“Detectives from State Crime Command’s Criminal Groups Squad are aware of an image depicting a firearm, along with associated threats against an Organised Criminal Network, circulating on social media,” NSW Police said in a statement.
“Investigations have commenced into yesterday’s firebombing in Toongabbie (Wednesday 14 January 2026), the firearm image, and the inference of conflict between the two OCNs.”
A threat from the “Coconut Cartel” to Bilal Alameddine sent by SCN Worldstar.
A second threat, attached to the images sent to SCN Worldstar, said Coconut Cartel were “Ready 2 Chalk Out Every Alameddine”.
SCN’s Zaky Mallah told the Herald the cartel was linked to a group of “Islander boys” who had been hired by the Alameddines but had since fallen out with the OCN.
“Some of the Islander boys were once hired by the Alameddines to carry out some work, then an internal infighting happened. Then some of these boys flipped and created the Sydney Cartel,” he said.
But, Mallah said, they were not claiming affiliation with other established gangs.
“They are not linked to anyone. For example, If you are against the Alameddine family, or anyone that gets in their way, you can join [the cartel],” Mallah said.
“So long as you record your ‘movie’ on camera, you’re welcomed in.”
It’s not known, by police or anyone outside the conflict, whether the cartel is connected with another large defection of foot soldiers from the Alameddines last year.
A street gang of predominantly Fijian Australians, known as KVT, broke away from the Alameddines triggering a series of public shootings in 2025 which shocked the city.
NSW Police established Taskforce Falcon to halt the infighting after an Alameddine leader was marked for assassination and shot at multiple times. He cannot be identified for legal reasons.
One of his bodyguards was killed in one shooting at Parramatta, and an innocent woman shot in the second in a kebab shop.
“There’s been a division and that’s the problem,” Detective Superintendent Jason Box, Falcon’s commander, said last July.
“It was one organised crime network working as a collective – there’s now a division and that hasn’t been accepted internally, hence the conflict.”
In 2015, Bilal Alameddine tried to leave Australia to join Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East as a 16-year-old. Months later, a relative, Talal Alameddine, supplied the gun used by a radicalised teenager in the murder of police accountant Curtis Cheng outside NSW Police headquarters.
In 2017, he was arrested after selling handguns – a Desert Eagle and Smith & Wesson – and more than $100,000 worth of cocaine to undercover officers.
He was ultimately granted parole in late 2022 despite bad behaviour, including violence and hidden mobile phones, behind bars.
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