Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: the first of August. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 3: I'm Nina Koppule standing in Fazzara.
Speaker 2: There's been a spate of shooting since Sydney.
Speaker 1: A man executed while sitting in his vehicle in the
Speaker 1: underground car park of an apartment complex in busy Vondai Junction.
Speaker 4: Two men have been shot in a brazen daylight attack
Speaker 4: at a Marrickville.
Speaker 3: Barberup been breaking news.
Speaker 4: A man in his thirties has been shot outside a
Speaker 4: home in the Sydney suburb of Green. Sydney's gun crime
Speaker 4: epidemic has claimed two more lives, with a man gunned down.
Speaker 1: At Canterbury early today, his body lying in the street
Speaker 1: with children walking by.
Speaker 2: We believe the shootings are related to drug gangs in
Speaker 2: Sydney's criminal underworld. But why has this escalation happened now?
Speaker 2: And if the police know what's fueling this violence, why
Speaker 2: can't they stop those responsible? Daily Telegraph Crime editor Mark
Speaker 2: Murray is going to answer those questions and more in
Speaker 2: a very interesting deep dive. But first, Nina, it was
Speaker 2: a very sad day for AFL fans yesterday and.
Speaker 3: A very sad day for you, Sam.
Speaker 2: I know it hit you as a hard one.
Speaker 3: Buddy Franklin has announced his retirement from the AFL, effective immediately.
Speaker 3: The Swan's forward debuted in two thousand and five and
Speaker 3: played three hundred and fifty four games for Hawthorne and Sydney.
Speaker 3: He kicked one thousand and sixty six goals. That's the
Speaker 3: fourth most of all time.
Speaker 2: Tasmanian authorities have confirmed a body found in Bushland last
Speaker 2: week as missing teen SHANEA Lee Tatnell. DNA testing formally
Speaker 2: identified the fourteen year old who went missing from Lonceston
Speaker 2: in April. A thirty six year old man has been
Speaker 2: charged with murder in relation to her discs appearance.
Speaker 3: The Australian Space Agency has shared its findings surrounding the
Speaker 3: origins of an object that washed up on a Wa beach.
Speaker 3: The agency says they believe the two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: kilogram object is most likely debrithe from a polar satellite
Speaker 3: launch vehicle operated by the Indian Space Research Organization.
Speaker 2: And today's good news if you think you slept in
Speaker 2: on the weekend are preserved. Forty six thousand year old
Speaker 2: roundworm has been revived after it was found in Siberian permafrost.
Speaker 2: Scientists hope the findings will help them better understand evolutionary processes.
Speaker 3: That is actually wild.
Speaker 2: It's a long time to be asleep. There's been a
Speaker 2: lot of stories in the news in the last few
Speaker 2: weeks about shootings in Sydney and their connections to drug
Speaker 2: gangs and underworld crime, and I had a lot of questions.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know what was going on and what
Speaker 2: really needs to happen to bring this violence to an end.
Speaker 2: So I thought who better to ask than crime editor
Speaker 2: at the Daily Telegraph, Mark Murray. You might know him
Speaker 2: from his explainers on TikTok, but he's been following this
Speaker 2: story since the seventies. Mark, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 2: us on the zeliazz this morning, talk to you. So
Speaker 2: just over the last month, we've seen multiple shootings in Sydney.
Speaker 2: At one point there was a number of shootings across
Speaker 2: a five day period. For those of us who literally
Speaker 2: have no idea where this story starts, what's happening here.
Speaker 4: Well it said in five days we had three young
Speaker 4: people shot at green Acre in the middle of the night.
Speaker 4: Now one of those has since died, but two of
Speaker 4: those were believed to be totally innocent, where the target
Speaker 4: was a twenty four year old man and one of
Speaker 4: the bullet straight and hit a young couple. Then there
Speaker 4: was another shooting at Canterbury where a young drug dealer
Speaker 4: was filled. In between we had a defense lawyer, Mamouda
Speaker 4: Bass who was very high profile. He was shot outside
Speaker 4: he's homing no Bankstown and lived so and then there
Speaker 4: was another shooting as well. So I've had five people
Speaker 4: injured in five days and you know, one of them
Speaker 4: the bodies was laying in the middle of the street
Speaker 4: in Canterbury where young school children were walking past before
Speaker 4: it was covered. And that's really raised a lot of
Speaker 4: people's news about what's going on in our streets.
Speaker 2: But where has this all come from, like, is this
Speaker 2: just an annual occurrence or is there something particularly at
Speaker 2: play here that's led to this spike?
Speaker 4: Now you do find little clusters. I'll be honest. I've
Speaker 4: been around a long time, you know, and I've been
Speaker 4: watching these shootings and I've seen it a lot worse,
Speaker 4: which is a pretty sad thing to say. But what
Speaker 4: we've found it's all being driven by drug money. Invariably,
Speaker 4: it's by the fact that somebody either has bought, you know,
Speaker 4: a whole lot of cocaine and not paid the dealer,
Speaker 4: or somebody strayed into someone's territory and that's created a
Speaker 4: problem because the amount of money being made from cocaine
Speaker 4: is enormous, and especially in Sydney, we pay the highest
Speaker 4: prices in the world. That makes it the most profitable.
Speaker 2: And so are you comfortable linking all of these murders
Speaker 2: to kind of that wider drug trade?
Speaker 4: Invariably, although in the last two years there's been over
Speaker 4: twenty people murdered, some of those innocent victims, now, not
Speaker 4: all of them are strictly related to the drug trade.
Speaker 4: They may be amongst criminals who are involved in the
Speaker 4: drug trade who have got a personal vendetta or hate
Speaker 4: each other, or they just become enemies, you know, but
Speaker 4: it starts invariably with a drug war.
Speaker 2: How do you know all of this? And that's a
Speaker 2: bit of an odd question, But where are you basing
Speaker 2: this information off?
Speaker 4: I'll be really honest. For many, many years, I've been
Speaker 4: in Sydney, based in Sydney, I had a short stint overseas,
Speaker 4: so I've got to know a lot of police officers
Speaker 4: over the years. But i also have a number of
Speaker 4: underworld contacts that I've got to know over the years.
Speaker 4: And myself and another reporter, josh Hanrahan, you know, we
Speaker 4: spent a lot of time going out and about and
Speaker 4: you get information and we've verify it. Like I'll get
Speaker 4: an information from a guy who's a crook or then
Speaker 4: a crook, and then I'll go and make sure that
Speaker 4: I get it verified, maybe by a police officer. We
Speaker 4: don't report rumor. We have to double check everything, right,
Speaker 4: Sometimes something's a bit murky because, as you can understand,
Speaker 4: in this world, not everybody's honest. Yeah, and also the
Speaker 4: police sometimes very very protective of their information. They don't
Speaker 4: like things getting out there because it tips off people
Speaker 4: they might be arresting or plans they have. So it's
Speaker 4: a fine line walking between both the crooks and the cops.
Speaker 4: And that's what you have to do to try and
Speaker 4: do what we do where I'm well.
Speaker 2: I'm interested then with your sense of how the underworld
Speaker 2: in Sydney is feeling at the moment. Is there a
Speaker 2: sense of fear within your key contacts now because of
Speaker 2: this spate of shootings, Yeah.
Speaker 4: There is. You really, You've hit it right on the head.
Speaker 4: At the moment, there'd be eighty to one hundred well
Speaker 4: known Sydney crooks who are living overseas and either eleven
Speaker 4: nine or Turkey. Most of them are dual nationals who
Speaker 4: have got out of Sydney in the last year or two.
Speaker 4: Because when you have these shootings going on, the police
Speaker 4: do go out there and start smashing anybody in everyone
Speaker 4: they can. They've got to be seen to be doing
Speaker 4: things making life hell, even if they can't get them
Speaker 4: on serious charges. But because of the way that people
Speaker 4: are being shot outside gyms and a frequency, a lot
Speaker 4: have got out of Sydney because they're worried they're going
Speaker 4: to be shot.
Speaker 2: So if we kind of know that a lot of
Speaker 2: these shootings have drugs and this gang revenge rivalry behind them.
Speaker 2: Why do you think it's so hard for police to
Speaker 2: stop them and not put those serious charges on them,
Speaker 2: as you're saying, and have to kind of skirt around
Speaker 2: the edges.
Speaker 4: Because the criminals have got very, very good at getting
Speaker 4: rid of evidence. There'll be three or four cars stolen.
Speaker 4: Sometimes some of those cars are stolen for a year
Speaker 4: ago and are put in storage. They then get on
Speaker 4: fire to get rid of DNA. Good prince, there's another
Speaker 4: car waiting. A lot of the times, the people stealing
Speaker 4: the car seldom to people who then pass them on
Speaker 4: to other people who have no idea. So the big
Speaker 4: players are very care There was actually one that was
Speaker 4: in a court case and I was amazed when I
Speaker 4: saw it a police it intercepted a bone and in
Speaker 4: it they saw in the WhatsApp group there was a
Speaker 4: chat saying who will go and hit so and so
Speaker 4: for one hundred thousand? So there was a WhatsApp group
Speaker 4: advertising for a hit.
Speaker 2: Is that kind of how much it costs to kill
Speaker 2: someone these days? Is about one hundred thousand?
Speaker 4: It depends a lot. That was an old one for
Speaker 4: a start, you got to think I know this sounds
Speaker 4: a good crass, but there's a lot of overheads, so
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand is fairly cheap. It does depend on
Speaker 4: who the target is. There was Memordian, there was shot
Speaker 4: Bondi Junction. He was a high ranking common hero who
Speaker 4: was taking precautions. Now I've heard conservatively that would have
Speaker 4: cost anywhere from six hundred thousand to a million. Well
Speaker 4: that's because he's such a big player. Lots there were
Speaker 4: two good shooters, two or three style and guns. Then
Speaker 4: there are day houses for those guys to go to.
Speaker 4: The guns cost money. But there are other people out there.
Speaker 4: There are the very young young criminals in young gangs,
Speaker 4: particularly young Islanders as Syrians, who are preyed upon by
Speaker 4: the organized crime groups, who are willing to try and
Speaker 4: shoot people for not a lot of money. And again
Speaker 4: they were really being paid by a whole range of exmedia.
Speaker 4: So that that protects people. So said, there've been a
Speaker 4: lot of people arrested for lying us for these murders,
Speaker 4: but the police haven't put up the chain a lot
Speaker 4: because all those buddy is the way they've got so
Speaker 4: clever at doing that.
Speaker 2: So it's clear that organized criminals in Sydney, but I'd
Speaker 2: say probably more broadly speaking, across Australia have leveled up.
Speaker 2: What do you think of the police response? So news others.
Speaker 2: Police have launched this task force, task Force Magnus. Do
Speaker 2: you think that'll be effective in stopping the next five shootings?
Speaker 4: I think that task Force Magnet has been announced publicly,
Speaker 4: who vacate the public? Will they stop the next five shootings?
Speaker 4: They will, They'll stop some shootings, but not all of them,
Speaker 4: and then they have to get practical. I can't keep
Speaker 4: all these crops on the street twenty four to seven
Speaker 4: without having blowing the state budget, and then the shootings
Speaker 4: will start again. As I said, I've been seeing it
Speaker 4: going on and off for forty years, and there might
Speaker 4: be a lull for six months, twelve months, then there
Speaker 4: will be another another crew that will come along and
Speaker 4: then they'll start. They'll start a war.
Speaker 2: So what is the solution then? How do you cut
Speaker 2: their head off the snake?
Speaker 4: You have to stop drugs coming into the city or
Speaker 4: which I don't think will really work. We've got to
Speaker 4: stop people taking drugs. I've spoken to cops. I'm just
Speaker 4: going well, look, we know that all these cocaines driving
Speaker 4: all these gang wars. What happens if we legalize it
Speaker 4: and they go, well, you'll still have the cartels try
Speaker 4: to come in and undercut the legal market. That makes
Speaker 4: it a bit difficult. I really don't understand where how
Speaker 4: we can stop. You know, it's I said, ideally beef
Speaker 4: there was no production out of South America and no tatanin.
Speaker 4: But that's just an unrealistic So I don't know. What
Speaker 4: we've got to stop is the new breed of shooter.
Speaker 4: Is what worries me is they are so reckless. You know,
Speaker 4: the guy's going into the barber shop in marrit Fort
Speaker 4: on a Friday afternoon an opening fire. There was another
Speaker 4: incident LUs year outside of gym and the bullet strayed
Speaker 4: and went into a childcare center next door. In the eighties,
Speaker 4: I remember covering there was a Ganglan war where eight
Speaker 4: to ten people were shot went missing. Now I think
Speaker 4: one of those one was in the daytime. The rest
Speaker 4: we're done in the middle of the night, very quietly.
Speaker 4: Some just disappeared and their bones were found years and
Speaker 4: years later. That's how the murders were done. The hits
Speaker 4: were done then hardly ever, in public we've seen. You know,
Speaker 4: there was a guy called Wally arm Met who was
Speaker 4: shot sitting having coffee at a rooftop of Bankstown. A
Speaker 4: guy went up and they opened fire there and an
Speaker 4: austraight bullok when we hit the lady at a coffee
Speaker 4: table next to him. In the old daiies, they didn't
Speaker 4: really do that many public shootings, and now they're just
Speaker 4: they're shooting broad daylight with Stemi automatic weapons. That's what's
Speaker 4: the scary thing.
Speaker 2: Mark last question from me. You've been around the traps
Speaker 2: a lot, very clearly, you've got a lot of strong
Speaker 2: contacts in this kind of other side to Sydney than
Speaker 2: a lot of us. See, are you worried about your
Speaker 2: own personal safety when reporting this kind of thing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little bit now Again never used to be
Speaker 4: because in the old days pure newspapers were a little
Speaker 4: bit more anonymous with social media very visible. Also, I
Speaker 4: mean I've had guys come rom you lock in a
Speaker 4: pub because they're very unhappy about what I've written. So
Speaker 4: it's a little bit scared. And again they don't seem
Speaker 4: to have the rules that they used to have. You know,
Speaker 4: we've seen women shot dead. A woman called the metafol power.
Speaker 4: She was shot dead. In the old days, again, women
Speaker 4: weren't shot. They'd never put people's lives in danger in
Speaker 4: the public becauzen're as bad for business. You're in A
Speaker 4: journalist used to be bad for business, and I have
Speaker 4: to do it. But yeah, it is a bit of
Speaker 4: a worry, But I'm thinking that they've got more important
Speaker 4: things to do than go and get me. So I'm
Speaker 4: just reporting what the underworld and the police know already.
Speaker 4: We're just leading the public mailk around it.
Speaker 2: Well, Michael, really appreciate your time kind of illuminating this
Speaker 2: side of the city that we don't talk about that much,
Speaker 2: and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Not a problem. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on the Daily Ours today. If
Speaker 3: you liked this episode and you're listening on Spotify as always,
Speaker 3: we'd love to hear your questions, your comments, you can
Speaker 3: pop them in the box under the episode description. Sam
Speaker 3: and Zara will be back again tomorrow. Until then, have
Speaker 3: an excellent day.