{"id":86467,"date":"2026-09-02T23:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T23:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/86467\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T23:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T23:26:12","slug":"possible-sixth-innocent-victim-of-sydneys-gangland-war-marks-disturbing-trend-of-crossfire-casualties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/86467\/","title":{"rendered":"Possible sixth innocent victim of Sydney’s gangland war marks disturbing trend of crossfire casualties"},"content":{"rendered":"

The brazen murder of an underworld figure’s suspected business associate possibly marks the sixth innocent victim of the city’s sprawling gangland war in just over a year, and the second this week.<\/p>\n

The man in his 40s, police believe, was “likely” ambushed after picking up children from a nearby school.<\/p>\n

Fatally shot in broad daylight at a home with two children inside, he is the 41st murder attributed to underworld violence since shootings began in 2020 over the city’s drug trade.<\/p>\n

“Tragically, that [mistaken identity] is a possibility that the wrong person has been shot by these offenders,” Superintendent Simon Glasser told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Forensics teams were at the Merrylands West scene on Wednesday night. (ABC News: Digby Werthmuller)<\/p>\n

The victim’s associate is “very well known to police” and detectives believe the shooting stems from feuding organised crime groups.<\/p>\n

The death marks another tragic chapter in the tit-for-tat violence that has been plaguing Sydney for years and continues a disturbing pattern of civilians caught in the crossfire.<\/p>\n

\"Marco<\/p>\n

Marco Tapia died early on Tuesday morning. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Just a day earlier, university student Marco Tapia died after masked men stormed his Glen Alpine home and shot him dead.<\/p>\n

In the wake of Mr Tapia’s death and hours before the Merrylands West attack, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the taking of “innocent life” was “completely unacceptable”.<\/p>\n

Underworld fugitive Iziah Utai was quick to take to social media to gloat that the attackers: “popped the wrong person, didn’t even get the right house”.<\/p>\n

Iziah Utai’s self-proclaimed “Coconut Cartel” is openly feuding with the Alameddine crime family, and police believe the two gangs are responsible for a recent surge in violence.<\/p>\n

Clumsy crooks and death by association\"A<\/p>\n

Gilbert Shino died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

The mistakes from bungling hit-men over the last year, police alleged, range from wrong addresses, similar names, appearance or death by association.<\/p>\n

Gilbert Shino died in a hail of bullets leaving a Forest Lodge pub in August 2025 in the company of a “DLASTHR” associate aware of threats to his life.<\/p>\n

Beloved entrepreneur Luke Manassa, 21, was allegedly stabbed to death by two teenagers after being mistaken for an in-law involved in the current organised crime conflict.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

John Versace, who was killed in a shooting outside his family’s Condell Park home. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

Similarly, police have made clear that plumber John Versace was anything but a gangster when he was gunned down at his family home in May 2025.<\/p>\n

Others like Bankstown mother Thi Kim Tran April last year have been targeted due to their relationships.<\/p>\n

Ms Tran was taken, stripped naked in the street and shot in the head by what police allege are the underlings of a Vietnamese crime boss attempting to lure her husband out of hiding.<\/p>\n

\"Thi<\/p>\n

Thi Kim Tran was killed in April. (Supplied: Facebook)<\/p>\n

In February, two men were charged over the alleged kidnapping murder<\/a> of 85-year-old Sydney man Chris Baghsarian in a case of mistaken identity, with the intended abduction target understood to be a man living nearby.<\/p>\n

Several people remain before the courts on that matter. \u00a0<\/p>\n

So worrying is the state of the city’s criminal milieu that Premier Chris Minns cancelled some of his plans while on a trade mission in India to receive a briefing on the latest shootings.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s era of ‘disorganised crime’<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the state’s top police officers has promised feuding gangs bringing terror to Sydney’s streets will not exist “by the time we finish” as police stare down a new era of disorganised crime.<\/p>\n

Police Minister Yasmin Catley, at the same press conference, detailed the model being used by crime networks in the city.<\/p>\n

“Bringing in people who are just happy to commit a crime without understanding the consequences, and here we’ve seen again, allegedly, that we have somebody who is [targeted] from mis-identification,” she said.<\/p>\n

Assistant Commissioner Scott Cook has previously told the ABC Sydney’s gangland scene has entered a new era of “disorganised crime” with underworld figures, who are often offshore, putting contracts out for murder and intimidation on the open market.<\/p>\n

The jobs are increasingly being accepted by inexperienced young people with devastating and unintended consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The brazen murder of an underworld figure’s suspected business associate possibly marks the sixth innocent victim of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,138614,96604,142439,144041,144042,8960,41770],"class_list":["post-86467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-gangland-war","tag-innocent","tag-merrylands-west-shooting","tag-mistaken-identity-shooting","tag-organised-crime-sydney","tag-underworld","tag-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}