by Yoni Bashan
A bag of 1000 PMA pills bought by undercover detectives during Strike Force Tapiola in February 2007. Only days earlier a young dance teacher, Annabel Catt, had died after taking a PMA pill at a music festival.
A police photograph of a major MEOCS target who had two of the Squad’s Highway Patrol cars tattooed onto his legs. When officers told him one of the cars was now yellow in colour, the criminal said he’d have it added. ‘There’s still space on my right leg,’ he reportedly said.
A car belonging to a gang member and target of the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad.
A gang member of the group Brothers 4 Life poses with a clenched fist, revealing the letters 'MEOC' on his knuckles. ‘It stands for Middle Eastern Organised Charity,’ he said, laughing.
Omar Ajaj, a cousin of Bassam Hamzy, photographed during a vehicle stop in May 2016 sporting a ‘MEOC’ tattoo on his neck. When asked by a reporter why he had the acronym inked onto him so prominently, Ajaj laughed and said, ‘Cos they’re my buddies!’ (Gary Ramage/Newspix)
Mohammed ‘Blackie’ Fahda being led back to prison after pleading not guilty to the murder of Abdul Darwiche on 14 March 2009. Fahda had encountered Darwiche by chance at a service station in Bass Hill, then fled to Tonga as a stowaway on a cargo ship. He was captured there six months later and extradited to Australia, where he was subsequently found guilty of the murder. (John Grainger/Newspix)
A mugshot of Mohammed ‘Blackie’ Fahda released by police on 19 March 2009, five days after the murder of Abdul Darwiche.
Ahmad Fahda, known as ‘The Shark’, was Mohammed ‘Blackie’ Fahda’s older brother. A close associate of the Razzak family, Ahmad was shot dead by two gunmen on the afternoon of 30 October 2003.
Fadi Ibrahim (TOP) being rushed into surgery on 5 June 2009. He was shot five times by an unknown would-be assassin while he was sitting in his Lamborghini (ABOVE). Ibrahim said later that he was grateful he was wearing decent underwear at the time. (Middle right: Seven News, Channel Seven. Bottom right: Gordon McComiskie/Newspix)
Philip Nguyen (left) during his walk-through interview with Homicide Squad detectives following his shoot-out with MEOCS TAG officers at Cairds Avenue, Bankstown. Standing with him is homicide detective Tony Williams, a member of Mick Sheehy’s Critical Incident Investigation Team.
A police rendering of the basement car park layout at Cairds Avenue. The officers entered through the door opposite garage number 7 (circled), unaware of the second door next to garage number 2. Nguyen was in garage number 1 at the time.
A portrait of Detective Constable William Crews which now hangs at the entrance to the MEOCS office. Crews, a promising young officer, was shot and killed during the raid at Cairds Avenue, Bankstown. His death prompted an overhaul of search warrant procedures in NSW.
Detective Superintendent Deb Wallace was appointed commander of MEOCS following the departure of Ken McKay in late 2008. Wallace had experience dealing with gangs; some key members of an Asian crime gang had nicknamed her ‘the smiling assassin’. She said Middle Eastern criminals treated their crimes like a trade skill, something passed on from father to son, brother to brother, or cousin to cousin. (Anthony Reginato/Newspix)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND A NOTE ON SOURCES
In the autumn of 2015, while writing a series of newspaper articles about the Brothers 4 Life street gang – the crew first conceived by Bassam Hamzy in Lithgow Correctional Centre back in 2008 – I was approached by a small group of detectives who suggested I write a book chronicling the gang’s downfall.
They thought it would make a great story and, of course, I agreed. Over the following weeks I mulled over the logistics and legal limitations, including the threat of limbo-like court delays and lengthy appeals. The timing seemed off.
On hearing this, one detective offered an alternative suggestion: ‘Why don’t you write a book about us?’ he said. ‘There are so many untold stories.’
So began my journey into the world of the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOCS). Reporting for a newspaper had made me familiar with MEOCS, but I had little actual knowledge of its inner workings. There had always been an air of mystique about the Squad and its people – a black-ops feel, something akin to a clandestine service. This might have just been my imagination, but, looking back, this doesn’t feel so far off.
On Tuesday, 14 July 2015, I drove out to a southern suburb of Sydney to meet the Squad’s former commander, Ken McKay, who had retired from the NSW Police Force at the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police. McKay had agreed to be interviewed on the record, and garnering his cooperation was something of a coup for me. As a young reporter I’d written some fairly bold articles about him that led to a lawsuit and some bad blood between us. We hadn’t spoken in years. But a book about MEOCS without McKay’s input would be a failure, almost illegitimate. In my mind, McKay was the core of MEOCS. He was the frontman, the rockstar – Page and Plant, Mick and Keith, all rolled into one. I’d already signed the contract to start writing and, frankly, without him I’d have been screwed.
Daniela Ongaro, a mutual friend and colleague, kindly lay the groundwork for me by calling McKay on my behalf, putting in a good word, and paving the way for our first meeting at a boathouse café. It turned out to be one of many long interviews. Retired and no longer duty-bound by the NSW Police Force’s corporate policy restraints – the kind that limit frank, open and honest opinion due to the crime of releasing insider information – McKay could say whatever he liked during our subsequent meetings; no subject was off limits and nothing was off the record. He was as sharp as ever, full of scintillating stories. He was also a doorway of sorts, an allaccess pass to many other officers. Once they heard McKay was onboard, people I barely knew, or had never spoken to at all, felt much better about talking to me.
The following weeks and months became a fact-finding mission. I wanted more people, more stories, more anecdotes, any insight into life at MEOCS and the mechanics of its investigations. Each new person I interviewed steered me towards more vitally important people: friends of friends, old police colleagues, living legends who had seen things and were forced out by retirement or PTSD – it wouldn’t be a book without them, I was told. Time out from the job had given each one of these people a chance to reflect deeply on their policing careers and when they spoke it was with superb recall and clarity about daily life ‘in the job’, as they called it. There are too many to name here, but I am especially grateful for their time, advice and patience with my questions.
I approached the NSW Police Force at the start of this project in the hope they would work collaboratively with me. They declined the offer but instead permitted interviews with serving officers upon request, and on a case-by-case basis. Some of these interviews were conducted in the offices of MEOCS, where on one occasion I was given a lengthy tour by Detective Superintendent Peter McErlain and afforded enough time to take notes and familiarise myself with each space – the intelligence division, the commander’s office, the gun room, the briefing rooms, and even the kitchenette where you can buy a can of soft drink for $1. All of the interviews were chaperoned by a media liaison officer (MLO), and were still overwhelmingly candid and invaluable. The MLOs – Georgie, Ainslie and Michelle – also responded to countless emails and requests, rarely saying no to anything. To them, and to the police hierarchy authorising these requests, I say thank you.
In addition to these on-record interviews were more than 100 off-record conversations and interviews with various people: serving members of MEOCS and the wider NSW Police Force who were not given formal approval to speak with me; former members of MEOCS who had moved elsewhere within the organisation; serving law enforcement officials with knowledge of operations and staff (who asked that their names be withheld); and retired police officers who preferred not to be quoted or named in any capacity. I found myself calling these people repeatedly (often at antisocial hours) to clarify details and fact-check information. In some instances the conversations ran for se
veral hours and my hand muscles cramped up in protest as I furiously scribbled notes. Pens were chewed to oblivion.
All of the insight provided in this book comes from both primary witnesses and hundreds of paper records and documents. Secondhand information was only used after extensive corroboration and any quotes featured in a scene are verbatim, or provided to the best recollection of either the people saying them or those privy to the conversation. The manuscript was not provided in full to anyone, but certain sections were shown in advance to some individuals upon request. These readings resulted in some factual clarifications and, in some cases, more insight through elaboration. No information was removed.
Court files were immensely helpful in piecing together the undisputed facts of each investigation and I’m indebted to the staff of the NSW Attorney-General’s Department for making this material available. On several occasions I found myself locked in a room with nothing but my notepad, a table, and some boxes pulled from the state’s archives. These files held a trove of invaluable documentation: autopsy reports, police logbook entries, crime scene photographs, witness statements, investigative timelines, records of interviews, statements of fact, ballistic reports, forensic testing results, hand-written letters to judges begging for leniency, drawings of suspected killers, telephone intercept and listening device transcripts, custody records, pre-sentence reports, and psychiatric assessments of criminals.
I also spent many hours closely examining the coronial brief of evidence tendered during the inquest of the death of Detective Constable William Crews, which comprised a ten-folder compendium of police radio logs, policy documents, walk-through interviews, confidential briefing notes, statistics and organisational documents specific to MEOCS, investigative plans, operational orders, diary entries and, of course, dozens upon dozens of witness statements. This material was not only forensic in its account of the events of that night, but also of the processes and culture in place at MEOCS, including how they handled informants, selected their teams and assessed operations leading up to each arrest. Coupled with documents provided to me by some sources – without which this book would not have been possible and who, really, made it all possible – this information was illuminating about the Squad’s operations.
As with any true crime book, a handful of names have been changed or omitted for legal reasons; this is specified in the body of the text. All other names, facts and stories mentioned over the course of the book are real and unchanged.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
YONI BASHAN is a two-time award-winning crime journalist who has worked at News Corporation Australian since 2008. His work has been published in the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph newspapers, as well as overseas mastheads including the Wall Street Journal. In 2012 he was named Most Outstanding Crime Reporter at the Kennedy Award Foundation’s inaugural ceremony.
COPYRIGHT
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2016
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Yoni Bashan 2016
The right of Yoni Bashan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand
A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, United Kingdom
2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada
195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA
ISBN: 978 1 4607 5181 7 (paperback)
ISBN: 978 1 4607 0670 1 (ebook)
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Bashan, Yoni, author.
The squad / Yoni Bashan.
Organised crime – Australia.
Islamophobia – Australia.
Social conflict – New South Wales.
Islamophobia – New South Wales.
Drug traffic – Australia.
Muslims – Australia.
Islam – Australia.
Australia – Race relations.
364.1060994
Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by Yolande De Kort / Trevillion Images; background textures by shutterstock.com