The city’s west’s bullet-ridden alleys are being abandoned by Sydney’s criminal underworld, but leaving can often make them more of a target.
Yusuf Nazlioglu, a lone wolf biker, was shot dead on Monday when an assailant waiting in the shadows fired shots into the parking lot of his waterfront condominium in posh Rhodes.
The 40-year-old passed away 12 hours after being found not guilty of killing former Comanchero president Mick Hawi in a hit outside a Rockdale gym in 2018.
His wife of only four months, Jade Nazlioglu, was spotted crying and wailng in the lobby of their upscale apartment building as emergency personnel battled to save his life.
He is, however, merely the most recent underworld figure to attempt to conceal himself in pretended safe dwellings in a secret suburban development.
Bikie gang clubhouses in the city’s southwest were easy targets for both competing underworld organizations and the authorities, and many have since given up their seedy existence there.
Now they are attempting to blend in with the stuffy lifestyle of affluent, family-friendly neighborhoods while yet remaining near to their power base in the western part of the city.
However, leaving their harsh past of violent crime behind and entering a new world of Ikea furniture shops and Oliver Brown cafes is rarely successful.
Instead, Sydney’s gangsters and bikers frequently stick out even more in their designer-clad and elaborately tattooed garb.
John Devine, a member of the Maroubra Comanchero gang and former person of interest for the police in connection with the murder of 23-year-old rival bikie Faalau Pisu, was a target in the inner-west.
Devine, a relative of Comanchero leader Mark Buddle, was singled out by the hitmen following him as he made his way to work in Rhodes.
He was shot in the street in 2012, yet he lived to see another day.
When he was accused of killing his fiancée, Ricky Barbaro—the brother of infamous mobster Pasquale—who was shot dead in Earlwood in 2014—showed up in the nearby Rhodes community of Wentworth Point.
Before Ellie Price’s body was found, a week had passed, and Barbaro had gone to the north.
In the early hours of the morning in 2020, a police manhunt led them to a lavish apartment with a view of the Parramatta River, where they apprehended him after a tense standoff. The legal system is hearing his case.
In a stunning morning raid on his opulent Wentworth Point residence, police also abruptly detained former Bandidos national sergeant-at-arms John Fahey.
The highly inked hardman relocated to the quiet neighborhood after declaring his intention to give up his life of crime in order to concentrate on coaching rugby league.
However, police raided the bikie enforcer’s residence in 2016, following a major bar brawl in which one man was knocked dumb and another was kicked in the head.
In a separate occasion, Fahey was also accused of engaging at a vicious altercation in a mall after impulsively purchasing a baseball bat to assault a rival.
Mostafa Baluch, an alleged drug trafficking kingpin, allegedly tried to conceal his criminal links by pretending to live in the suburbs.
He established himself in a spacious palatial residence with views of Pittwater and Scotland Island in the quaint Bayview neighborhood of Sydney’s northern beaches.
Baluch, 33, gave the impression to his neighbors that he was a wealthy restaurant owner, but authorities claim he was the brains behind a $270 million importation of 900 kg of coke.
After being charged, he allegedly attempted to leave the country, going missing during the night and drawing accusations of kidnapping, until being discovered, according to reports, hiding in a Mercedes inside a shipping container being moved interstate.
According to insiders, the thieves are lured to Sydney’s peaceful suburbs because of their seclusion and the opportunity to live quietly among families.
It’s a very tranquil, lovely place, one person remarked.
Which is exactly how those who live in the underworld want it, despite the fact that it rarely seems to provide them with the security they persistently hope it will.