S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
S1: This is the morning edition. I'm Tammy Mills, filling in
S1: for Samantha Salinger. Morris. It's Tuesday, April 27th. Shootings between
S1: a warring criminal underworld is not a particularly new thing
S1: for cities such as Sydney. This type of violence exploded
S1: almost two decades ago with the advent of the gang
S1: brothers for life, whose method of choice claimed the lives
S1: of multiple gang members, including some of their own, and
S1: seriously injured innocent people in the crossfire. But such public
S1: violence did slow down once major gang figures had either
S1: been killed or placed behind bars. That is until recently when,
S1: as crime reporter Perry Duffin writes, once again, there's been
S1: a spate of gangland hits killing innocent people or minor
S1: criminals by an honorless underworld. Perry, thanks for coming on.
S2: Thanks, Tammy.
S1: First, let's talk about the most recent shootings on Sunday.
S1: What happened?
S2: So on Sunday, there was a Toyota Hilux driving through
S2: a very busy road in Parramatta when another car pulled
S2: up alongside him and a bunch of shots were fired
S2: through the window. Um, the front seat passenger was hit
S2: in the head and the driver, a solicitor, was hit
S2: as well.
S3: Shaping up to be a gangland hit, but this is
S3: a departure away from a textbook gangland hit that usually
S3: happens in the middle of the night, far away from
S3: innocent civilians. That was not the case here.
S2: Right now, as we talk, um, the solicitor is in
S2: a intensive care in hospital. He's expected to survive. Whereas
S2: the passenger, who has links to the Alameddine crime family
S2: is probably not going to survive. He was shot in
S2: the head.
S1: And can you tell us, for listeners like myself who
S1: who don't live in Sydney, what's the suburb of Granville like?
S2: Granville is a busy place. It's, um, one of the
S2: most popular places to go and get dinner in Sydney.
S2: It's got some great restaurants, some great food. There are
S2: a lot of people around on the weekend and on
S2: Sunday night, no exception. These were really busy road. It
S2: was like a main arterial road through the city just
S2: near Parramatta, which is of course, you know, almost like
S2: another city centre now. Um, and this shooting took place
S2: in front of a whole bunch of people who were just,
S2: you know, in traffic.
S4: Back in the day, whatever you had, your dramas, you know,
S4: keep it within, whatever. You're not out in public like this.
S5: It's quite shocking. Like, this isn't America. We're supposed to
S5: be safe here in Australia.
S2: It was extremely brazen, extremely dangerous and extremely violent. There
S2: were people on the side of the road, you know,
S2: nursing bullet shot wounds and bleeding. Um, there was broken
S2: glass everywhere. Um, dash cam footage captured, um, the ute
S2: after it had been shot at, doing a U-turn, running
S2: over the median strip. It was extremely dangerous, extremely chaotic.
S1: And do you know whether the lawyer was the target
S1: of the shooting, or was he in the wrong place
S1: at the wrong time?
S2: It does happen. He's not the first lawyer to be shot. But, um,
S2: police said today that they believe everyone in that car
S2: could have been a target. But there's no suggestion that
S2: the lawyer is in any way connected to the underworld. Beyond,
S2: of course, his work representing them.
S1: Because he's a criminal lawyer, right?
S2: He is. He is. And he's, you know, many of
S2: his clients are alamuddin's. So the fact that he was
S2: with them is not all that surprising. And as I said,
S2: he's not the first lawyer who's been shot. But there's
S2: certainly no suggestion that he was the main target. In fact,
S2: police believed that it may have been the two men
S2: in the back seat who were targets, including a very senior.
S2: Uh alameddine. Allegedly.
S1: Can you tell me also who the Alameddine crime family are?
S2: Well, the Alameddine crime family is a massive extended family
S2: and associates that basically forms up a amount of Sydney's underworld.
S2: They are one of the major drug supply gangs in Sydney.
S2: They're also responsible for a lot of the violence. They
S2: have roots as well that go back to the last
S2: major wave of gang warfare, which involved the brothers for life, uh,
S2: and the Ramsays. The Alameddines have sort of carried on
S2: some of those old grudges and some of those old
S2: techniques that, um, really shocked Sydney in the 2020 tens
S2: when brothers for life was going to war with itself.
S1: Okay. And in Sydney last week, a 23 year old
S1: plumber was also gunned down in the driveway outside his home.
S1: Can you tell us a bit about this incident?
S2: Yeah. So John Versace was a tradie. He had just
S2: gotten home, um, in his work ute when a car
S2: sped up, pulled into his driveway, a gunman got out
S2: the back seat, ran up and cornered him, and basically
S2: unloaded a Glock pistol into him. Killed him. Um, he was,
S2: as far as we can tell, as far as police
S2: seem to know. Totally innocent. He had no connections that
S2: anyone's been able to find or to the underworld or
S2: anything like that. That might explain why he was shot.
S2: That one has police really baffled because the people who
S2: carried out the shooting, whoever they are and why they
S2: did it, they were using professional methods. They burned the car.
S2: They burned the gun. These are the hallmarks of a
S2: professional hit. The mystery is, why did they target this
S2: seemingly innocent man who was just getting out of his
S2: his car? He's aged 23, and, you know, he died
S2: in his driveway while his family was screaming. They told
S2: us he's an innocent man. He's a good boy. And
S2: they were just absolutely shocked.
S1: And so the Versace murder joins this list of of
S1: seemingly innocent targets in Sydney, including a grandmother who was
S1: killed in a loungeroom in a drive by shooting, and
S1: a mother who was abducted in front of her children
S1: and later murdered. Were these cases of mistaken identity or
S1: family members of those involved in organized crime or like,
S1: what's going on here?
S2: Well, we spoke to a criminologist, Vince Hurley, who worked
S2: in the police as a detective, worked with undercover gangs,
S2: and he basically told us that there are people on
S2: the periphery of organized crime, or perhaps just on the
S2: on the periphery of crime, who wind up being targets
S2: for these executions, for these drive by shootings. And it
S2: seems that, at least in the case of Kim Tran,
S2: a mother who was abducted, executed, and her body was
S2: found in a burning car, that appears to be what's happened.
S6: It was described as a crime with an unheard of
S6: level of violence.
S7: Kim Tran Originally from Vietnam, she moved to Australia for
S7: a better life.
S8: Assaulting her in front of her sons, then kidnapping her
S8: at gunpoint. Her body was found in a burnt out
S8: car about an hour later.
S2: So our police sources have told us that Kim Tran's
S2: husband was working as a meth chef for a Vietnamese
S2: crime gang, a drug gang, and they had believed that
S2: he'd stolen some of the product. And so the current
S2: working theory in that investigation is that it was sort
S2: of an act of revenge or an attempt to recover
S2: their money or to extort, uh, the husband of Kim Tran.
S2: She had no actual connections beyond that, as far as
S2: we know. And as for Kim Duncan, 65 year old grandmother,
S2: she was in her home at Ambarvale and nine shots
S2: were fired through her home. One of them hit her
S2: in the leg and she died on the floor of
S2: her living room. She as well was not believed to
S2: be the target or involved in any kind of serious
S2: organised crime. She's got a son. He rushed home and
S2: was at the scene, so there's no indication that Kim
S2: Duncan was the target that whoever shot these this house
S2: was after they had fired indiscriminately into the home and
S2: killed her. But it shows, along with the murder of
S2: Kim Tran, that the people who are carrying out public
S2: place shootings and gang violence in Sydney right now are
S2: not particularly concerned with who they kill. They're willing to
S2: kill people, um, as Vince Hurley said, because there is
S2: no honor among thieves. This is ruthless, and it's a
S2: form of business for them, and sadly, it costs people's lives.
S1: Perry. They're both shocking cases. How unusual is it to
S1: have seemingly innocent bystanders or family members targeted by criminals?
S2: Well, so it is shocking. It's sadly not unheard of.
S2: So there was a large wave of violence that happened
S2: about two years ago, following a targeted execution of a
S2: cocaine kingpin, Alan Mouradian, uh, at Bondi. After that, there
S2: was a whole bunch of shootings that followed as the
S2: underworld attempted to, you know, vie for control over the
S2: cocaine market. And in that process, there were quite a
S2: few people who were innocent who were just shot dead. Um,
S2: there was a lawyer who was shot and injured. He
S2: survived in his driveway. Again, no connection beyond his job
S2: to organize crime. There was, um, a man sitting in
S2: a car at Granville who was shot and killed in
S2: that same shooting. Two more innocent people, also in a
S2: car nearby, were hit with stray bullets. I think one
S2: was seriously injured, maybe even paralyzed. It's not unheard of
S2: that people would get killed who are loosely connected or
S2: completely unconnected. Um, but as Vince Hurley told us, the
S2: gangs that order these hits are using kill squads to
S2: carry it out because it offers a degree of insulation.
S2: A degree of distance makes it harder to link back
S2: to who actually ordered these hits, but the necessary sort
S2: of impact of that is that the gangs themselves lose
S2: control of the gunmen. They don't really know the people
S2: who are actually pulling the trigger, who they're after. They
S2: don't know why they're doing it necessarily. And as a result,
S2: you might just get random people getting shot or the
S2: wrong person getting hit with a stray bullet because it's
S2: just an absolute loss of control by the underworld itself.
S1: Okay. So it's it could be. Does this mean we're
S1: talking about more inexperienced criminals who are being hired by
S1: these gangs, who are then botching the shootings, or is
S1: it that they simply care less so they'll open fire
S1: in public places, or they're indifferent to bystanders getting hit?
S2: Yeah. That's right. It appears to be both. I mean,
S2: some of the people that they arrest and charge who
S2: are allegedly part of these kill squads are in their 20s.
S2: Some of them are very young. Others certainly have no
S2: real connection to anyone who they've actually shot and injured
S2: or killed. It seems to just be reckless. Young, perhaps inexperienced,
S2: but ruthless. And so we're seeing, um, you know, scary
S2: waves of violence right now that we really haven't seen
S2: for a couple of years. And in broader terms, we
S2: haven't seen for a decade. There was a huge wave
S2: of violence in about 2013 amongst brothers for life and
S2: the hamsters as they started to, um, exact attacks on
S2: each other. Within the gang, there were chapters and factions
S2: started to shoot and kill each other. Yeah. And one
S2: of the police theories now is that that's happening in
S2: the Alameddine network. And so they don't know who's shot
S2: the at these four men in, um, Granville. But they
S2: one of the theories is that it's alameddine, um, on
S2: alameddine violence. It's an internal war.
S1: Okay. So it could be a sign of some kind
S1: of gangland war and an internal gangland war. As in
S1: internal war within the same gang playing out in Sydney
S1: at the moment.
S2: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are a lot of factions.
S2: It's a very, very big drug network. I was at
S2: a cafe in the Inner West not too long ago,
S2: and I saw a very large, very scary guy wearing
S2: Alameddine official merchandise, but it was for one faction of
S2: the Alameddine.
S1: I didn't even realise there was official merchandise.
S2: There is. I don't know where you buy it. It's
S2: not on sale at Rebel Sport, but you can get
S2: gang merchandise. Brothers for life also popularized that. Um, and yeah,
S2: I saw a guy sipping on a latte wearing a
S2: shirt that said ready for War, which is one of
S2: the alameddine major groups.
S1: Wow. And just finally, Perry, what have police been saying
S1: about this latest round of violence and what are they
S1: going to do about it?
S2: So the cops are actually going to start saturating places. Now.
S2: What they do is they tend to go out and find, uh,
S2: associates of people who've been shot or arrested, and they
S2: will talk to them and they will serve things like
S2: firearm prohibition orders, which are designed to make it harder
S2: for people to get guns. Um, you expect to see
S2: police knocking doors, talking to their associates, handing out more
S2: of these sort of things and just warning people off it. Um,
S2: we expect to see police doing, uh, a lot of
S2: high profile sort of, um, you know, operations around Sydney
S2: talking to people, searches, um, trying to dissuade anyone from
S2: retaliatory violence. Um, over the last few years, it's been
S2: a little bit quieter in terms of gang shootings. After
S2: Alan Mouradian was killed and there was quite a few attacks,
S2: people getting shot on the street, I think it was
S2: five people in five weeks died. Um, there was task
S2: Force Magnus established huge high visibility police operation designed to
S2: just stamp out the violence and stop the cycle. And
S2: that seemed quite successful. It had quite a few, um,
S2: detectives out there all across Sydney, and it's it seems
S2: to be the cycle of how this works. There are
S2: increasing amounts of violence, an increased police response, and then
S2: it quiets down. And it the concern now is that
S2: we're seeing an uptick and we're going to see another
S2: cycle of violence. We're going to see more bodies on
S2: the streets.
S1: Yeah. And it's affecting, as we've just been talking about,
S1: not just criminal gangs who are of course, obviously also
S1: have family and wives and husbands and children, but um,
S1: innocent people as well, which is a real worry.
S2: Yeah, yeah. The, you know, the Hollywood idea that, you know,
S2: the mob never hits the family. That's just Hollywood. They
S2: will shoot anyone that they can get near. As criminologist
S2: Vince Hurley told us, sometimes shooting someone who's only tangentially
S2: connected or barely connected to organized crime is the point.
S2: It's about showing that they are willing to be ruthless.
S2: They will go after someone who doesn't even know they're
S2: in danger, and often these people don't really think about
S2: protecting themselves and that is what makes them a target, sadly.
S1: Well, thank you so much for your time, Perry.
S2: Thanks so much, Tammy.
S1: Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by me
S1: with technical assistance from Josh towers. Tom McKendrick is our
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S1: morning edition. Thanks for listening.