In Sydney and Canada, four people have been charged with alleged attempts to extort $ 10 million from a senior Iraqi politician, following what has been described as a yearlong campaign of intimidation.
The double raids were launched at dawn on Wednesday after a series of attacks on a Sydney home and online extortion attempts linked to an address in Canada.
The target was the family of a “very senior politician” who stands in both Australian and Iraq and “spends almost all of his time in Iraq,” said Australian police.
Australian investigators were able to link social media accounts used in the affair to the city of Edmonton in western Canada, NSW police said.
The attacks believed to have started in December 2019, when masked and armed attackers broke into a house in west Sydney, hit a 16-year-old boy on the head with a firearm and stole money.
Eight months later, shots were fired at the house while two adults, two teenagers and a child were inside. A window was smashed in a separate incident.
Earlier this month, the porch was set on fire in the middle of the night and a threatening note was left outside.
“During this time, the family received several requests for money and threats to their well-being via social media and letters left at their homes,” NSW police said in a statement.
Superintendent Darren Bennett of the NSW Police State Crime Command said the Canadian man was the mastermind behind the plot involving attacks on the family’s Chester Hill home and online threats, demanding payment of up to $ 10 million.
Australian media cited MP Ahmed Assadi – a high figure in the Hashed al-Shaabi, a powerful state-sponsored paramilitary network made up of mostly Shia armed groups.
Police have not confirmed the man’s identity.
Two men – 24 and 22 years old – were arrested in Blacktown and Seven Hills respectively and were both charged with six felonies, including sending a document threatening death or serious injury, multiple property indemnities and participating in a criminal group to contribute to criminal activities.
The men were scheduled to appear at Blacktown Local Court on Thursday.
Edmonton police reported that they had also arrested a man, Ghazi Shanta, 33, and a woman, Diana Kadri, 32, each charged with extortion and conspiring to commit extortion. They were charged with extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion. Police seized counterfeit firearms and electronic devices from one of the addresses.
“With the immediacy of today’s communications, it was critical for us to work with the Australian police to carry out simultaneous arrests on both sides of the planet,” said Phil Hawkins of the Cyber Crime Investigations Unit of the Edmonton Force.
“The search warrants were executed seamlessly and together we were able to take four suspects in two countries without incident,” he said.
The unit became involved after a request from Interpol from the Australian Federal Police.
Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press