ABC Four Corners reporter Mahmood Fazal’s surprising underworld links as police probe threat allegations by FriendlyJordies YouTube producer

A producer for YouTube channel FriendlyJordies says he feared for his safety after a Four Corners reporter allegedly relayed threats from a notorious organized crime family.

Kristo Langker, who works with FriendlyJordies creator Jordan Shanks, claims he received the warnings through ABC investigative journalist Mahmood Fazal.

Fazal has strongly denied doing anything wrong, and the ABC – describing his work as ‘extremely challenging, impactful and important public interest journalism – stands behind its reporting.

The 33-year-old Walkley Award winner insists all the crime family’s warnings were against him and his life was in danger.

Langker was so concerned about the situation that the 23-year-old made a statement to the NSW Police Organized Crime Squad, seen by Daily Mail Australia.

According to that statement, Langker claims that in one phone conversation he told Fazal, “You are a Four Corners journalist. You have to decide what you are.

“You’re not one of them.”

Fazal is a former motorcyclist who was once a sergeant-at-arms of a Mongols unit and has since turned his hand to telling stories about crime, violence, prisons and terrorism.

He was appointed a permanent member of the Four Corners investigative team of reporters last August, alongside journalists including Louise Milligan, Mark Willacy and Angus Grigg.

Fazal fronted the Four Corners episodes Cocaine Nation in June 2023 and Meth Highway in April this year, both of which explored the trafficking and use of illegal drugs.

Those investigations relied heavily on criminal contacts who Fazal said were willing to talk to him because he was once part of their world.

Fazal’s family fled Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the late 1980s and settled in Victoria, where he became involved in a life of crime and drugs as a young man.

In a piece he wrote for Walkley Magazine in May 2018, he explained how his membership in the Mongols and the gang’s “bare-knuckle policy on meth” helped him get sober.

“I have of course become accustomed to the violence and have respected the criminal code, where your word is everything,” he wrote.

Kristo Langker, who works with FriendlyJordies creator Jordan Shanks, claims warnings he received through ABC investigative journalist Mahmood Fazal caused him to fear for his safety. Fazal is depicted when he was a Mongol

Langker became involved with Fazal through his production of a video uploaded to the FriendlyJordies channel in August 2022.

That video used photos of a notorious rapper and other alleged crime family associates that had first appeared in a Rolling Stone article written by Fazal a year earlier.

In Langker’s statement to police, he claimed that Fazal told him during a lunch in late August or early September 2022 that he was receiving threats about the video.

Fazal said he met with ABC management to organize police protection for himself “because of the [crime family’s] suspected involvement,” Langker told investigators on Jan. 19.

‘Mahmood [allegedly] said words along the lines of, “I spoke to people involved in organized crime,” and “You have to be on your guard,” Langker said in his statement.

Fazal also allegedly said: “Your name is in the mouths of serious people”, “I am terrified” and “I am seriously concerned about my safety”.

Kristo Langker was so concerned about the threats allegedly passed on to him by Mahmood Fazal that he made a statement to the NSW Police Organized Crime Squad. Langker is on the right in the photo

Langker told police that Fazal asked him to delete the FriendlyJordies video on January 11 this year “because there were people threatening his life.”

“He said words to the effect of, ‘If the video didn’t come out, something really bad could happen to himself,'” Langker told police. “He made it very clear that Jordan and I were also in danger.”

Langker said he met Fazal later that day outside a lawyer’s office in Sydney’s central business district, where Fazal again allegedly advocated for the video to be taken down.

On January 17, Langker had an eight-minute telephone conversation with Fazal.

“Mahmood said, ‘I don’t understand why you are making this about you. I am the one being threatened.'” Langker said in his police statement.

‘Mahmood said, “I had a guy who just got out of jail for attempted murder, actually tell me what to do. I’m the one being threatened here, not you.”

Fazal’s family fled Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the late 1980s and settled in Victoria, where he became involved in a life of crime and drugs as a young man. Fazal is depicted as a Mongol

Langker told police that Fazal said he met one of the men who made the alleged threats and was warned to be on his guard.

“I said, ‘Why did you hang out with them?’ Langker said.

‘He said, “I wasn’t, I was called to a meeting.”

‘I said, “You’re a Four Corners journalist, you have to decide what you are. You’re not one of them. Why would you do that?”

In a statement to The Sydney Morning Herald, which first reported the alleged threats, Fazal accused the publication of stereotyping him because of his ethnic background.

“The connections you are trying to make between myself and the events are serious and I find deeply offensive,” he told the publication.

“I am concerned that you appear to have relied on the ethnic background of the people you refer to to imply unlawful behavior on my part. This seems very much a case of an attempt to stereotype me.

‘If you are in possession of credible information indicating that I have engaged in unlawful conduct (which I am not), I suggest that you provide that information to the police so that they can deal with it appropriately rather than publishing untested allegations in the newspaper. .’

Fazal (left) fronted the Four Corners episodes Cocaine Nation in June 2023 and Meth Highway in April this year, both of which explored the trafficking and use of illegal drugs

Daily Mail Australia attempted to contact Fazal but an ABC spokeswoman said she understood he did not wish to make any further statement.

“Mahmood Fazal does exceptionally challenging, impactful and important public interest journalism for the ABC and the ABC stands behind his reporting,” she said.

‘For obvious reasons the ABC will not comment on security threats to our employees, measures we take for their safety or any dealings with police.

“Mahmood says he has informed his police contacts about this situation every step of the way.”

NSW Police told the Herald their investigation into the threats reported by Langker had stalled because Fazal was reluctant to make a statement.

The FriendlyJordies video was removed in February.

Fazal won the Walkley Foundation’s 2020 Media Diversity Australia Award for the podcast No Gangsters in Paradise, which explored gang warfare between the Darwiche and Razzak families in Sydney in the early 2000s.

His articles have previously appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, VICE, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and Rolling Stone.