A silver grey Porsche found close to the scene of a shooting where a drug kingpin was gunned down could have been a getaway car the assassins failed to blow up.
Cocaine cartel boss Alen Moradian, 48, who was dubbed Australia’s Tony Soprano, was executed in the underground carpark of an apartment building next to the Holiday Inn on Spring Street, in Bondi Junction, just before 8.30am on Tuesday.
In a brazen daylight murder, he was shot dead sitting in the front seat of his car in Sydney’s eastern suburbs with two suspected assassins now on the run.
A third possible getaway car, a luxury Porsche (above) found abandoned in Bondi Junction, may contain a red jerry can in the front seat and have been subject to a failed attempt by assassins to blow it up
Police believe a burnt-out Porsche located on James Street, about a kilometre away from where the shots were fired, is linked to the shooting.
Detectives are also investigating whether a second burnt-out vehicle – a Holden Commodore found on Cook Lane in the inner city suburb of Zetland – is potentially linked to the shooting.
A third vehicle – an abandoned luxury Porsche also found on James Street – may have been the target of an unsuccessful attempt to set it alight.
A red object seen in the front seat of the vehicle as police dusted for fingerprints may have been a jerry can.
Police are now investigating whether getaway drivers attempted to set that car alight also, but failed.
As two gunmen remained at large, Bondi Junction locals were advised to avoid the area and multiple police cars blocked off streets near the Holiday Inn.
Moradian, who hoarded Versace furniture and once had the ceiling of his suburban home painted like the Sistine Chapel, is understood to have been a member of the Commission, an underworld network linked to the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang which controls the city’s drug trade.
Three crime scenes are all being forensically examined by specialist police.
Moradian, who was also dubbed ‘fathead’, was arrested in 2007 along with his wife Natasha Youkhana after investigations into what NSW police called at the time one of the largest ever cocaine and money laundering syndicates they’d seen in the state.
Police are now investigating whether getaway drivers attempted to set this grey Porsche (above) alight also, but failed, and fled the scene.
A red object seen in the front seat of the vehicle as police dusted for fingerprints may have been a jerry can
After months of surveillance police discovered more than $19million in cash and expensive assets that they alleged were from selling at least 100kg of high quality cocaine.
Among the assets seized were luxury cars, boats, jet skis, motorbikes, and 17 guns including a gold plated Magnum .357 pistol.
In an email tendered to the court Youkhana, who hails from Kuwait, warned her husband to be careful.
‘Why do you just sit there and show off – ‘I am the man, I am the man’?’ the email read.
‘Do you see Tony Soprano doing that?
‘He doesn’t care who people think is the boss, (money) is his number one priority. You, on the other hand, want the attention, you get a big head, you love it.
‘People like that won’t survive.’
A court later heard Moradian dropped $1million – in cash – on Versace furniture and homewares.
He and his wife had been turning their West Pennant Hills McMansion into an Italian style palazzo – complete which renaissance inspired garden statues and a Sistine Chapel style mural on the ceiling of their lounge room.
Moradian was sentenced to 16 years jail for his role in the syndicate, which would import one kilogram bricks of cocaine for $30,000 from Chicago and then sell them in Sydney for $190,000.
Police taped off the scene following the shooting at Bondi Junction on Tuesday morning
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