One of the 18 people arrested by Police on Tuesday.Credit:NSW Police
Police made 18 arrests and seized 34 mobile phones in dawn raids at 29 locations across south-west Sydney on Tuesday,which they say amounts to smashing an entire “dial-a-dealer” drug supply operation run by the Alameddine family.
NSW Police Minister Paul Toole said police have “closed the net on one of Sydney’s most dangerous crime families”,with senior members of the clan alleged to be among Tuesday’s arrests.
The Alameddines have been linked to an escalating,bloody gang conflict involving up to 13 fatal shootings in Sydney since 2020 – most on the streets of the south-western suburbs and involving members of the rival Hamzy family.
“This has been a form of suburban terrorism – and today we have smashed it,” Toole said.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said she is confident police have “cut the head off the snake”.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said she was “confident that we have cut the head off the snake” with Tuesday’s arrests,carried out in Guildford,Merrylands,Chester Hill,South Granville,Casula,Yagoona and Wentworthville by some 450 officers.
The raids were the culmination of a nearly year-long investigation of the alleged crime network led by detectives from the Criminal Groups Squad under Strike Force Sugarcane. It uncovered a lucrative “dial-a-dealer” operation involving 36 “drug phones” connected to hundreds of customers and netting as much as $250,000 a week.
Tuesday’s raids were co-ordinated by Taskforce Erebus – launched last week in response to the recent escalation in gang-related murders,whichpolice said were directly connected to the drug trade.