Drummoyne locals arrived home from work on Thursday night to find armed police in helmets and bulletproof vests knocking on doors and peeping over mansion fences.
“It’s like the Bronx,” one resident joked on social media. Another local commented that police had asked if they had been approached by anyone with suspected links to organised crime, but the only “cartel” they’d seen was a group of boat owners coordinating where to park their trailers.
All the “drama” that sent online community groups into a frenzy was, as the head of NSW Police’s Raptor Squad told journalists, in response to men with alleged links to a high-profile criminal group causing a nuisance in the affluent waterfront suburb, where their “bodyguards” have allegedly harassed residents.
Detective Superintendent Andrew Koutsoufis said police were targeting the alleged Haouchar criminal group. Much of the alleged billion-dollar gun, drug, tobacco, and money-running gang was stamped out in raids of more than a dozens of homes across Sydney last November.
“There’s two individuals [allegedly] attached to the organised criminal network that live in one of the locations [in Drummoyne],” Koutsoufis told reporters on Friday.
“Residents have made complaints to us about being harassed by those [two] residents and their associates, who stopped them and asked them what they are doing in those streets, and we just can’t have that ongoing behaviour.
“We need residents to feel safe and secure and be able to walk up and down their street without being harassed by these individuals.”
Police searched seven people during Thursday night’s raids.Credit: NSW Police
The area “locked down” by police from 6pm to 8:30pm Thursday stretched from the waterline to Ferry Lane and from Queen Victoria Sreet to Thornley Street.
More than 100 members of the serious organised crime squad spoke to about 100 residents, seized $30,000 cash from one home and searched seven people as well as five cars before leaving.
Asked what the “security” was saying when approaching locals, Koutsoufis said they were “well aware that they are under threat from other individuals from other criminal networks”.
These weren’t “official security guards being hired by these criminal networks”, he said, but rather lower end associates that are “almost like cannon fodder for these people”.
“So, they have these associates sit out [the] front of their house in an effort to protect them from these other criminal networks that are out to get them,” he said. “So, they’re on high alert. And it means anyone in that vicinity may be subjected to being stopped by and harassed by these individuals.
“No part of Sydney is out of bounds for any of these people – they deal in large amounts of disposable cash. And this is just one example of how they can use this money.”
Police sources not authorised to speak publicly said police carried out firearm prohibition compliance checks on two men, Omar Haouchar and Ayman Manly. They were both compliant with the checks and no charges were laid. There is no suggestion they have committed any crimes.
NSW Police’s dog squad was brought in to help.Credit: NSW Police
Omar is a brother of the alleged commander of the syndicate, gang member Bilal Haouchar.
Last November, Lebanese authorities arrested 37-year-old Bilal. He has not been charged in Australia. Meanwhile, in Sydney, NSW Police pounced on a third Haouchar brother, Nedal, at Sydney’s International Airport.
Nedal was charged with two counts of large commercial cocaine supply and dealing with millions of dollars which are the suspected proceeds of crime. He faces a Supreme Court bail hearing next week.
While many of the major players in the alleged Haouchar syndicate have been arrested or fled abroad, NSW Police are focusing on those still in Australia, and say they won’t let them intimidate residents.
The last time police raided the Drummoyne area was in December, albeit on a smaller scale. These types of raids are more common in Sydney’s south-west, where members of major crime gangs regularly compete for drug territory and assert “authority” on the streets.
Police said they received a lot of interesting information and will be back to follow it up.Credit: NSW Police
Koutsoufis said police will return to Drummoyne at some stage after receiving “some very interesting pieces of information” on Thursday.
“They’re [the locals] are all very happy to talk to us and very happy to see us there last night,” he said.
“So we’ll be working our way through some of those pieces of information, to check on the veracity and follow up some of that.”
Koutsoufis said incorrect reports of police attending the area earlier in the week “probably reflects maybe some of the residents being a little bit jumpy about knowing who’s living in their street”.