In a major crackdown on organized crime, Australian authorities, using 450 officers, performed raids from final Sunday to Tuesday, concentrating on the residences of 28 Lebanese nationals in Sydney.
This operation led to the seizure of weapons, medicine, and important money quantities, dismantling certainly one of Australia’s largest prison teams. Based on New South Wales Police, 37 arrest warrants have been executed for people linked to this Lebanese prison gang.
The group is accused of cash laundering, arms, and tobacco trafficking, and dealing over two tons of assorted medicine, with a road worth exceeding one billion {dollars}. The raids resulted within the confiscation of 25 firearms, 60 communication units, luxurious jewellery, and autos, in addition to tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} in money.
Lebanese authorities additionally apprehended Bilal Hoshar, deemed “Australia’s most harmful man” and among the many most wished by Australian regulation enforcement. Hoshar, 37, was arrested alongside 4 associates throughout a nighttime raid in Beirut. Nevertheless, his extradition to Australia is sophisticated as a result of lack of a bilateral treaty.
Hoshar had fled to Lebanon in 2018 after being implicated in a homicide in Sydney. His brother Nidal, 40, was amongst these arrested in Sydney, apprehended on the metropolis’s worldwide airport as he was about to go away for Lebanon. Nidal confronted a neighborhood court docket the following day on 9 expenses, together with industrial drug provide and involvement in prison group actions, coping with proceeds of crime value over 4.4 million {dollars}.
The opposite arrestees, aged between 23 and 46, face 69 expenses, starting from driving offenses to large-scale drug distribution. All have appeared earlier than a number of courts in Sydney, with bail denied.
Associated: Lebanon Seized 800kg Of Medicine At Beirut Port
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