Crime families in bloody battle over Sydney drugs trade

As many as 30 major crime families in Sydney’s southwest are in a battle for the city’s drug trade.

As many as 30 major crime families in Sydney’s southwest are ­involved in a battle for the city’s multi-billion-dollar drug trade that has sparked a series of shootings and murders, and police warn that they are expanding their ­influence interstate and internationally.

Many of the crime families have a Middle Eastern heritage, particularly Lebanese. The ­commander of the NSW Middle East Organised Crime Squad, Peter McErlain, said: “I think the east coast is predominantly where we see the Middle Eastern organ­ised crime flourishing.”

Detective Superintendent McErlain said some crime families from southwest Sydney were now operating interstate. “They’ve got links to other family members that are interstate or overseas; they’ve got links to outlaw motorcycle gangs and links to other organised crime gangs,” he said.

“The main crimes that we ­investigate at MEOCS generally ­involve drugs, and from the drugs comes violence, extortion, stand-overs, drug runs, geographic franchise drug runs and all that internal-external violence that comes from that, whether that be shootings, drive-by shootings, right up to murders.”

As part of a special investigation, The Weekend Australian has spent three weeks with MEOCS, joining it on early morning drug raids, highway patrols and the ­arrest of crime figures. The invest­igation showed that many of the battles in southwest Sydney are over control of the drug trade and the business of standing over, or intimidating, businesses for ­“protection money”.

The volatility of the crime world in the southwest of Sydney was highlighted four weeks ago when Walid “Wally” Ahmad, a leader of one of the major crime families, was shot dead in broad daylight.

At his funeral, a police helicopter flew overhead as Wally Ahmad’s brother, Ahmad; a friend of Wally’s, Mohammed Hawchar; and Wally Ahmad’s bodyguard, Rami Chamarand, walked with the coffin.

MEOCS, established in 2006, grew out of Taskforce Gain, which was established after seven fatal shootings over two years among families of Middle Eastern origin in Sydney. One of the key drivers behind MEOCS was Naguib “Nick” Kaldas, who until his ­recent retirement was the deputy commissioner of the NSW Police Force and the highest-ranked ­Arabic speaker in Australian law enforcement. Mr Kaldas believed that, due to language and cultural differences in parts of southwest Sydney, it was important to have a specialised police unit. Many of the crime families who are now primary targets of MEOCS are from the same three places in north Lebanon: Tripoli, el-Minieh and Akkar.

The audacity of the killing of Wally Ahmad at an outdoor cafe has triggered fears of the type of reprisal attacks that typified Melbourne’s 10-year “Underbelly” battles.

In the past year in Sydney there have been several shootings. In June, bodybuilder Hedi Ayoub was shot dead in daylight in a park in Punchbowl. This year there have been several drive-by shootings and car firebombings in a war between Syrian gangs.

NSW is the only state to have a police squad focused solely on people of Middle Eastern herit­age. Sydney’s Lebanese community is the largest in Australia — estimated at 300,000. Most of Australia’s Lebanese immigrants arrived in the lead-up to the Leban­ese civil war, which began in 1975, and in the following 10 years.

The head of the Australian-Lebanese Friendship Association, Said Alameddine, said the community condemned the crime families. “Every time the police come and arrest these criminals the community gets a sense of ­relief,” he said. “We do seminars and community activities including sports to try to keep our kids away from drugs and the people involved in these activities.”

Wally Ahmad had been sitting at a cafe in Bankstown when a man wearing a hood ran across a car park and shot seven bullets into him. That came three weeks after another crime figure was shot dead and one was left in a coma in a shootout at Ahmad’s smash repair business in Condell Park.

“There’s always a concern in any organised crime murder that there would be retribution of some sort and really the safety of the community is paramount in any of those investigations so we’ll take that very seriously,” Detective Superintendent McErlain said.

In recent years MEOCS has dismantled the Brothers For Life gang, many of whose members are now before the courts. The war within the gang had escalated when it split into a Bankstown faction, which was predominantly Lebanese, and a Blacktown ­faction, which was Afghan.

On a separate matter, a 32-year-old man faced court yesterday charged by MEOCS with multiple drug supply offences, possessing ammunition and possessing a prohibited weapon. Last week MEOCS arrested a Rose Bay man who they will allege has been a major cocaine dealer in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

In recent weeks MEOCS has also moved to stop violence in a battle between two Syrian gangs: the Assyrian Kings and Dlasthr.

Two weeks ago MEOCS arrested three members of Dlasthr, who have now been charged with shooting with intent to murder.

“The Assyrian community in the southwest of Sydney have been there for quite some time and there has been certain groups within that community who are opposed and generally, again, that goes down to drug turf and drug territory and with drug-related crime comes violence,” said Detective Superintendent McErlain.

“If you’ve set up a drug franchise geographically and if the ­opposition want to move into that particular part that you’re doing business in, then that brings some serious violence.

“Yes, we have had drive-by shootings, we’ve had murders ­between those opposing groups in the Assyrian community.”

This year the battle between the two Syrian gangs has resulted in 14 rounds being fired into one house, two vehicles being firebombed, shots being fired into a car in which two members of one gang were travelling and shots being fired into two houses.

Another major crime being targeted by MEOCS is extortion. Often a legitimate business is forced to pay money to a crime family to protect it from another crime family. The threats can include burning down the business if regular payments are not made.

As to the shooting of Wally Ahmad, Detective Superintendent McErlain said: “Whilst I wasn’t that surprised about that particular crime, I was certainly surprised about the location and the time — broad daylight, around lunchtime, in a busy shopping centre”.