Three alleged members of a major crime gang are expected to be charged with murder after a triple shooting police described as a heinous case of mistaken identity.
Police on Wednesday swooped on eight people they accused of being part of the Haouchar criminal syndicate after a five-month investigation triggered by a bungled gangland hit in southwest Sydney.
Ahmed Al Azzam, 25, was found seriously injured in his parked car after an early morning public shooting at Mayvic Street, in Greenacre on July 23.
He died in hospital four days later.
Eight people were arrested on Wednesday in connection with an alleged triple shooting in western Sydney in July that killed one man and injured two others
Two other people, a 22-year-old man Kaashif Richards and a 19-year-old woman Achiraya Jantharat, were wounded in a separate car parked about 50m away.
The man was left with life-changing spinal injuries after the two cars were peppered with bullets.
Detectives quickly determined the killing was tied to the Haouchar gang, which they say carried out the attack in a belief a rival gang, the Comanchero bikies, was planning an ambush.
But all three victims were wrongly targeted and had no links to the simmering feud.
NSW State Crime Command director Jason Weinstein said police were extremely motivated to track down those responsible for the shooting due to its callous nature.
‘Its a heinous crime on innocent individuals…who were parked in a street in a suburb of Sydney minding their own business when they came under fire by individuals attached to an organised crime network,’ he said.
Police say the shooters made no effort to determine if Mr Al Azzam or the other victims were linked to the rival gang.
Ahmad Al Azzam, 25, (pictured) was killed in the alleged shooting while he was sitting in his parked car
‘It could have been any one of us in this room; any one of us in this state that was sitting there minding her own business,’ Detective Chief Superintendent Weinstein said.
The Haouchar gang had since been largely dismantled, but the person who pulled the trigger during the shooting fled overseas and has remained on the run in an unknown country, police said.
Eight people were arrested in simultaneous dawn raids across Sydney and the Central Coast on Wednesday, with four in the process of being charged over Mr Al Azzam’s murder and the others facing various organised crime-related offences.
Among those arrested was a 24-year-old man Marko Saric who was taken into custody at Drummoyne, in Sydney’s inner west, who is expected to be charged with murder for his alleged involvement in the shooting.
Another man 40-year-old Ayman Manly was arrested for allegedly being involved with the Haouchar gang but was not involved any of the shootings.
Three other men Ammar Chahal, Seru Mar-Tavuaonono and Charlton Schaaffhausen were also arrested with police set to charge the trio over Mr Al Azzam’s shooting.
A 25-year-old man was arrested at Wattle Grove and a 21-year-old woman from Moorebank were also arrested along with a man from Gorokan on the NSW Central Coast.
Two men, aged 25 and 39, were already in custody for other matters and were taken from Parklea Correctional Centre and arrested at a local police station ahead of anticipated murder charges.
The victims who had no links to any criminal groups were caught in the crossfire, police allege
Several others are likely to be charged with being involved in the criminal group, while a 27-year-old taken from a Wellington prison is expected to be charged with being an accessory before the fact of the murder.
While police believe the arrests and earlier raids have taken out many high-ranking members of the gang, alleged kingpin Bilal Haouchar remains overseas.
A NSW warrant has been out for his arrest since he left the country in 2018 and he was arrested in November in Beirut.
does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon, complicating any efforts to bring him before local courts.