For a mobster once known for his ostentatious home and extravagant lifestyle, Alen Moradian took extreme measures to stay hidden in the last year of his life.
The cocaine boss, who once spent $1 million to convert a McMansion in northwestern Sydney into a suburban palazzo, frequently switched residences and cars to stay one step ahead of hitmen.
For ten months, the crime boss lived in constant fear of assassins he correctly believed were trying to locate him and kept such a low profile that he was almost invisible.
The 48-year-old stayed away from his wife for 15 years to protect her, and unlike many of his Comanchero bikie colleagues, he avoided social media entirely.
Moradian could vary his lodging and means of transportation, but to those who knew him he was still instantly recognizable with a body covered in tattoos and a mouth full of gold teeth.
Murdered mobster Alen Moradian spent the last ten months of his life in hiding after being told there was a bounty on his head. He moved into at least four apartments in Sydney and regularly charged his cars. Moradian is pictured with his wife Natasha
The drug lord and his wife, who once lived in a house in West Pennant Hills, Sydney’s Hills district filled with Versace furniture, bought a house near the Blue Mountains in January last year.
Moradian – known as Fathead – left that $2.35 million property when he learned there was a contract on his life and stayed in at least four other places before he was killed.
A source familiar with Moradian’s behavior during his attempts to evade harm said he was often absent from scheduled meetings.
“He really didn’t want to be seen with anyone and not run around in the open,” the source said. “So he was careful about his appointments and things like that.”
Moradian was hiding in a Bondi Junction apartment building in eastern Sydney when two gunmen ambushed him in the building’s underground car park at around 8:30am on 27 June.
He was in a black Audi RS4 he had rented from a rental car company in southwest Sydney when one of the gunmen fired up to seven bullets into his head and body.
The source said the location of Moradian’s murder showed the extent of his fears.
“The fact that he ended up at Bondi Junction from his home in the outer northwestern suburbs is an indication of how far he had to go,” the source said.
Moradian could vary his lodging and means of transportation, but to those who knew him he was still instantly recognizable with a body covered in tattoos and a mouth full of gold teeth.
The high-rise block on Spring Street where Moradian stayed was his last and final address after being warned by police in August that he was a marked man.
Moradian’s wife Natasha told Daily Mail Australia that two detectives came to the couple’s north-west Sydney home and warned them both of an “imminent danger to him.”
“They told him to move to a safe place to live and change his routines and patterns,” Ms Moradian said.
“They were at our house for over an hour explaining how important it was. Alen left our house that night and didn’t come back.’
Moradian, who was released from prison in December 2017 after serving 10 years behind bars for importing cocaine, was still on parole and took the threat seriously.
He was required to report periodically to the Windsor office of Community Corrections, which oversees parolees, and sought to have that reporting requirement removed.
Moradian’s wife Natasha, pictured at her husband’s grave on Wednesday, said two detectives came to the couple’s home and warned them both of an ‘imminent danger to him’
Another source told Daily Mail Australia that Moradian had instructed lawyers to approach Community Corrections to amend his parole so that he could flee abroad.
“They contacted Community Corrections to release him from his reporting requirements so he could leave the country because he was afraid there might be a target on his back,” the source said.
Community Corrections sought information from the police and they were unwilling to confirm that he was in real danger.
“On that basis, the Community Corrections could not release him from his reporting obligations, so he could not seek refuge abroad.”
Moradian then spoke to Community Corrections about moving to Melbourne, but that would require Victorian authorities to accept responsibility for his oversight.
Another suggestion was made that Moradian could move elsewhere in NSW and report to another community correction office, but it fell through.
Ultimately, any decision to change Moradian’s parole could only be made by the Commonwealth Parole Office, as he had been convicted of federal crimes.
Moradian was hiding in a Bondi Junction apartment building (above) in eastern Sydney when two gunmen ambushed him in the building’s underground car park at around 8:30 am on June 27.
As other criminals left the country in the midst of a gang war that had claimed 15 lives since August 2020, Moradian was trapped in Sydney.
Moradian was also prohibited from associating with certain criminal figures, including 39-year-old Mohamad Alameddine who is closely associated with the Comanchero.
Alameddine fled Sydney to Dubai in April, following a long line of senior members of the outlaw biker gang seeking refuge in foreign jurisdictions.
Ms Moradian said her husband could have left Australia and could easily have been brought back if police needed to speak to him.
“He had less than a year left before his parole expired,” she told Daily Mail Australia. “Still, the police let others come and go as they please.
“It is heartbreaking that this tragedy could have been prevented and the community could have been safer if they had allowed him to leave legally.”
Moradian was sitting in a black Audi RS4 in this underground car park when one of the two killers fired up to seven bullets into his head and body
The same month Moradian was told there was a bounty on his head, Lametta Fadlallah, 48, his wife’s former business partner, was shot dead in a car in Revesby along with hairdresser Amy Hazouri, 39.
Ms. Moradian and Fadlallah were both directors of car rental company Go 2 Go Rentals, which went into liquidation in 2012 after five years.
Over the next few months, Moradian shifted back and forth between secure high-rise city apartments and switched vehicles as the number of contract killings declined across Sydney, perhaps giving him a false sense of security.
Then, after six months without an execution allegedly linked to the underworld, 40-year-old Taha Sabbagh was shot dead in Sefton on March 2.
While in hiding, Moradian reportedly partyed at a city hotel with the next gang victim: 24-year-old Marvin Oraiha, who had ties to the Comanchero.
Moradian’s fears for his safety must have been heightened when Oraiha was shot dead by two gunmen while sitting in his car in Elizabeth Hills on May 22.
Whoever wanted Moradian dead eventually followed him to the Bondi Junction apartment building where the two killers intercepted him on his way to the gym. He was shot in this Audi RS4
In the weeks before Moradian was shot, the security of his family home in the Hawkesbury area was upgraded with the construction of new fencing, part of which was electrified.
Whoever wanted Moradian dead eventually followed him to the Bondi Junction apartment building where the two killers intercepted him on his way to a gym.
Moradian’s death made a comparison his wife once made between her husband and the low-key mob boss from the television series The Sopranos look prophetic.
“Why are you just sitting there showing off, ‘I’m the man, I’m the man’?” Ms Moradian wrote in a note presented during the court proceedings.
“See Tony Soprano doing that? He doesn’t care who people think is in charge. He points it all to a junior for a reason – to take the heat off him…
“You, on the other hand, want the attention, you get a big headline, you love it. People like that don’t survive.’
And as much as Moradian tried to outrun his pursuers, he couldn’t.
Moradian was buried at Pinegrove Memorial Park in Minchinbury on Wednesday following a funeral at St Hurmizd’s Cathedral in Greenfield Park. His coffin is pictured