In a major crackdown on organized crime, Australian authorities, using 450 officers, performed raids from final Sunday to Tuesday, concentrating on the residences of 28 Lebanese nationals in Sydney.
This operation led to the seizure of weapons, medicine, and important money quantities, dismantling certainly one of Australia’s largest prison teams. In keeping with New South Wales Police, 37 arrest warrants had been executed for people linked to this Lebanese prison gang.
The group is accused of cash laundering, arms, and tobacco trafficking, and dealing over two tons of varied medicine, with a road worth exceeding one billion {dollars}. The raids resulted within the confiscation of 25 firearms, 60 communication gadgets, luxurious jewellery, and automobiles, in addition to lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} in money.
Lebanese authorities additionally apprehended Bilal Hoshar, deemed “Australia’s most harmful man” and among the many most needed by Australian legislation enforcement. Hoshar, 37, was arrested alongside 4 associates throughout a nighttime raid in Beirut. Nonetheless, his extradition to Australia is difficult because of the lack of a bilateral treaty.
Hoshar had fled to Lebanon in 2018 after being implicated in a homicide in Sydney. His brother Nidal, 40, was amongst these arrested in Sydney, apprehended on the metropolis’s worldwide airport as he was about to go away for Lebanon. Nidal confronted an area court docket the subsequent day on 9 costs, together with industrial drug provide and involvement in prison group actions, coping with proceeds of crime value over 4.4 million {dollars}.
The opposite arrestees, aged between 23 and 46, face 69 costs, starting from driving offenses to large-scale drug distribution. All have appeared earlier than a number of courts in Sydney, with bail denied.
Associated: Lebanon Seized 800kg Of Medication At Beirut Port
