One of Australia's biggest gang leaders nabbed in İstanbul

Photo: Daily Telegraph

Ngakuru, the Comanchero Motorcycle Club leader and alleged drug smuggling mastermind, was caught in Sarıyer, İstanbul on Friday and is handed over for deportation.

Teams of İstanbul's Department of Fight Against Organized Crime detained Duax "Dax" Hohepa Ngakuru, who was residing in a villa in Zekeriyaköy, Sarıyer, a secluded part in the north of İstanbul.

Ngakuru is suspected of managing a drug trafficking network worth approximately 100 million dollars and was on Interpol's red notice list. The mob boss has been handed over to the Migration Management to be deported.

The New-Zealand born Ngakuru just became the "Supreme Commander" of the worldwide Comanchero Motorcycle Club, outlawed in Australia and South East Asia, after his close associate Mark Bundle was first deported from Northern Cyprus to Türkiye and later extradited to Australia in the summer of 2022.

Recently, The Daily Telegraph obtained the first known photos of Ngakuru in about ten years, showing him in a superyacht with a large Turkish flag. Other pictures revealed him dining with fugitive Hakan Ayık, the "Big Hux." Ayik was described in 2021 as "one of Australia's most wanted man".

Ayık, born in Australia to parents from Türkiye, has an estimated net worth of 1.5 billion dollars, and likely still residing in İstanbul, becoming the owner of the luxurious Kings Cross Hotel in the Leven district. A report from the Sydney Morning Herald claims that Ayık is linked to officials from Türkiye.

Operation Ironside

In the 2018-2021 operation Ironside, millions of messages were intercepted that were sent through an encrypted smartphone app called AnOm. Through monitoring communications over 800 suspects in 16 countries were arrested.

Hakan Ayık unwittingly helped the sting operation when undercover agents handed him over a device with the supposedly secure app. Ayik, the first person to use AnOm, gave the police access to 25 million messages.

Operation Ironside eventually linked Ngakuru's associate Mark Bundle, who used the AnOm app, to a transnational criminal syndicate operating out of Asia and Europe.

According to an underworld source speaking to Daily Telegraph, Ngakuru got worried about his situation in Türkiye after Buddle's capture, feeling that Türkiye is perhaps no longer a safe haven to operate from.

It is suspected that Ngakuru has also been based in Thailand, acting as a "super-facilitator", between the Comancheros and Asian organized crime groups. Reportedly, the mob boss acted as a link in a global network supplying and distributing methamphetamine.

Dax's cousin, also alleged to be a Comancheros member, was arrested in Thailand on drug importation charges in October 2022. (WM)