Latest news with #Comanchero
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Cops share new CCTV after senior Comanchero bikie was left dumped outside hospital with gunshot wounds
New CCTV footage of a group of Comanchero bikies allegedly planning a shocking attack on one of their own has been released by police in a bid to solve the case. Leslie Grantham, 51, a senior member of the notorious gang, was found dumped with gruesome injuries outside Rockingham Hospital, in Perth, about 10pm on May 14. Grantham, nicknamed 'Lethal Les,' had burns and multiple gun shot wounds to his upper body and leg - believed to have been attempts to remove some of his tattoos. He was rushed to Perth Royal Hospital and has since been discharged, but is refusing to co-operate with authorities. CCTV released on Friday appeared to show a group of people arriving at Auburn Grove Train Station in three separate vehicles. Police believe the group were meeting and swapping vehicles as part of their plans for the alleged attack on Grantham. Detectives also released footage from after the incident, which showed one of the vehicles from the earlier meeting entering Rockingham Hospital emergency department carpark. That car was a white and grey Holden dual-cab utility, with WA registration 1BFC417. Police believe the ute was used to transport Grantham to the incident location, and then to the hospital afterwards. Detective Senior Sergeant Todd White said police were continuing to seek public assistance in their investigation. 'If you're thinking of joining an outlaw motorcycle gang, think again,' he said. 'This man has been left with brutal, life-changing injuries due to his association with an outlaw motorcycle gang.' Grantham was previously jailed in 2017 over threatening to shoot a man unless he paid $10,000 to compensate a prostitute he had allegedly mistreated. He was also jailed in 2015 along with nine other Comanchero bikie members over a plot to extract 'protection' money' of $10,000 a month from the owners of a karaoke bar in Sydney's north shore. The Comanchero motorcycle gang was first established in Sydney in 1966 and has since grown to over 500 members nationwide. The patch features an old western wagon wheel on a red background.
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
Police share new CCTV after gruesome attack on bikie trying to leave gang
New CCTV footage of a group allegedly planning a gruesome attack on a man intending to leave a bikie gang has emerged after he was found with his tattoos burned and shot off outside an emergency room. Police shared the new footage on Friday as they work to find those responsible for the gruesome alleged attack more than a month on. Leslie 'Lethal Les' Grantham, a 51-year-old senior member of the Comanchero bikie gang, was found outside the Rockingham Hospital, in Perth's south, about 10pm on May 14 with multiple gun shot wounds to his upper body and leg, as well as burns, police said. In the new footage, which police allege shows bikies planning the alleged attack, three cars, a white SUV, a black ute and a white ute are seen arriving in a car park at Auburn Grove Train Station. A group emerges from the white ute, which is first to leave the car park, and those people are seen getting into the white SUV shortly after. One person exits the black ute and appears to pass something to the group in the SUV as it also leaves the car park before driving off as well. The white ute, with number plates 1BFC417, was later captured pulling into Rockingham Hospital, allegedly with Mr Grantham inside. It has not been seen since. Police allege Mr Grantham had been trying to leave the outlaw motorcycle gang when the group turned on him. It is alleged his tattoos were burned off, he was repeatedly shot and set alight before finally being dumped and left for dead outside the hospital. Detective Senior Sergeant Anthony Thompson told media at the time of the attack anyone who was considering joining an outlaw motorcycle group should heed the 'callous' attack as a warning. The senior sergeant said Mr Grantham was well known to police and had been left with life-changing injuries. 'He's got burns to his legs, and we suspect that's a product of other people trying to remove his tattoos,' he alleged. 'He was a patch member, and he was a senior member, and he held a position of authority within that club. 'If you're thinking about joining an outlaw motorcycle gang, think again, this person has now been left with life-changing injuries … solely because he was a member.' Mr Grantham has since been released from hospital, but is refusing to co-operate with authorities.
NZ Herald
28-05-2025
- NZ Herald
Gang retribution: Comancheros member Patrick Langi pleads guilty to Auckland shootings
He is the second defendant to have pleaded guilty in as many weeks after the Crown agreed to drop a charge of attempted murder. Justice Mathew Downs set a sentencing date of August 19 alongside co-defendant Elijah Meyer, 23. The duo was due to stand trial next month. 'Targeted retribution' Court documents state Langi and Meyer, a Comancheros prospect, carried out the shootings in August 2023 after high-ranking patched member Khalid Slaimankhel said he wanted out. Slaimankhel is serving a six-year sentence in Ngāwha prison in Northland for his part in a Comanchero's methamphetamine distribution scheme. 'Mr Slaimankhel recently sought to leave the Comancheros and was ordered to pay his way out in order to leave the gang, which he did not do,' authorities said of the gang's new ill will towards the member. 'These events were a targeted retribution intended to deliver a message to Mr Slaimankhel.' On August 10, 2023 - just over two weeks before the shootings occurred - the Department of Corrections searched Unit 8 of Rimutaka Prison, where gang president Naufahu and fellow patched member Jalal Safi were housed. Comancheros MC president Pasilika Naufahu, pictured during a court appearance in 2021. Photo / NZME Officers seized notebooks from Safi's cell, as well as a mobile phone he was using when the search began. Authorities would later realise the phone had been used to search Google Maps for the same streets where the shootings would later occur. The notebooks also contained addresses on those streets, with notations such as 'mum' and 'brother older'. On August 15, 10 days before the shootings, Langi used his phone to screenshot maps of the same addresses. That same day, co-defendant Meyer was 'directed by unknown parties to conduct surveillance' on the addresses. He took notes and photos that were later recovered from his phone. Timeline of violence Langi and Meyer showed up at the first property, in Epsom, about 7pm on August 25, 2023. Meyer fired at least three shots while another unidentified man was armed but his gun appears to have jammed, documents state. 'One of the fired projectiles went through the wooden window frame of the master bedroom at the front of the house, causing the interior of the window frame to chip off,' court documents state. 'At the time of the shooting there were eight occupants within the house, including three young children playing in the master bedroom that was shot at.' Thirteen minutes later, after fleeing the scene, the stolen car used by the duo was torched. Meyer and Langi arrived at the next home, in Hillsborough, at 7.31pm in a second stolen vehicle. Khalid Naser Slaimankhel appears in the High Court at Auckland in 2015. Photo / Jason Oxenham Meyer got out of the vehicle and began knocking on the door aggressively. Langi did not go up to the door with him, but he was charged with the same offence for having aided or encouraged the crime. Those inside the home had been eating upstairs, and a man yelled that he was coming down. Meyer opened fire as the man opened the door, with the bullets lodging in the door as the victim attempted to shut it. 'Mr Meyer placed his foot in the door to attempt to keep it open but [the victim] managed to push the door closed, and locked it, before attempting to run up the stairs away from the defendant,' police noted in the summaries of facts for both men. Meyer then walked to the front entrance window and aimed three more shots at the fleeing man – one of them grazing him in the back. Less than 15 minutes later, the second stolen vehicle was set alight at nearby Nash Rd Reserve. Police caught up to Meyer and Langi at 8.07pm that day after spotting them in a third stolen vehicle near the reserve. Gunshot residue was found in the vehicle and on both men's clothing, authorities said. The family of Comancheros member Khalid Slaimankhel was targeted after he tried to leave the gang. 'The defendant Langi declined to comment to most questions, [but] when confronted with the gunshot residue evidence he stated that it was 'bullshit' and police must have made that up,' court documents state. The duo could face up to 14 years' imprisonment for arson and up to seven years for discharging a firearm with reckless disregard. 'The shooting and related arson of the getaway vehicle was part of a co-ordinated attack to target members of Mr Slaimankhel's wider family that Mr Meyer and Mr Langi were a key part of,' the summaries of facts state. Good family, tragic past Slaimankhel, formerly a Dunedin bodybuilder, was also found guilty in 2015 of kidnapping a fellow bodybuilder and perverting the course of justice. He came from a good family, his lawyer said at his 2022 Auckland District Court sentencing on drug trafficking charges. Lawyer Mark Ryan said at the time his client turned to drugs and gangs after his father was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. Khalid Naser Slaimankhel in a bodybuilding competition. Dr Hashem Slaimankhel had been a physician in Afghanistan and Pakistan before arriving in New Zealand in 1998 and taking on a role as a refugee health worker. His advocacy made enough of an impact in New Zealand that police publicly praised the 'dedicated and deeply respected community leader' after his death in January 2018. The elder Slaimankhel was among the nearly 100 people killed when an ambulance with a bomb inside detonated at a police checkpoint in Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the massacre. At his 2022 sentencing, the younger Slaimankhel told Judge Evangelos Thomas he wanted to leave gang life behind him. Prosecutors voiced some scepticism but acknowledged the goal was a worthy one if genuine. 'It's going to take an awful amount of work to make sure that is carried through,' Crown prosecutor Jacob Barry said. The judge agreed, turning to Slaimankhel's family and supporters, who filled the courtroom gallery, after the defendant was led away to begin serving his sentence. He encouraged them to continue supporting him. 'If people aren't working hard around him, he's going to be straight into that [gang] environment,' the judge said. 'This work is really only beginning now.' Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand. Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Comancheros called out for blaze of construction site firebombings
A feared outlaw bikie gang is linked to a spate of firebombings targeting Victorian construction firms, with victims calling on the Labor government to ramp up its response to the violence dogging the state's building industry. The Comanchero outlaw bikie gang — listed by federal authorities as one of the nation's highest priority criminal organisations – has both direct and indirect links to several of the arson attacks and standover tactics directed towards at least seven Melbourne construction firms over the past 18 months. Construction industry insiders, speaking anonymously due to the fear of retribution, told this masthead they feared further attacks and that police had privately told them detectives were struggling to determine who was ultimately behind the wave of violence and intimidation. 'If police can't crack this without further government help, then something needs to change,' said one industry insider. Another source who has spoken to detectives said the increasing violence and intimidation showed those behind it clearly did not fear the police. On Tuesday morning, the headquarters of El Dorado Construction in Melbourne's west was torched in the fourth attack directed at the firm by underworld figures. This masthead can reveal that police are also investigating another suspicious fire over the weekend at the premises of construction company Ark Industrial. A statement from Fire Rescue Victoria said 30 firefighters had battled the blaze in the office building in Laverton North in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The Age
27-05-2025
- The Age
Comancheros called out for blaze of construction site firebombings
A feared outlaw bikie gang is linked to a spate of firebombings targeting Victorian construction firms, with victims calling on the Labor government to ramp up its response to the violence dogging the state's building industry. The Comanchero outlaw bikie gang — listed by federal authorities as one of the nation's highest priority criminal organisations – has both direct and indirect links to several of the arson attacks and standover tactics directed towards at least seven Melbourne construction firms over the past 18 months. Construction industry insiders, speaking anonymously due to the fear of retribution, told this masthead they feared further attacks and that police had privately told them detectives were struggling to determine who was ultimately behind the wave of violence and intimidation. 'If police can't crack this without further government help, then something needs to change,' said one industry insider. Another source who has spoken to detectives said the increasing violence and intimidation showed those behind it clearly did not fear the police. On Tuesday morning, the headquarters of El Dorado Construction in Melbourne's west was torched in the fourth attack directed at the firm by underworld figures. This masthead can reveal that police are also investigating another suspicious fire over the weekend at the premises of construction company Ark Industrial. A statement from Fire Rescue Victoria said 30 firefighters had battled the blaze in the office building in Laverton North in the early hours of Sunday morning.
