A feared crime family ruled Sydney's underworld. Now it's at war with itself

The Age

7 days ago

The first cracks in the facade of the Alameddine crime network started to show just over six months ago.
On a February afternoon, one of the network's long-time members, Samimjan Azari, and two associates were shot at in the car park of a Brighton-Le-Sands restaurant, where gunmen ambushed them in a brazen assassination attempt.
From the outside, it appeared the Alameddine network, which has for several years controlled Sydney's illicit drug market, was again at war with rivals staking their own claim on the lucrative trade.
But rather than fighting off cross-town enemies making a play for its turf, police say the Alameddine network was entrenched in a conflict within its own ranks.
In the months before, the feared network was fractured when one of its senior members defected to form his own criminal organisation, sparking a gangland war that spilt onto Sydney's streets that February day.
By the time the first shots were fired, a chasm had long opened up within the powerful organisation, splitting it in two as once-loyal members defected to join the new organised crime network founded by the senior Alameddine figure.
Since defecting, the former member, who the Herald cannot name for legal reasons, has bolstered his new network, turning other senior Alameddine figures against their long-time allies as shootings have plagued both sides of the conflict. This masthead does not suggest any of the individuals identified in this article are responsible for any of the shootings.
'There's been a division and that's the problem,' Detective Superintendent Jason Box said.
'It was one organised crime network working as a collective – there's now a division and that hasn't been accepted internally, hence the conflict.'
At the centre of the conflict, Azari has become Sydney's most marked man after taking up a senior role in the new network alongside Joseph Vokai, the alleged head of KVT.
A street gang with a membership of predominantly Fijian men, the KVT long acted as muscle for the Alameddine network in its multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking operations.
But when the network fractured, Vokai turned his back on the gang's long-time employer, aligning himself with Azari.
'There's been a significant divide at the highest level of this organised crime network, resulting in, we believe, the Alameddine and KVT split,' Box said.
Since he was targeted at Brighton-Le-Sands, Azari has survived three separate attempts on his life, the most recent last month when masked gunmen cornered him inside a Turkish restaurant in Auburn. Azari was shot twice, in the arm and the shoulder, but survived. An associate of Azari, a 25-year-old man, was shot in the face, while an innocent restaurant employee, a 47-year-old woman, was shot twice in the torso during the attack.
Three weeks earlier, Azari survived an assassination attempt that killed his associate, Dawood Zakaria, when assailants opened fire on a Toyota HiLux the pair was travelling in with two other men in Granville.
Zakaria, 32, who was with Azari when he was targeted in Brighton-Le-Sands and had been acting as a bodyguard for the 26-year-old since he took up his role at the head of the new network, was shot in the head and died in hospital several days later.
Days after Zakaria was shot, police established Taskforce Falcon, made up of 100 detectives from various squads and 50 uniformed officers, to quell the violence linked to the conflict.
Azari has dismissed repeated warnings from police to alter his movements, choosing instead to frequent public places, where he continues to be targeted.
'He's been told numerous times that he's at risk, and I think surely that he would be aware of that after four attempts on his life, and the movements for him is a matter for him to determine, but I hope that he makes the right decisions for his welfare,' said Box, the commander of Taskforce Falcon.
Expanding on the Alameddine network's historic control of the drug trade, the new network has infiltrated Sydney's illicit tobacco market, with several members and associates allegedly involved in a number of thefts, or 'rips' of tobacco worth millions of dollars since last year. Several have been charged and remain before the courts.
Police insist illicit tobacco is not the cause of the conflict, but rather the commodity of choice for the new network, which is largely comprised of defected Alameddine and KVT members.
On the other side of the conflict, some members remain loyal to the Alameddine network and its patriarch, Rafat Alameddine, as they grapple to retain control of Sydney's underworld.
Alameddine fled Australia for the safety of Lebanon, where he is a citizen, in November 2022. He remains wanted alongside fellow gangland figure John Ray Bayssari over an alleged criminal conspiracy to murder their underworld enemy Ibrahem Hamze in 2021.
'The Alameddine organised crime network is obviously still functioning and there are still representatives here and people are active; whether they're onshore or offshore, they're still active and still part of that network,' Box said.
Alameddine's former bodyguard, Ali Elmoubayed, who police believe runs the crime family's operations in Australia, remains aligned with the kingpin, as does rapper Ay Huncho, whose real name is Ali Younes.
In May, Younes posted a photo of himself alongside Alameddine to his Instagram. 'What's understood don't need to be explained,' the caption read.
As shootings on both sides of the conflict continue, Younes' loyalty to Elmoubayed and Alameddine has sparked concerns he may be targeted. Last month, Younes successfully applied to vary his bail conditions, which now allow him to report to police by phone, in an attempt to make his movements less predictable for would-be assassins.
A week after Younes varied his bail conditions, Elmoubayed himself narrowly escaped a shooting at his Merrylands home, which was peppered with bullets minutes after he left to front Parramatta Local Court. Hours later, a magistrate allowed Elmoubayed and his young family to relocate to an inner-city high-rise apartment building with security features that his lawyers argued would safeguard him from future attacks.
Police say it is unclear exactly what led to the divide within the Alameddine network, with petty grievances between former allies likely to have added fuel to the conflict.
'There's a lot of reasons this could have happened, from the leadership down, to decisions that are being made, to who holds a certain amount of power, and if people aren't adhering to leaders' instructions,' Box said.
Despite the targeting of leaders on each side of the divide, police have warned members of each network that they are in the firing line as the conflict continues.
'The reality is: anyone connected with this conflict is a potential target for retribution,' Box said.