Page 38 - LHR November 2025
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From  Brotherhood  to                    experience,  advanced  money-           “significant  milestone”  in
                                            laundering  networks,  and  direct      dismantling  one  of  the  country's
   Empire
                                            access to Mexican drug cartels. By      most dangerous criminal networks.
   The  Comancheros  were  born  in         2019, they had established one of       The  Architecture  of
   Sydney  in  1966,  founded  by           New  Zealand's  most  powerful
   William George Ross, a man whose         o r g a n i z e d   c r i m e   g r o u p s ,   Crime:  Han  Aayek  and
   v i s i o n   w a s   a s   r a w   a n d   controlling  significant  portions  of   the Aussie Cartel
   u n c o m p r o m i s i n g   a s   t h e   methamphetamine  and  cocaine        While  the  Comancheros'  New
   motorcycles that would define the         distribution  and  operating  with  a   Zealand  chapter  was  crumbling,
   club.  From  the  outset,  the  gang     level  of  sophistication  that  local   back in Australia, figures like Han
   operated  with  military-style           police had rarely seen.                 Aayek  were  redefining  criminal
   discipline,  embracing  brutality  as    Empire in the Shadows                   ambition  on  a  global  scale.
   both a tool and a message. Their rise                                            Intelligent, strategic, and ruthless,
   was  punctuated  by  infamy:  the        The Comancheros' operations were
   1984 Miler massacre, where seven         industrial  in  scale.  Under  their
   lives were lost in a gunfight with the    s t r u c t u r e ,   m e m b e r s   p a i d
   rival  Bandidos,  and  the  2009         commissions  of  $5,000  per
   Sydney airport murder of Anthony         kilogram  of  drugs  sold,  funneled
   Zervas,  each  incident  a  stark        upward  to  leadership  to  fund
   reminder  of  the  club's  lethal        expansion,  weapons,  and  even
   capacity.                                military-style  training.  These
                                            weren't petty criminals; this was an
   But the Comancheros were not just
   a  violent  motorcycle  gang;  they      army built for control, wealth, and
   were  a  criminal  corporation  in       war.
   leather jackets. Over decades, they      However, the very complexity that
   transformed from a local gang into       made the Comancheros formidable
   a  sophisticated  transnational          also  exposed  them  to  law
   network, leveraging connections to       enforcement.  By  2024,  Operation
   international  cartels,  money           Avon  had  dismantled  their  South
   laundering  channels,  and  a            Island operations in New Zealand,
   s t r u c t u r e   t h a t   c o m b i n e d   seizing  drugs,  cash,  firearms,  and   Aayek  climbed  the  ranks  of
   intimidation with business acumen.       property  valued  at  nearly  $2        Australia's underworld by forging
                                            million,  and  arresting  every         alliances  with  Chinese  triads  and
   By the 2010s, the Comancheros had                                                powerful enforcers like Dodd Duru
   extended  their  reach  into  New        p a t c h e d   m e m b e r   o f   t h e   of the Comancheros. His rise was
   Zealand, exploiting the opportunity      Christchurch  chapter.  Around  the     not marked by violence alone but
   presented  by  Australia's  Section      same time, Operation Tentfield in        by  calculated  expansion,  turning
   5 0 1   d e p o r t a t i o n   p o l i c i e s .   Queensland  uncovered  a  $760   g a n g s   a n d   c a r t e l s   i n t o   a
   Thousands of convicted criminals,        million  cocaine  network  and          multinational  syndicate  later
   including hardened gang members,         arrested the Brisbane chapter's vice    known as the Aussie Cartel.
                                            president.
   were sent back to their countries of
   origin,  creating  fertile  ground  for   By  early  2025,  almost  every        By  2008, Aayek's  operations  had
   the  Comancheros'  expansion.            Comanchero  leader  was  either  in     been  linked  to  the  biggest
   Among  them  was  Pascilica              prison or under investigation. Only     methamphetamine  and  ecstasy
   Nofahu, a former sergeant-at-arms        one  man  remained  at  large—the       seizure  in  Western  Australia's
   of  the  Australian  Comancheros,        national  vice  president  in           history. Yet, he eluded capture by
   whose  arrival  in  New  Zealand  in     Auckland—linked  to  multi-             moving  his  empire  offshore,  first
   2018  would  set  the  stage  for  an    million-dollar drug shipments. His      disappearing  entirely  from
   unprecedented  criminal  empire          eventual  arrest  on  April  8,  2025,   Australia, then establishing a lavish
   across the Tasman Sea.                   m a r k e d   t h e   e n d   o f   t h e   base in Istanbul, Turkey. There, he
                                            Comancheros'  dominance  in  New        lived  extravagantly—luxury  cars,
   Unlike  local  gangs  such  as  the                                              private  jets,  and  high-end
   Mongrel Mob or Black Power, the          Zealand.  Assistant  Commissioner       holidays—while  continuing  to
   Comancheros  brought  global             Paul  Basham  described  it  as  a
                                                                                    orchestrate  drug  importation,
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