Challenge facing NSW Police following ‘Bloodline’ murder in Western Sydney

The shooting of unknown underworld figure David Khou doesn’t suggest Sydney will be inflicted with a new wave of gangland violence, but the police will be faced with something they have seen before, writes Mark Morri.

The murder of a relative nobody in the underworld like David Khou is more of a blip on the radar of the Sydney underworld and not a sign the city will be inflicted with a new wave of violence which we have seen in the past few years.

Khou was associated with a gang who call themselves “Bloodline’’, a group of Asian and Islander criminals based in Cabramatta and Canley Vale who were not considered a major force in the landscape of the Sydney underworld.

But what the shooting and existence of Bloodline shows is Sydney cops are facing the emergence of new wannabe crime groups wanting to make their mark who will, for little reason, make themselves known. It’s nothing they haven’t seen before.

An underworld figure was killed in Sydney’s west. Picture: NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

In the past year they have shut down the bloody Hamze-Alameddine war by locking up them up or scaring major players overseas.

The police have also severely damaged the Haoucher crime network with massive arrests, while the Comanchero bikie gang are fighting among themselves after the murder of Alen Moradian.

“There is a cycle, syndicates come and go in waves where they destroy themselves often ... it will happen again’’ said a senior detective.

The Ahmad and Elmir crime families once ruled Sydney and used the Alameddine and Hamzes as gofers before they wiped themselves out.

Islander gangs were just muscle but now have their own syndicates such as the Outcasts which deal drugs and also dabble in kidnapping and killers for hire.

Many are now senior members of bikie gangs, where once they were just the grunts.

The Asian gangs of old kept a low profile, but recently a bunch of young crooks are not keeping to the old traditions and have been quite open in their violence.

But the sleeper and group to watch is disaffected young Sudanese and Somali refugees being exploited by bikie gangs and Middle Eastern crims to do their drive-by shootings and killings, with many of them just teenagers when given a gun

Originally published as Challenge facing NSW Police following ‘Bloodline’ murder in Western Sydney