The FBI has apprehended Comanchero boss Mark Buddle as he headed back to his hideout on the Cyprus border, making him Australia’s most wanted man.
According to Daily Mail Australia, Buddle was taken by agents close to the Cyprus border.
Buddle just departed Cyprus, his most recent safe haven, to travel to Germany to meet with another international gang member.
When the FBI agents pounced as he attempted to re-enter Cyprus, he left the country and headed back to Turkey, a country where many Australian fugitives hide out.
“Mark Buddle has been arrested.” One underworld source told Daily Mail Australia, “The boys knew about it hours ago.”
Buddle became the Comancheros’ leader after Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi was imprisoned for the fatal brawl at Sydney Airport in 2009.
After a security guard was shot and killed in Australia in 2016, Buddle left the country and moved to Dubai, where he started a new life with his glamorous partner Melanie Ter Wisscha.
When a video of the 44-year-old fighting vacationers at a resort pool surfaced last year, he was forced to get up and leave.
Since then, he is believed to have moved around a lot of nations before settling in Cyprus.
The crime boss, who was born in Sydney, has reportedly resided in Cyprus since the middle of 2021.
He hasn’t exactly been out of the news, though; last year, he appeared on the front page of the Cyprus newspaper Kibris Gercek.
According to the news source, Buddle made plans to reside in Northern Cyprus after meeting with powerful politicians, who gave him residency status through August 6, 2022.
His “high income to the country” was cited as the justification for the resident permit.
Buddle, according to The Bakirkoy Gazetesi, entered the island on a 30-day visa prior to receiving a residence permit.
According to the newspaper article, Buddle was being guarded by “official authorities” and a group of “commercial persons” in the north of Cyprus.
He hasn’t invested, but there have been other developments involving him…
It is now certain that he is being protected by someone inside the state, according to the publication.
According to recent reports, Buddle was suffering greatly from the exile lifestyle since he was cut off from his daughters, who were reportedly living elsewhere. Buddle was the commander of the Australian Comanchero’s arm.
Zahed amazingly escaped an attempted murder in May at the Bodyfit Gym in Auburn, where he had been shot many times with more than 20 bullets discharged.
He was taken into surgery with ten bullet wounds to his head and body after being transported to the hospital in a life-threatening situation. One bullet went straight through his eyeball.
During the shooting, his 39-year-old brother Omar died.
The most prominent criminal bikie boss in Australia is a man who grew up in public housing and routinely attends church for Catholic mass.
Allan Meehan, the notorious commander of the Comancheros Sydney and Canberra chapters, was chosen as the new national president in Melbourne last month after months of unrest.
He succeeds Mick Murray, a former boss with headquarters in Melbourne who just resigned due to a murder accusation.
Meehan, 35, spent half his life climbing the ranks of the bikie group after growing up in public housing in Sydney’s south-west.
When he reached 18, he joined the Rebels and later rose to the position of Cronulla chapter president before switching sides and joining the Comancheros.
According to sources, his tutor, Comanchero “commander of the globe” Mark Buddle, who is one of Australia’s most wanted men for the shooting death of Armaguard security guard Gary Allibon in Sydney in 2010, persuaded him to change sides.
Meehan enjoys a high level of “respect” among the gang’s veteran members and recent additions.
One insider claimed, “He’s spent his entire adult life in bikie gangs.” He is unaware of any other existence.
After the assassination of former President Pitasoni Ulavalu early last year, he was elevated to the position of commander of the Canberra chapter, and six months later, he was named the commander of Sydney.
Meehan reportedly told members that while he’ll manage the Comancheros from Sydney, he’ll also frequently visit Melbourne.
He was seen as Murray’s successor when Murray, 44, was detained in April in connection with the 2019 gangland murder of Mitat Rasimi, a close friend of notorious drug kingpin Tony Mokbel.
He is still in jail after being accused of murder on one count.
The past few months have been hectic for Australia’s most influential bikie organization, which is still in shock over the recent underworld shooting that seriously injured national sergeant-at-arms Tarek Zahed and took the life of his brother Omar.
As a part of Operation Ironside, one of the largest and most significant campaigns against organized crime in Australian history, dozens of more members have also been detained in AFP raids.
Meehan is thought to be “very full on,” according to one insider, but he also has the composure to manage some of the gang’s more violent members.