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The high-ranking member of organised crime gang “The Commission” allegedly responsible for orchestrating Melbourne’s so-called bar wars had been released early from youth detention before the gang began launching a score of arson attacks, shootings and kidnappings.
The 20-year-old Essendon man has been a long-standing member of the street crews run by exiled gangland boss Kazem “Kaz” Hamad, according to police intelligence and court documents obtained by The Age.
The decision to release young offenders from custody early, on his occasion on a parole order, are made by the Youth Parole Board, which declined to comment.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Operation Eclipse Detective Inspector Graham Banks announced that detectives had made what he called “the most consequential arrest” since the start of the tobacco wars in 2023.
“[We think this is] a person who, we think, has been right at the front and centre of tasking out so many serious crimes.
“[He describes] himself as just an ordinary kid who goes to the gym and runs an empire from his home,” Banks said.
“Despite his relatively young age, the intelligence suggests he is a very significant part of the organised crime group.”
Police allege the man used encrypted messaging apps to organise the attacks using different handles – most recently “Combank”, a reference to the amount of money he was making for the gang.
Police have charged him with ordering attacks including a mistaken identity kidnapping in Malvern, an attempted aggravated home invasion in Doncaster, and an attempted arson at Left Bank restaurant in Southbank.
He has been charged with aggravated home invasion with an offensive weapon, kidnapping, extortion with threats to kill, false imprisonment, common law assault, attempted aggravated home invasion, incitement to commit an indictable offence and recruiting a child to engage in criminal activity.
The Age have chosen not to name the man to publish details of his past.
A police source with knowledge of the case, but not authorised to speak publicly, said the 20-year-old was released on a parole order only months after being sentenced to two years and 10 months in a youth detention facility.
He had pleaded guilty to a raft of organised crime-related activity, including arson and burglary, but urged the sentencing judge not to send him back to adult prison, where he had accumulated more than 300 days of detention.
The County Court heard that in 2024, the then 18-year-old had orchestrated tobacco extortions and an arson attack on behalf of The Commission, including a fiery ram-raid on an East Brunswick gym connected to Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim.
“You played an important role in helping a criminal syndicate to extort money from tobacco shop owners, including collecting extorted money and organising others to collect such money,” Judge Andrew Palmer found.
“You were involved in the extortion business for at least seven months, and your offending only stopped when you were arrested and put in custody.”
In a separate legal proceeding, court documents allege he acted as a courier for an importation of 10 kilograms of methylamphetamine in 2024, orchestrated by a long-time Hamad lieutenant tasked with running the syndicate’s onshore drug operations. He was not charged.
One of his alleged conspirators in that scheme is a man who has been charged with executing the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in December 2024, allegedly ordered by Hamad on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Palmer noted the man, who had no prior convictions, had good prospects of rehabilitation.
“This kind of offending is currently of great community concern, and calls for just punishment, strong denunciation and general deterrence. It would ordinarily require a substantial period of incarceration in an adult prison. However, you were only 18 or 19 at the time of the offending, and the prosecution and defence agree that allowance must be made for your youth,” the judge said.
“You are a young offender. Rehabilitation is therefore a much more important sentencing consideration … keeping you in an adult prison would pose obvious risks to your continued rehabilitation.”
Palmer noted the accused was one of six children and began using cocaine, Xanax, marijuana and other illicit substances from the age of 13. His family – described as supportive – kicked him out of the family home when he was in year 10 due to his “negative behaviours”.
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