For a gangster once best-known for his ostentatious home and extravagant lifestyle, Alen Moradian went to extreme measures in the last year of his life to stay hidden.
The cocaine kingpin, who once spent $1million turning a McMansion in Sydney’s north-west into a suburban palazzo, regularly changed residences and cars to stay one step ahead of hitmen.
For ten months the crime boss lived in constant fear of assassins he rightly believed were trying to locate him and kept such a low profile as to be almost invisible.
The 48-year-old stayed away from his wife of 15 years to protect her, and unlike many of his Comanchero bikie associates, completely avoided social media.
Moradian could vary his accommodation and modes of transport but to those who knew him he was still instantly recognisable with a body covered in tattoos and a mouth full of gold teeth.
Slain gangster Alen Moradian spent the last ten months of his life in hiding after being told there was a bounty on his head. He moved into at least four apartments across Sydney and charged his cars regularly. Moradian is pictured with his wife Natasha
The drug baron and his wife, who once lived in a house at West Pennant Hills, in Sydney’s Hills district, filled with Versace furnishings, bought a home near the Blue Mountains in January last year.
Moradian – known as Fathead – moved out of that $2.35million property when he learnt there was a contract on his life and stayed in at least four other places before he was killed.
A source familiar with Moradian’s behaviour during his time trying to evade harm said he would often fail to attend scheduled meetings.
‘He was very keen not to be seen with anybody and not to be running around in the open,’ the source said. ‘So he was careful about his appointments and those sorts of things.’
Moradian was hiding out in a Bondi Junction apartment block in Sydney’s east when two gunmen ambushed him in the building’s underground car park about 8.30am on June 27.
He had been sitting in a black Audi RS4 leased from a car hire company in Sydney’s south-west when one of the shooters fired up to seven bullets into his head and body.
The source said the location of Moradian’s murder showed the extent of his fears.
‘The fact that he ended up at Bondi Junction from his home in the outer north western suburbs is an indication of the lengths to which he needed to go,’ the source said.
Moradian could vary his accommodation and modes of transport but to those who knew him he was still instantly recognisable with a body covered in tattoos and a mouth full of gold teeth
The high-rise block of units on Spring Street where Moradian was staying was his latest and last address after being warned by police in August he was a marked man.
Moradian’s wife Natasha told Daily Mail Australia two detectives came to the couple’s home in Sydney’s north-west and warned them both of an ‘imminent danger to him’.
‘They told him to move to a secure residence and change his routines and patterns,’ Mrs Moradian said.
‘They were at our home for over an hour explaining how important it was. Alen left our home that night and did not return.’
Moradian, who had been released from prison in December 2017 after spending a decade behind bars for importing cocaine, was still on parole and took the threat seriously.
He was required to periodically present himself to the Windsor office of Community Corrections, which supervises parolees, and sought to have that reporting condition removed.
Moradian’s wife Natasha, pictured centre at her husband’s grave on Wednesday, said two detectives came to the couple’s home and warned them both of an ‘imminent danger to him’
Another source told Daily Mail Australia that Moradian instructed lawyers to approach Community Corrections about varying his parole so he could flee overseas.
‘They contacted Community Corrections to get him relieved of his reporting conditions so he could leave the country because he was concerned about there being a target on his back,’ the source said.
‘Community Corrections sought information from the police and they were unwilling to confirm the fact he was genuinely at risk.
‘On that basis Community Corrections couldn’t relieve him of his reporting obligations, so he could not seek refuge overseas.’
Moradian then spoke with Community Corrections about moving to Melbourne but that would have required Victorian authorities to accept responsibility for his supervision.
Another suggestion was made that Moradian could move somewhere else in NSW and report to a different Community Corrections office but that did not proceed.
Ultimately, any decision to vary Moradian’s parole could only have been made by the Commonwealth Parole Office because he had been convicted of federal offences.
Moradian was hiding out in a Bondi Junction apartment block (above) in Sydney’s east when two gunmen ambushed him in the building’s underground car park about 8.30am on June 27
While other criminals were getting out of the country in the midst of a gang war which had claimed 15 lives since August 2020, Moradian was left stuck in Sydney.
Moradian was also prohibited from associating with particular criminal figures, including 39-year-old Mohamad Alameddine who is closely linked to the Comanchero.
Alameddine fled Sydney for Dubai in April, following a long line of senior members of the outlaw motorcycle gang looking for sanctuary in foreign jurisdictions.
Mrs Moradian said her husband should have been allowed to leave Australia and could have easily been brought back if police needed to speak with him.
‘He had less than a year to go for his parole to finish,’ she told Daily Mail Australia. ‘Yet the police force allows others to come and go as they please.
‘It’s heartbreaking that this tragedy could have been prevented and also the community could have been safer had they allowed him to leave legally.’
Moradian had been sitting in a black Audi RS4 in this underground car park when one of two killers fired up to seven bullets into his head and body
The same month Moradian was told of a price on his head his wife’s onetime business partner Lametta Fadlallah, 48, was shot dead alongside hairdresser Amy Hazouri, 39, in a car in Revesby.
Mrs Moradian and Fadlallah had both been directors of car hire company Go 2 Go Rentals which went into liquidation in 2012 after operating for five years.
In coming months Moradian shifted between secure high-rise city apartments and swapped vehicles as the contract killings across Sydney abated, perhaps giving him a false sense of security.
Then after six months without an execution allegedly linked to the underworld, 40-year-old Taha Sabbagh was shot dead at Sefton on March 2.
While in hiding Moradian was reportedly known to party in a city hotel with the next gangland victim: 24-year-old Marvin Oraiha, who had links to the Comanchero.
Moradian’s fears for his safety must have been further heightened when Oraiha was shot dead by two gunmen while sitting in his car at Elizabeth Hills on May 22.
Whoever wanted Moradian dead eventually tracked him to the Bondi Junction apartment block where the two killers intercepted him on the way to the gym. He was shot in this Audi RS4
In the weeks before Moradian was gunned down the security at his marital home in the Hawkesbury region was upgraded with the construction of new fencing, some of which was electrified.
Whoever wanted Moradian dead eventually tracked him to the Bondi Junction apartment block where the two killers intercepted him on his way to a gym.
Moradian’s death made a comparison his wife once drew between her husband and the lowkey mafia boss from the television series The Sopranos look prophetic.
‘Why do you just sit there and show off, “I am the man, I am the man”?’ Mrs Moradian wrote in a note tendered during court proceedings.
‘Do you see Tony Soprano doing that? He doesn’t care who people think is the boss. He points it all off on a junior for a reason – to take the heat away from him…
‘You, on the other hand, want the attention, you get a big head, you love it. People like that won’t survive.’
And as much as Moradian tried to outrun his pursuers, he didn’t.
Moradian was buried at Pinegrove Memorial Park in Minchinbury on Wednesday after a funeral at St Hurmizd’s Cathedral in Greenfield Park. His casket is pictured
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