THE SQUIZ
NSW Police have set up a special taskforce to deal with a spate of ‘brazen’ shootings in Sydney’s southwest over the past month. Five people have been shot in as many days – the latest victim is a man in his 20s who was killed outside his Canterbury home yesterday. That came hours after high-profile criminal lawyer Mahmoud Abbas was left with critical gunshot wounds in Greenacre in a targeted attack.

WHAT’S GOING ON?
Authorities reckon the trouble stems from a drug trade turf war. Taskforce Magnus is going to dig into a “common link” between the series of shootings that started on 27 June after Sydney crime figure Alen Moradian (who was compared by his own wife to fictional Mafia boss Tony Soprano) was killed in a Bondi Junction car park. A couple of weeks after that, 2 more men were shot in a Marrickville hair salon before the violence escalated again this week. It’s been a tough nut for the cops to crack because reports say they’re getting a “wall of silence” from victims who aren’t particularly chatty for fear of incriminating themselves/getting into more trouble with the crime powers that be.

ISN’T MELBOURNE GANGLAND CENTRAL?
It used to be, but Sydney is giving it a good shake… Between 1998-2006, 27 underworld figures were murdered in Melbourne. That had a lot to do with the illegal drug trade (and you might remember that the whole saga got turned into a string of popular TV dramas…). While Sydney’s new taskforce is focusing on the last month of shootings, the violence that has been linked to outlawed bikie gangs has been escalating in the city for quite a while, with 18 people killed over the past 2.5 years. The latest murders have put pressure on the state government and police to address the issue with claims they’ve lost control of law and order in those parts of Sydney. Police Commissioner Karen Webb says she’ll deploy 70 detectives and 30 extra cops to the area to “end this brazen violence”.