Alameddine crime clan boss Masood Zakaria arrested in Turkey

One of the alleged top figures in the Alameddine crime network which has been waging a blood-soaked war on Sydney‘s streets since 2020 has been arrested in Turkey. 

Masood Zakaria, 27, was reportedly captured by Turkish Special Forces in raids in the port city of Bodrum early on Saturday morning local time.

He had been the most wanted man in NSW after he was tipped off to an imminent arrest and subsequently fled the country by hiding in a fishing trawler sailing from Western Australia to Malaysia in early 2022.

Zakaria along with multiple associates were arrested in the raids and he is currently being held in a local Bodrum jail but will likely be moved to a prison in the capital Ankara in the next week, reports The Daily Telegraph. 

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Zakaria (pictured) is allegedly the number two in the Alamedine crime network. The gang has been involved in a bloody war that has littered Sydney streets with more than a dozen bodies 

Australian Federal Police have been chasing the alleged Alameddine number two for more than a year and are expected to apply to extradite him to Sydney.

In December 2021, NSW Police criminal gang squad detectives said they were seeking Zakaria on arrest warrants for an alleged murder conspiracy and directing organised crime activity in Sydney’s south-west. 

He is alleged to have been central to running the operations of the Alameddine crime network as they waged a bloody war against the rival Brothers4Life criminal network between 2020 and 2022.

The murder conspiracy charge is linked to a failed attempt on the life of Brothers4Life member Ibrahem Hamze, the cousin of jailed gang founder Bassam Hamzy.

Pictured from left to right are alleged Alameddine associates Ali Younes and Masood Zakaria, who has been arrested in Turkey, along with Rafat Alameddine and Hamdi Alameddine. 

Two masked gunman believed to be targeting Hamze had been on a North Sydney street on August 14 2021 when a police patrol car spotted their stolen Mercedes with cloned number plates, forcing them to flee. 

Hamze, 27, was months later arrested by NSW police and hit with multiple charges of his own including soliciting a murder, shooting at someone ‘with intent to murder’, and firearms offences.

Zakaria, a former Comanchero bikie, was not at his Greystanes residence in south-west Sydney when police first went to arrest him in December 2021 as part of widespread crackdowns on Sydney’s gang war that saw more than a dozen people gunned down. 

He is suspected to have been tipped off or simply ‘read the room’ and fled to Melbourne before travelling to Perth.

He is then understood to have boarded the fishing trawler to Malaysia and traveled through Asia to Turkey with the help of his underworld connections.

Zakaria (pictured) will likely be extradited to Sydney where he fled from in December 2021 as police cracked down on gang violence

His capture follows the arrests of former Comanchero global boss Mark Buddle and his successor Duax Ngakuru who had also both fled to Turkey.

Zakaria abandoned his wife and children in Sydney but was understood to be in contact with them and members of the Alameddine clan while living life as a free man in the Mediterranean oasis. 

His wife Azza Zakaria was later arrested by NSW Crime Commission officers who charged her with dishonestly obtaining advantage by deception for her part in purchasing their Graystanes property.

Police said she falsely declared an income of $240,000 to secure a loan to buy the house in 2019.

She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order in April 2022 and the house was seized by authorities.