Amateur hitmen, mistaken murders and airtasker for crims: the new underworld
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to 7am.
What is the concept of disorganised crime in the underworld?
It's being dubbed by underworld kingpins as disorganised crime. A new wave of young amateur gangsters are changing the scene with brazen daylight attacks, hit jobs on rivals' family members and cases of alleged mistaken identity. Of course, it's all about money, notoriety and settling scores. Today, Mark Morrie, crime editor at The Daily Telegraph, on the evolving world of gangland violence, where contract killing can now be ordered off an encrypted app. It's Tuesday, April 21. Mark, gangland wars and underworld executions, they're not really anything new in this country, but we are seeing more innocent Australians getting caught up in all of it with these cases of mistaken identity. Could you take us through some of them?
Yeah, a couple of the worst that I've seen is, one, there was a young hairdresser who was in the back of a car... a couple of years ago with a female target and her name was Amy Azuri and these gunmen came in and just sprayed the back of the car and killed this young hairdresser.
car sprayed with bullets in Sydney's southwest. Police say 48-year-old mother Lametta Fadlala was the target of this ambush on Saturday night. But also in the car was Amy Hazuri, an innocent hairdresser.
There was another one.
What recent trends are emerging among young amateur gangsters?
A young guy was down at a boxing match a couple of years ago. He unfortunately looked like Ibi Hamzi. He's got to get into this Mercedes after the boxing event and this car's just rocked up and pumped him full of bullets thinking it was Ibby Hamsey.
Detectives have revealed a father-to-be gunned down at Hurstville was murdered for no reason in a case of mistaken identity.
I mean, of course, we've got the most horrible one is the alleged kidnapping of that elderly man. He was grabbed by a couple of men who burst into his home and was going to be held for ransom. They were asking for enormous amounts of money. He was tortured and he was found dead a few days later.
Police attached to the strike force, executed three search warrants and made two arrests in connection with the murder and kidnapping of Mr Bagsarian.
Again, it was the wrong person and they sent... A message to the actual target saying, we got your dad, and he's gone, suck shit, you got the wrong person.
Once again, I wish to stress that Mr Bagzarian was not the intended target of the kidnapping.
Police put in so many resources, but again, they got the wrong person. Now, this is happening all the time. They're shooting the wrong houses. That's almost frequent.
How are contract killings ordered in today's criminal landscape?
I remember there was a drive-by about three, four months ago. There were two drive-bys within about 30 minutes. And I rang up one of my police contacts and I said, oh, were they after two of the same crew? And he went, no, the first house was a mistake, so they just went and shot the next place. So that's the sort of... The people that we're dealing with now, the incompetent crooks, you know, competent ones are scary enough, but incompetent ones that are going about and doing this for small amounts of money, more for notoriety... And it's really making the streets a little bit more dangerous than they ever have in other gangland walls that I've covered.
So these cases of mistaken identity, is it really unusual or is this a recent shift? And why is it happening?
It is more unusual than it ever has been. I mean, there have been cases before. before but not not the amount that we've had it's because they're literally outsourcing they're just going into encrypted chat rooms that crooks are known to use and saying hey does anyone want to do this for twenty thousand i remember there was a shopping list that i saw that the police had intercepted and it was you know firebombing car six thousand drive by seven thousand Kidnap, torture, 6,000 a day, all sorts of things like that. But they're being picked up by young men, obviously disenfranchised from their families, a lot of them. And they're just, they're doing it for notoriety, for this gang thing. So... they have really no idea what they're doing.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:09
2
What is the concept of disorganised crime in the underworld?
0:09–1:40
3
What recent trends are emerging among young amateur gangsters?
1:40–2:56
4
How are contract killings ordered in today's criminal landscape?
2:56–5:01
5
What are some notable cases of mistaken identity in gangland violence?
5:01–15:14
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from 7am
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