Updated ,first published
The bodyguard of Sydney rapper Ay Huncho was abducted and beaten by a group of masked men in the latest targeted attack on the Alameddine crime family.
The alleged kidnapping of Emilio Chalhoub from his family’s Guildford home on Monday night comes amid sustained assaults on the Alameddine network by underworld rivals staking their claim for control of the city’s illicit drug trade.
Chalhoub was recovered from a Casula home about 12.30am on Tuesday – an hour after he was bundled into a car. Police found him with facial injuries shortly before arresting five men nearby who had allegedly fled the Casula property as officers surrounded it. The group was taken to Liverpool police station.
Last year, Chalhoub was the intended target of an attack at his family’s home in which his father was allegedly stabbed by two intruders – a 15-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man – at the height of an internal conflict within the fractured Alameddine network.
Anti-gang detectives allege Ay Huncho, whose legal name is Ali Younes, is a senior member of the Alameddine organised crime network. He is the cousin of the Alameddine family’s Lebanon-based patriarch, Rafat Alameddine.
Police believe Younes was the target of a foiled attack in western Sydney earlier this month. Three men were arrested and two firearms – one a semi-automatic rifle – were seized after the trio led police on a pursuit in an allegedly stolen Audi SUV. Detectives have repeatedly warned Younes of threats to his safety.
Police are examining a burnt-out car found at Villawood that was believed to have been used in Chalhoub’s kidnapping. Taskforce Falcon – established last year amid spiralling violence linked to the Alameddine network’s fracturing and comprising almost 150 police officers – has taken charge of the kidnapping investigation.
Footage captured overnight shows heavily armed members of NSW Police tactical operations unit storming the Casula home where Chalhoub was found.
Members and associates of the Alameddine network for the past 18 months have been the targets of a sustained campaign from former allies and emerging groups vying for control of Sydney’s underworld.
Rivals targeting the Alameddine network have banded together to form several groups – which regularly rebrand and publicise their attacks – to depose what remains of the family. Several senior network members based in the Middle East, including Rafat Alameddine, are alleged to be involved in the large-scale importation of cocaine and methamphetamine into Australia.
Rafat Alameddine’s empty Merrylands home was on Saturday morning targeted in a drive-by shooting. Businesses linked to his brother-in-law, Asaad Alahmad, have been targeted. Alahmad has been jailed for his involvement in the Alameddine network’s drug trafficking arm called “Ready 4 War”.
Groups calling themselves the “Lone Wolves” and the “OC Jail Gang” have claimed credit for the attacks. The groups are believed to be aligned with the self-proclaimed Coconut Cartel which earlier this year declared war on the Alameddine family. The Coconut Cartel comprises several former Alameddine associates.
“There’s always a possibility that they change names and change teams,” Detective Superintendent Jason Box, the commander of Taskforce Falcon, said on Saturday.
In footage captured during the firebombing of a Wetherill Park towing business linked to the Alameddine family last week, the Lone Wolves promised further “coordinated strikes”.
“It is the end of the road for your organisation with careful and calculated collaberations (sic) amongst enemies you have made over the years,” the group wrote in a video caption.
Box said police would not tolerate violence linked to the Alameddine network.
“We cannot have these people running around, firing shots into premises in public, putting the community at risk,” he said.
Officers working under Taskforce Falcon have made more than 400 arrests and laid more than 4000 charges since last May.
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Daniel Lo Surdo is a breaking news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He previously helmed the national news live blog for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
