddle was using the ANOM platform.

In October 2021, the AFP engaged with the Commonwealth Director of Prosecutions to prepare to seek an arrest warrant for Buddle’s arrest, while continuing to take statements.

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

Warrant issued over alleged cocaine importation

In mid July, a Melbourne magistrates court issued an arrest warrant in relation to the alleged importation of cocaine.

And in late July an Interpol red notice for Buddle was issued in relation to the importation of 160kg of cocaine.

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

“This man has been a target of an AFP-led transnational offshore disruption task force, known as Operation Gain, since March 2021.

“This is the first time the AFP has publicly revealed the existence of this task force, 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.

“We are working very closely with our Turkish counterparts to try and bring those people back here to face justice.

“I have to say the Turkish authorities are regional leaders in relation to the fight against organised crime and we thank them for their efforts.”

Mark Buddle before he left Australia.

Buddle took over leadership of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang after former president Mick Hawi was jailed over the infamous Sydney Airport brawl of 2009.

Hells Angels associate Anthony Zervas died after being stabbed and bludgeoned with a bollard in the brawl.

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

Allibon had handed over a cash box and his hands were in the air.

As police investigated the murder, Buddle slipped out of the country, effectively becoming international president-at-large of the Comanchero, cementing his power when Hawi was shot dead outside a Fitness First gym in Rockdale in Sydney’s south in 2018.

He spent time in Dubai with his long-term partner Mel Ter Wisscha, and video emerged last year of him in an altercation at a private beach bar there with a group of young British men, who almost certainly did not know who they were dealing with.

He left Dubai and is believed to have travelled to Turkey, Greece and Iraq before settling in Northern Cyprus.

A Cypriot newspaper last year reported he had been granted residency by high-ranking politicians.

He clearly fell out of favour, and was last month deported to Turkey in an operation that local media reported involved Interpol.

Northern Cyprus’s Interior Ministry said his residency permit was initially granted on the grounds of his high income.

Police there later determined that his presence was “inconvenient in terms of public peace and security”.

Northern Cyprus does not have an extradition treaty with Australia, but Turkey does.

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