Greater than a dozen individuals have been arrested in early morning raids as police declare victory over a significant crime gang accused of being behind a dial-a-dealer drug community.
The arrests throughout Sydney on Wednesday observe a near-three-year investigation into the Alameddine crime gang, based mostly within the metropolis’s southwest, which police say has been working a drug enterprise spanning the whole lot from importation to street-level provide.
The probe uncovered what detectives say was a classy “dial-a-dealer” syndicate accountable for promoting each unlawful and illicit prescribed drugs throughout NSW.
The gang was additionally behind a collection of violent assaults – together with murders – linked to tussles for management of Sydney’s profitable drug commerce, investigators have stated.
Earlier in March police shut down greater than two dozen cellphone numbers probably linked to greater than 50,000 prospects as a part of a probe into the community.
A cohort of about 250 officers have been concerned within the busts on Wednesday, which police stated resulted in 15 arrests – together with the accused onshore masterminds of the gang’s drug operation.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson stated the arrests had eradicated what was left of the prison community in Australia.
Earlier raids, in Might 2022, had pushed lots of the most important gamers within the community abroad, he stated.
“At present’s operation has cleaned up what was left of them on our shores,” Mr Hudson stated.
One of many Alameddine gang’s alleged kingpins, Masood Zakaria, was charged with a string of significant offences in December – together with conspiracy to homicide – after being deported from Turkey.
He was allegedly concerned in a failed plot to homicide rival underworld determine Ibrahem Hamze in 2021, after which investigators stated he fled Australia in a fishing boat shortly earlier than his deliberate arrest.
