Kazem Hamad, the man who used to run Melbourne’s organised crime scene, is now serving life behind bars in Iraq. Known by many aliases, including Kadhim Malik Hamad Rabah al-Hajami, he was a major player in the city's tobacco wars and is linked to some serious shonky business — drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, kidnapping, you name it.
Iraq’s National Centre for International Judicial Cooperation dropped the hammer on him. The Karkh Criminal Court in Baghdad slapped him with a life sentence for importing drugs into both Iraq and Australia. They called him one of the most wanted by Iraqi and international courts, responsible for smuggling heroin and other narcotics on a massive scale.
Hamad’s arrest back in January caused some serious infighting among his crime syndicate. AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett even labeled him her 'number one target'. The AFP kept it brief when informed of the life sentence: “The AFP notes the work of our important partner. The AFP will provide further comment at an appropriate time.”
Hamad came to Australia as a teenager from Iraq in the late 1990s but never got citizenship. After eight years in prison, he was deported in 2023, and now he’s locked up for good.