Court happy to give bail to accused senior crime figure
A man who police allege is one of Sydney’s most senior crime figures has been granted bail after he was arrested at a multimillion-dollar city apartment after police found bundles of cash and a phone inside a fire extinguisher cupboard.
Mohamad Alameddine’s high-profile barrister Greg James told Downing Centre Local Court yesterday his client was “certainly going to have to move” due to publicity surrounding his arrest.
He recently relocated from his former home in southwest Sydney after threats were made to his life, and was visited by police inside a three-bedroom penthouse in the CBD on April 9.
Police searched the 40-yearold’s home during a firearm prohibition compliance check but found nothing illegal inside the property.
But in nearby fire extinguisher cupboards, officers found $13,000 cash in one and a mobile phone in another, which were taken away for forensic testing.
After DNA results came back, police alleged they were linked to Alameddine and returned on Tuesday, arresting him for breaching a serious crime prevention order (SCPO). He was charged with two counts of contravene SCPO and failing to comply with digital evidence access order direction in relation to the mobile phone. No pleas have been entered.
The arrest of Alameddine, a Comanchero associate, is part of a high visibility operation targeting known members of the underworld using the execution of firearm prohibition compliance orders, or FPOs.
“These operations are to let those in this milieu know we are watching them,” said a senior officer.
Known as Almo, Alameddine is subjected to some of strictest SCPOs, which were first used to try and suppress the movement of figures involved in the AlameddineHamze war.
Alameddine shares the same name but is not related to the crime family.