Alleged Coconut Cartel gang member arrested after boy, 11, fatally shot in face
A man linked to the Coconut Cartel has been arrested after detectives allegedly found incriminating evidence on a phone he left at the scene of a shooting in Sydney’s northwest, where an 11-year-old boy was fatally shot in the face, police allege.
Reece Fakhr, 18, was arrested by strike force detectives and Australian Federal Police at Sydney International Airport on Tuesday as he allegedly attempted to leave the country. He has been charged with 10 offences, including conspiracy to murder, kidnapping, arson and directing a criminal group.
Police allege Fakhr is a key player in the high-profile Coconut Cartel organised criminal network.
Investigators believe the boy, who cannot be legally identified, may have been one of several people handling an illegal gun when it discharged inside an apartment in the Moda complex in Norwest last month.
The boy’s mother and several 18-year-old men were inside the apartment at the time but were not injured. Several of the men fled before emergency services arrived. The child died in hospital two days later. Fakhr is not related to the child.
Detectives forensically examined the phone left at the scene and discovered evidence of alleged criminal offences.
After receiving information Fakhr was planning to leave Australia, strike force detectives and Australian Federal Police officers arrested him at the airport on Tuesday afternoon.
He was taken to Mascot police station and charged with 10 offences, including conspiring to murder, soliciting, persuading or encouraging murder, directing activities of a criminal group, possessing a dedicated encrypted criminal communication device to commit crimes, recruiting others to assist in criminal activity, kidnapping in company and causing actual bodily harm, two counts of supplying a pistol, and two counts of setting a business on fire.
He appeared before the Bail Division Court on Wednesday, when he was refused bail. His matter will next be heard on December 8 at Sydney Downing Centre Local Court.
Three other men were arrested at the apartment. One man, Isaac Bechara, 18, was charged with concealing a serious indictable offence. The other two were released without charge.
The boy’s father, a convicted cocaine dealer, paid tribute to his son on social media last month. “RIP my baby,” he wrote alongside a photo of the pair. Other members of the boy’s extended family are linked to organised crime and known to police.
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