The rapper, the fugitives and the Loch Ness Monster’s high-rise

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Andy Nahas, 37, who shares a Surry Hills office with Joe Nahas, 44, is Coronation’s builder. For six years, until 2022, Andy was the company secretary of Coronation Property. In May, Andy set up a new company, Coronation Construction Co. While he is the sole director, another company controlled by his brother Joe owns all the shares.

Joe Nahas’ business partner in Coronation Property is lawyer John Landerer, 78, who was one of Joe Nahas’ largest creditors when his construction companies collapsed in 2012, owing almost $8 million. Nahas declared himself insolvent.

Joe Nahas’ remarkable ascent from penury has been assisted by the secret bankrolling of Coronation’s $5 billion property empire by the UK-based Zeljko Ranogajec, 64, whose clandestine worldwide gambling operation generates billions of dollars every year.

Land title records and a maze of corporate documents reveal that the ultimate owners of all the apartments in the build-to-rent residential tower in Main Lane are Joe Nahas, who owns 51 per cent, and the Tasmanian-born gambling tsar owns the rest. The two men are also behind Nation, the company that operates the rental side of the business.

Ranogajec, who is also known as The Joker, and his gambling syndicate are currently the subject of an investigation over their role in masterminding a $US95 million ($150 million) Texas jackpot win in 2023. Their coup has been described by the state’s lieutenant governor as “the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the state’s history”.

The Herald is not suggesting the Nahas brothers or Ranogajec have been involved in any wrongdoing, nor that they were aware that the Alameddine associates had been living in the building at the time.

Earlier this year, dramatic scenes played out at the high-rise in Merrylands, a suburb 25 kilometres west of Sydney’s CBD and the home turf of the Alameddines.

Wearing nothing but an electronic monitoring device around his ankle and white shorts emblazoned with the Las Vegas Raiders logo, “Mr B”, who has been a high-ranking member of the Alameddine organised crime network, was taken away by heavily armed police.

Mr B, whose name has been suppressed, was already on bail at the time, charged with serious criminal offences. But he was not the only resident of One Main Lane of interest to the police.

A day after Mr B’s arrest, another alleged organised crime figure, Iafeta Fepuleai, was arrested on the building’s 18th floor. According to the police facts sheet in Fepuleai’s matter, the 29-year-old “is heavily involved in organised criminal activity” and is a member of the KVT street gang, “who conduct violent enforcement on behalf of the Alameddine OCN [Organised Crime Network].”

Covert police surveillance revealed that the alleged head of the KVT gang, Joseph “Jo Fresh” Vokai, was also occupying an apartment on the 18th floor. Vokai was also listed in the police diagram as a senior member of the Alameddine clan.

The Rolling Stone shoot

It’s not only police intelligence that indicates Andy Nahas is associated with members of the Alameddine crime family. A four-year-old photo from a night out with rapper Ali “Ay Huncho” Younes reveals an extraordinary gathering of the alleged senior members of the Alameddine network. Standing right in the middle of them is Andy Nahas.

Eight of the 12 senior members of the Alameddine crime group named in court last month appeared in the now infamous photo taken in August 2021 for Rolling Stone magazine, which ran a story on Younes titled, “Mad code of loyalty: The story of Australia’s most dangerous rapper”.

Younes, 28, who was also in the list of senior Alameddine figures released by the Supreme Court, is facing serious charges alongside the alleged local head of the Alameddine network, Ali Elmoubayed, over a violent assault.

Younes told Rolling Stone that growing up in Merrylands, he was recruited into “the gangster side of my family” by his cousin, the crime family’s patriarch Rafat Alameddine, 34.

“When I started hanging around with my cousins, I grew up fast,” Younes told the magazine. “The shit I was seeing as a youngin, I can tell you now, no youngin would ever see that.”

Rafat fled to Lebanon in late 2022 and is wanted over an alleged plot to murder underworld rival Ibrahem Hamze.

Also in the photo, and named in the Alameddine network exhibit, is Younes’ childhood friend Masood Zakaria, 30.

Rapper Ali “Ay Huncho” Younes (left) with builder Andy Nahas.

Zakaria, who surrendered his passport when charged with perverting the course of justice in 2020, managed to flee Australia in December 2021. Police issued a warrant for his arrest a day later for conspiracy to murder Ibrahem Hamze, drug supply, and knowingly directing a criminal group.

He was detained two years later in Turkey and deported back to Australia, where he was charged with murdering father and son Toufik and Salim Hamze. His murder trial was recently vacated after his legal team questioned the legality of his deportation from Turkey.

Younes also told the magazine of a “dark part in our lives” when Zakaria’s sister was shot in a “gang war”. Younes was referring to a 2013 incident, when Zakaria’s 13-year-old sister was seriously injured when the family’s Blacktown home was shot up. The target was Masood Zakaria, who at the time was a member of the criminal gang Brothers 4 Life.

Next to Nahas in the photo is John Ray Bayssari, who, like the rapper’s cousin Rafat, has fled to Lebanon. Bayssari is also wanted over the alleged conspiracy to murder Ibrahem Hamze.

Three months after the photo was taken, Bayssari, 34, along with two others in the photo, Murat Gulasi and Mohammed Salim Noorzai, survived an assassination attempt allegedly ordered by the Hamzy family.

The Alameddine men were shot at while walking into a gym at Prospect, in Sydney’s west, on a Monday morning in November 2021 by three people in a car with assault rifles and a pistol. Ammunition penetrated the walls of a crèche attached to the gym, narrowly missing three young children and childcare workers.

Gulasi, who was shot in the leg but survived, later died in a gym in Turkey that he and Masood Zakaria frequented while Zakaria was on the run.

Also featured in the Rolling Stone photoshoot was Vokai, who, until recently, was a resident at One Main Lane. Vokai is appealing a guilty verdict for participating in a criminal group.

Next to Vokai in the photo is Andy Nahas’ good friend Stephen Bou-Abbse, 36, who is also listed as a senior Alameddine figure. Bou-Abbse, a waterproofer also from Merrylands, has worked on Coronation sites, and for a time, he and Andy Nahas listed their address in the same upmarket apartment block overlooking Hyde Park in the CBD.

In the back row are the Zakaria brothers, Dawood and Masood. Dawood Zakaria, 32, was shot dead in May when the car he was in was targeted in a gangland shooting. Also in the car was solicitor Sylvan Singh, who was shot in the arm and shoulder. Singh has since been charged over a violent kidnapping, directing the activities of a criminal group, and with serious drug supply offences.

Warring factions

With Rafat Alameddine and other senior figures having fled Australia, a leadership vacuum has formed, creating a violent struggle for control of Sydney’s underworld. Since returning to the country, Masood Zakaria has defected from the network, forming his own rival organisation, sparking a gangland war, police believe, which is linked to several public place shootings in the past year.

Alongside Zakaria, who remains in custody in Goulburn Correctional Centre, is Vokai, who police say has bolstered the crew with KVT members and other once-loyal members of the Alameddine network.

On the other side of the conflict are the members who remain loyal to the Alameddine family and its patriarch, Rafat. Among them are Younes and Elmoubayed, a former bodyguard to Rafat. In May, Younes launched a new range of streetwear. The words “Never Cross The Family” are printed on the back of a hoodie.

Rafat Alameddine in Parramatta in 2019. He fled Australia for Lebanon in 2022.

When shootings linked to the conflict escalated in June, Younes had his bail conditions varied to allow him to report to police by phone, in an attempt to make his movements less predictable for would-be assassins.

In the early hours of September 14, Younes’ family home in Merrylands was peppered with bullets. Younes, whose bail conditions required him to live there, was not home at the time. He was later arrested for breaching his bail.

Despite police asking for Younes to remain behind bars, fearing innocent members of the public would die or be seriously injured because of the conflict, he was granted bail last Thursday.

The Nahas’ network

In addition to the recent unsuccessful attempt to injunct the Herald, lawyers for Andy and Joe Nahas have previously contacted media organisations demanding the removal of photos and stories portraying a less-flattering side of the family.

In December 2021, Andy Nahas’ lawyers contacted Rolling Stone, requesting the image of Nahas be removed “as a matter of urgency”, claiming the inclusion of the photograph was defamatory as it suggested Nahas was “associated with alleged criminal activity”.

The magazine complied, although the photos from the shoot were later tabled at a budget estimates hearing at NSW parliament by Labor MP Adam Searle, where Deputy Police Commissioner Dave Hudson quipped that many in the pictures were known to him due to their alignment with the Alameddine family.

Asked if he was concerned “about any connection between Coronation and these people”, Hudson replied, “I am concerned about any people or any organisation that that particular group is associated with”.

Among those firing off take-down letters to the media on behalf of the Nahas family has been John Landerer, Joe Nahas’ business partner in Coronation Property.

The One Main Lane building in Merrylands.

In 2016, when Andy Nahas was convicted of assaulting the manager of the Tilbury Hotel in Woolloomooloo, Landerer supplied a character reference saying, “Mr Nahas is a man of honesty and integrity and proud of his family’s high standing in the community”.

Landerer has previously told the Herald, “Andy Nahas has known various members of the Alameddine family because they have grown up in the same neighbourhood in Merrylands”.

The lawyer added that Andy Nahas has had “no dealings with any member of the family and has only had a limited social interaction”.

Lawyers for the Nahas have also asked for the removal of articles referring to a 2009 matter involving Andy Nahas being charged over a kidnapping. The alleged victim – a plumber and former bouncer at the Pink Pepper Lounge – detailed in his police statement how Andy Nahas had allegedly lured him to a meeting where he was kidnapped by two high-ranking bikie bosses who bashed, stabbed and held him captive for two days while demanding a $50,000 payment.

One of Nahas’ co-accused, LM – who cannot be named for legal reasons – has also been named in court as a senior Alameddine associate.

In his statement tendered in court, the alleged victim said LM “pulled the Glock out of the front of his pants and I watched as he cocked the gun”.

The alleged victim described lying on the concrete floor of an unknown garage with LM standing on his face. LM said, “Go and get the bolt cutters. We are going to cut your toes off and send them to your mum.”

“I screamed, ‘No, no, no, no,’ and started kicking and moving. LM said, ‘Okay, we won’t do that. We will cut your finger off and send it to your mum. You won’t bleed, though, because we will burn the metal and hold it where we cut your finger off, and it will stop the bleeding.’”

All the 2009 charges were dropped, and Andy Nahas and his co-defendants had their court costs paid. Detectives told Liverpool Court that not only could they not locate the alleged victim, but he had told associates he would rather be charged and sent to jail himself than give evidence. LM is currently facing an unrelated historic murder charge, which allegedly happened several months before the alleged kidnapping.

In recent years, LM, a Sydney construction worker, featured in a photograph dining with Rafat Alameddine before the alleged crime kingpin fled the country.

Corporate records show that LM set up a company in April. One of the shareholders was Talal Alameddine, whose address is listed as Lockwood Street, Merrylands. In a dawn raid in 2015, Talal Alameddine was arrested at that address. He is currently serving a 17-year sentence for supplying the revolver used to kill NSW police accountant Curtis Cheng.

The other shareholder is a close relative of Talal’s older brother Rafat.

The billionaire’s friend in the penthouse

Although many controversial residents have departed the One Main Lane apartment block, occupying the same position in the building, but on the top floor, is Ranogajec’s frontman, Zenon Pasieczny, 63, a former technology writer for The Age and the Herald.

Joe Nahas and Pasieczny are common directors of 28 development-related companies. While Pasieczny appears as the director, the ultimate shareholder at the end of a maze of corporate entities is John Wilson, the name Ranogajec frequently uses.

The X, formerly Twitter, account of Zeljko Ranogajec.

There is no mention of Ranogajec in the copious corporate promotions of Nahas’ construction empire, which has developments in Parramatta, Ashbury, Erskineville, Liverpool and a $250 million mixed-use development in Chatswood.

In 2012, Joe Nahas’ construction businesses had collapsed with debts of almost $8 million. In his statement of affairs filed in December 2012, Nahas declared he was in dire financial straits: he was unemployed, had no money, no investments and did not own any property or even a car.

Instead of going bankrupt, Nahas entered a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) which ultimately saw his creditors receive less than half a cent for every dollar they were owed.

Even though being in a PIA disqualifies a person from being a company director, in March 2014, two months before he was discharged from his PIA, Nahas joined forces with one of his largest creditors, Landerer, to become a director of Coronation Property.

In 2015, only a year out of his PIA, Nahas’ wife Danielle Elkorr, whom he told his trustee was a dependant, splashed out $11.125 million on a Darling Point home. The couple has spent another $10 million building a four-storey dwelling on the waterfront site.

In October 2017, Elkorr paid $2.7 million for a vacant block on Ocean View Drive, Wamberal, on the Central Coast. Her husband, using a corporate vehicle, snapped up the adjacent beach shack for $2.46 million.

Separate caveats lodged on the Wamberal and Darling Point titles indicate that Nahas and Elkorr have borrowed funds from Ranogajec’s company, Ashbury Capital.

Ranogajec’s own holiday home, which he bought using a corporate vehicle in 2007 for $4 million, is only a short walk down the beach from the Nahas’.

Zenon Pasieczny lives in the penthouse of the One Main Lane building.

Only a year after he bought his Wamberal hideaway, the mysterious punter made a rare appearance. Under the name John Wilson, Ranogajec took action in a Sydney court to bankrupt his former business partner over an unpaid loan.

Federal Magistrate Rolf Driver asked Ranogajec about the turnover of the company, which the court heard was wagering on a large scale, particularly betting on horse racing internationally.

Asked by the magistrate to quantify the amounts, Ranogajec replied, “My guess would be $1 billion.”

“One billion?” the magistrate asked incredulously. “One billion dollars, yes,” Ranogajec replied.

“We’re called Bankroll – Bankroll Punters Club, that’s what we call ourselves,” Ranogajec told the court. “Customers that bet on our level number in the handful in the world.”

The Punters Club, which included Ranogajec’s friend David Walsh of Hobart’s MONA fame, later came to the attention of the Australian Tax Office, which pursued them for close to $600 million in taxes and penalties. After the syndicate settled with the ATO on terms not to be disclosed, the Australian Financial Review obtained a document which revealed that, as early as 2003, the Punters Club was concerned about being interrogated by the ATO.

The document suggested that, should members be asked how much the syndicate wins, the punters should answer that “no records are kept, therefore difficult to estimate turnover or profit and I would prefer not to make a guess”.

In 1994, the Herald first wrote about the then 33-year-old Ranogajec pulling off an incredible sting. Dubbed “the King of Keno”, he was aware that the jackpot at North Ryde RSL in Sydney had reached $4 million. For six days straight, he ploughed an estimated $10 million to $13 million to win the $7.5 million jackpot. Since Keno returns players smaller wins of about 48 per cent of their outlay as an incentive to keep betting, he ended up a few million in front.

More recently, Ranogajec is alleged to have masterminded what a Texas court has heard was a “fraudulent scheme to rig the Texas Lottery.” On April 22, 2023, someone won a $US95 million [$150 million] Lotto Texas jackpot by spending $US25 million to buy nearly every possible number combination in the draw.

The Houston Chronicle later revealed that a London-based gambling syndicate had bankrolled the operation. That syndicate was Colossus Bets, of which “John Wilson” and his Australian partner Bernard Marantelli are the two controlling entities.

The syndicate is alleged to have purchased dozens of ticket-printing terminals in the anticipation that the jackpot was about to roll over.

Lottery officials have been accused of turning a blind eye to the potential violations of lottery rules, which saw only four outlets, allegedly controlled by the syndicate, churning out tens of millions of paper tickets.

In a frantic spree over the three days before the draw, the syndicate managed to buy 99.3 per cent of all possible number combinations.

Ranogajec did not reply to any of the Herald’s questions, including his thoughts on Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick calling his syndicate’s win “the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the state’s history.”

Neither Nahas nor Ranogajec chose to comment on their partnership.

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