By Perry Duffin
A terrified tobacco runner was forced to tie up his friends and then bind his own feet, before Alameddine gangsters allegedly began cutting off his big toe in a horrific moment that illustrates how violence is part of doing business in Sydney’s gang wars.
Court documents, obtained by the Herald, claim up to 20 violent tobacco and vape thefts, known as “rips”, have fuelled the underworld conflict that has led gunmen to open fire on public streets.
Police claim a tobacco heist at Condell Park turned into a violent kidnapping where Alameddine associates cut the toe off a captive while stealing a tonne of black market product.Credit: Nine News
The sun had just set on January 4 this year, when a senior member of an Alameddine organised crime network (OCN) subgroup, known as Proper 60, met with two associates, Ahmed Dudu and Mohamad Kaddour, on a suburban street in Merrylands.
The senior operative, his two associates and six other henchmen travelled in a convoy of rental trucks and vans to an industrial complex in Condell Park.
They allegedly forced their way through the front door of Unit 11 and loaded up more than a tonne of tobacco products, which police suspect had been imported illegally.
The gang cut the CCTV and power, which alerted the owners of the storage unit. Three men arrived at the unit about half an hour later to figure out what was happening. The Alameddines allegedly smashed their car window and dragged the three men out, bashing one savagely.
The trio of captives was allegedly marched at knifepoint into the smashed industrial unit and up to an office area. “[One man] was forced to bind the hands and feet of (the other two) with tape,” a police document alleges.
The man was then allegedly ordered to bind his own feet.
“The victims were detained in this room for a period of about 15 [to] 30 minutes, believing they were going to die,” the police document alleges.
The Alameddines then allegedly approached the bruised and bleeding man, who they had beaten in the car park, and “partially severed his right-foot big toe”.
The raid and violence lasted almost an hour before police responded to a triple-zero call and allegedly found multiple masked gangsters fleeing on foot.
Dudu and Kaddour, police claim in their court document, were captured after failing to scale the fence “due to their level of fitness”.
The officers found the bound, wounded victim, who required surgery on his toe. The senior Alameddine member was arrested a few weeks later after police allegedly tied him to the attack.
Last week, senior police sources told The Herald they believed tobacco rips were part of the motivation behind recent public shootings.
Three people, including alleged Alameddine leader Samimjan Azari, were shot at an Auburn kebab shop. One victim was an innocent woman, caught in the crossfire. It was the fourth attempt on Azari’s life in less than a year, police say.
Late last year, Alameddines were allegedly involved in another tobacco robbery. The case file, also obtained by the Herald, suggests Proper 60 and the broader Alameddine OCN are involved in a series of attacks.
“This OCN is now involved in a series of violent thefts known as ‘rips’ involving violent robberies in company and aggravated break and enters of commercial premises, largely targeting illicit tobacco and vape products,” one police document from late last year reads.
The gang allegedly ambushed the owner and staff of a tobacconist outside his Guildford home in late November as they unloaded a shipment of tobacco from a truck into a white van in the driveway.
“We run this area,” one alleged gangster told one victim. “Do you want to die? Give me the keys. I know you’re just a worker, give me the keys.”
That was one of eight alleged rips carried out by the Alameddines that year, court documents claim.
“Police, however, suspect that there may be as many as 15 to 20 similar ‘rips’ of tobacco and vapes products and another 20 or so offenders involved.”
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