Australian police foiled an alleged organized crime hit by a so-called kill team near a Sydney daycare facility, authorities said yesterday.
New South Wales police on Tuesday swooped in on two cars after learning three men were preparing to carry out the alleged killing in Revesby, a suburb in the city’s southwest.
Police stopped the cars and arrested the men, finding two firearms, balaclavas, body cameras and jerricans containing fuel during a search.
Photo: New South Wales Police via AFP
A third firearm was located during subsequent searches of vehicles and premises allegedly linked to the men.
Footage from Tuesday showed the cars wedged between police vehicles as authorities moved in on the alleged offenders brandishing firearms.
The cars’ windshields were pocked with bullet holes.
One witness, who did not wish to be named, told Australia’s Channel Nine he heard the gunshots and went to investigate.
“I started walking out of my house and I heard some more gunshots and then cars were swerving,” he said.
New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Scott Cook said authorities had been investigating a transnational crime network “believed to be involved in multiple conspiracies to murder” for several weeks.
Police said the victim was targeted due to a breakdown in relationships within the syndicate, he said.
The trio of men reportedly did not know the victim.
They came “pretty close” to carrying out the hit, Cook said.
He expressed shock that the group was “prepared to kill” in an area where there was such a high risk of collateral damage.
“These individuals were being watched, and we moved at the right moment,” he said, adding that there was no chance the trio would have been “allowed to make it to a center.”
The men have been charged with a string of offenses, including conspiracy to commit murder and participating in a criminal group. The trio were refused bail and were to appear in court yesterday.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a Vietnamese criminal syndicate hired the three men and paid for a hit on the victim who was previously linked to the network.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
RSS