Police probe links between alleged day care kill plot and murder of Sydney mother

Police are investigating potential links between a Sydney woman abducted from her home and murdered earlier this year and a foiled plot to execute a man at a day care centre on Tuesday afternoon.

The Herald can reveal that investigators who swooped on three alleged would-be assassins during peak hour at Revesby on Tuesday – allegedly en route to murder a fourth man – are closely examining links to the alleged kidnapping and execution of Sydney woman Thi Kim Tran in April.

Detectives say they narrowly stopped a murder commissioned by a Vietnamese crime syndicate, which had fallen out with an employee, and had sent three guns-for-hire to execute him at a day care centre pick-up on Tuesday afternoon.

More than a decade after the Asian crime squad was dismantled in 2014, NSW Police are again focused on Vietnamese crime in Sydney after a raft of disturbing incidents, including a man being buried alive and the kidnapping and murder of a man whose body was found in the Blue Mountains.

It is firmly back in the spotlight after Tuesday’s high-profile police operation.

“We will allege in court the men were en route to attempt to kill a man in the vicinity of a day care centre in south-western Sydney,” state crime commander Assistant Commissioner Scott Cook told reporters on Wednesday.

In dramatic scenes captured on camera on The River Road, Revesby, specialist police pulled a Mitsubishi Outlander and a Mercedes over in peak-hour traffic and peppered the two vehicles with beanbag rounds – softer, usually non-fatal alternatives to bullets that still left holes in the cars’ windshields and door.

Police arrested Greall Tighe, 18, Kevin Mundine, 19, and Tyrone Tuiluga Rio, 26, at the scene and charged them each with a raft of offences including conspiracy to commit murder.

The trio were allegedly hired guns, police said, and had no personal connection to the intended victim, who had previously worked for the Vietnamese organised crime network.

“They were people who were hired by a syndicate to carry out this murder on their behalf,” Cook said.

“[The victim] has links to crime and … was targeted due to what we think was a breakdown in the transnational organised crime network,” Cook said.

Tighe and Rio appeared briefly on Wednesday at Bankstown Local Court. Wearing a blue plastic jumpsuit and sporting a large bruise on his head, Tighe appeared briefly in the courtroom to confirm that he wanted to be represented by Sydney criminal lawyer Hisham Karnib, who also acts for Rio.

A dozen supporters including his mother looked on as he was sent back to the cells.

Both men will reappear in Burwood Local Court in December after being bail refused.

Mundine will appear in Bankstown Local Court on Thursday.

The syndicate has previously been involved in “multiple conspiracies to murder”, Cook told reporters on Wednesday. Police say that none of those conspiracies was a success.

On Wednesday morning, Premier Chris Minns acknowledged that one of the men arrested at Revesby was already on bail for charges relating to break and enters across Sydney earlier this year.

Police allege the teenager stole luxury cars and broke into a string of shops just two weeks after he turned 18.

Police said that the cars pulled over on Tuesday were stolen, and the group had cloned number plates, balaclavas and jerrycans full of petrol – all hallmarks of the organised crime public-place shootings that have plagued Sydney for the past few years.

Investigators had been trailing the trio for a number of weeks when it became apparent that they were prepared to act on Tuesday. Police acted swiftly when it became apparent they were going to do “something serious,” Organised Crime Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Peter Faux said.

“The activity and the behaviour of these people, it was clear. They were driving in a car, a stolen car, cloned plates, they had balaclavas on,” Faux said.

Facing questions about whether police had cut it too fine by arresting the alleged hitmen en route to the job and whether the public were endangered, Cook said, “They were never going to be allowed to make it to the centre.

“The collateral damage there would be far too great.”

Cook said police “moved at the right moment” to stop the alleged “kill team”, which he described as a “deeply concerning scenario”.

No one was injured during the operation, and police said there was no ongoing threat to the public.

The arrests were an indication that “what we’re doing is right”, Faux told reporters.

“We’ve been looking at and targeting a number of different organised crime networks in relation to the conflict and violence which has been occurring, with a big focus on identifying those involved and stopping them before they occur.

“We were able to not only identify that they were going to do something serious but we were fortunately in a position to react and stop that from occurring.”

Police last year seconded senior investigators to the Cabramatta police station to tackle violence around Canley Vale, Cabramatta and Bankstown that detectives say was perpetrated by Vietnamese crime gangs.

Their shadowy world was thrust into the spotlight earlier this year when police addressed three shocking attacks – a man shot in the head and buried alive, a father found dead in the bush after disappearing a month earlier, and the abduction and execution of Tran.

“They have a strong focus on loyalty in these groups – part of it is cultural,” Faux told the Herald in August.

“But for those who breach the trust, there are very significant consequences – it’s violence, and no holds barred.

“It means they work very well together, and it can be challenging to police because people on the edges of these gangs don’t report anything, even when they become targets.”

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