By Perry Duffin
The arson attacks on the Bondi home of YouTuber FriendlyJordies bear all the hallmarks of underworld attacks, court documents released to the Herald reveal.
A police case file, released by the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday, spells out the underworld plot against the acerbic political commentator, Jordan Shanks, by an alleged Mongols prospect and an associate of the Alameddine crime family.
Police files reveal the damage done to the home of Jordan Shanks, aka FriendlyJordies, in what police call an organised crime arson attack.
His home was firebombed twice in quick succession, firstly on November 17, 2022, when a black Mercedes C200 rolled down his street, the fact sheet reads.
The car was allegedly stolen in May 2022 by a young person from an $11.65 million Bellevue Hill home and sold to Sydney’s underworld, the document claims. The child was caught and is before the courts.
Fire damage at the home of Jordan Shanks in Bondi in November 2022.
The underworld buyers then “cloned” the plate of an identical Mercedes, which had not been stolen, to avoid detection by police and traffic cameras.
“This method is a well-established modus operandi in use by organised criminal networks in the Sydney Metropolitan area for procuring vehicles for use in organised and serious offences,” the police document reads.
Police allege three men exited the Mercedes armed with sparklers about 1am and set a door mat on fire.
The flames woke members of Shanks’ household who quickly extinguished the fire on the veranda. Scorch marks and two burnt sparklers were discovered inside the bathroom near the open window, while police found another burnt sparkler on the veranda the next morning.
Five days later, at midnight on November 22, the Mercedes returned, the document reads.
CCTV allegedly captured three men jump out of the car and up the steps to Shanks’ home, before pouring petrol over a bamboo table and setting it alight.
The two attacks came just days apart.
A witness watched as three men, one larger than the other two, bounded back to the Mercedes and fled.
Shanks was not at home, but others raced outside through the thick smoke to spray the flames with a garden hose. It couldn’t be contained and they called triple zero.
The front of the home was extensively damaged by flames that spread through the veranda, the front door, and bedroom. Asbestos fibres, structural damage and smoke left the home uninhabitable.
CCTV and mobile phone tower data allegedly tracked Alameddine associate Tufi Junior Tauese-Auelia and lifelong crook Andre Stepanyan as they moved across the eastern suburbs and met up on Fletcher Street between Tamarama and Bondi.
Police allege the stolen Mercedes had been stored on Fletcher Street in the days between the arson attacks.
Police say Tauese-Auelia was involved in both attacks. Stepanyan is alleged to be involved only in the second.
“[Stepanyan] is alleged to have participated in the setting of a fire at a premises with two adjoining properties which had the potential to take the lives of the residents,” the police document reads.
Police found the stolen Mercedes two weeks later. Inside was a one-litre bottle containing petrol, a knife, a jumper and a sparkler.
Andre Stepanyan applied for release on bail earlier this month. Documents from his case allege organised crime links to the arson attack on Shanks’ home.Credit: Facebook
Then in April 2023 police searched Tauese-Auelia’s silver Ford and allegedly found a glove, face masks and a packet with one unused sparkler inside.
They charged him in December with two counts of damaging property by fire in company.
Investigators charged Stepanyan in June this year with participating in a criminal group and destroying property with fire.
By the time police arrested Stepanyan they allege he had become a prospect in the Mongols bikie club and was linked to a “serious gang like assault” at a bikie party.
The court documents claim Stepanyan had been invited to a “patch party” at the Mongols’ clubhouse in a Blacktown industrial estate in August 2023.
Members of the Mongol OMCG allegedly attacking a man at the Blacktown clubhouse as Andre Stepanyan allegedly watches on (off camera).
CCTV captured the alleged attack, with an unnamed man filmed running from the clubhouse towards a locked gate, but unable escape.
Five men, all wearing Mongols’ outlaw motorcycle gang colours, cornered the man. Stepanyan was among them but stood back.
The other gang members allegedly punched and kicked the victim before one Mongol allegedly “stabs the victim three times in quick succession to the buttocks area”, the court documents claim.
Stepanyan allegedly washed away the blood with buckets of water before another Mongol drove the victim to hospital and was arrested.
A lawyer for Stepanyan earlier this month disputed he was a member of a gang. The lawyer told the court Stepanyan became a prospect on the day of the stabbing and disassociated himself that same day.
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