Notorious bikie Tarek Zahed’s rigorous gym routine was the fatal mistake that saw him riddled with bullets, a criminal underworld figure has claimed.
The Comanchero hardman, 41, is currently fighting for his life in hospital after he was shot 10 times in the head, body and legs at Bodyfit Gym in Auburn in Sydney’s west on Tuesday.
His brother, Omar, was also shot several times and died soon after the attack.
An underworld source said Zahed had continued going to the gym leading up to the attack despite constant warnings from both police and his associates to be cautious and not follow the same routine.
Anyone with a hit on their head makes sure they don’t have a routine,’ the source told The Daily Telegraph.
‘But Tarek f**ked it, the dumb c**t said he was going to gym last night, like he did the same time the night before, the night before and the nights before.’
The gangster asserted that the ‘boys’ in the gym’ would see Zahed ‘every night’ at the same time and know exactly ‘where and when to get him’.
He explained that gyms are the perfect place to carry out a shooting because targets are ‘not armed’.
He said no one goes to the gym with weapons in case they’re pulled over by the police.
Last November a gangland shooting was carried out at World Gym in Prospect, NSW.
Alameddine associate, Murat Gulasi, suffered a gunshot wound to his leg on his way to a gym workout with three other men.
The underworld source said it was ultimately his routine that was his downfall.
He said if someone sticks to a routine with a bounty on their head, they ‘asking to get knocked’.
‘If you go to McDonald’s every day at 10am, you’ll get shot at McDonald’s at 10am’.
Underworld sources and detectives had all told the Balenciaga-clad crime lord to keep a low profile after a huge price was put on his head.
But instead the TikTok gangster flaunted his chiselled physique on social media while working out at Bodyfit Gym in Auburn in Sydney’s west, leading killers straight to him.
The ruthless enforcer had been a marked man for weeks, with gangland rivals putting a seven figure bounty on his head, believed to be worth between $1million and a staggering $7million.
On Tuesday night, someone almost got their bumper payday.
Despite the warnings about the hitmen hunting him, Zahed refused to stay away from the gym. As a result, he was cut down in a hail of bullets alongside his younger brother Omar, 39, on Tuesday evening.
Omar was killed instantly, but Zahed has grimly held on to life after being shot 10 times in the body and head, leaving him critically injured.
The pair had been told to get out of town just days earlier.
‘The two brothers were warned last Thursday,’ revealed NSW state crime commander Michael Fitzgerald.
‘Their lives have been at risk for some time.
‘They decided not to follow our recommendations to leave this state.’
Zahed was the savage king of the eshays, with his three-quarter length trackpants and innocuous subtly-branded white $895 Balenciaga t-shirts, surrounded by goons with trademark crossbody manbags.
His fearless propensity for instant ruthless violence earned him a terrifying reputation and his gangland power grab had put the massive price on his head.
Zahed was in the crosshairs of Sydney’s escalating gang war after his profile soared in the past year and he returned to Australia from a failed bid to flee to Lebanon.
The shaven-headed bikie boss had tried to get Lebanese citizenship but was foiled by an Interpol alert from Australian police warning of his drug world connections.
He flew back to Australia but relocated to Victoria after court restrictions in NSW – which limited his movements – made his underworld life too hard.
In January, he interrupted the Australian Open final between Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev in Melbourne when he returned late to his seat.
The crowd turned on him with abuse as he ambled down the aisle, holding up play midway through the crunch match, and the umpire ordered him: ‘Just sit in the nearest seat.’
Another video clip gave a clear insight into his volatile fury.
He was caught on CCTV talking to younger associate Mohamed Aouli at a private birthday function in Crown Casino’s a’Mare restaurant in Sydney’s Barangaroo.
Zahed leads him to a toilet before suddenly unleashing savage blow after blow as his sidekicks herd the unwitting victim back inside, before the door closes.
Zahed – the Comanchero’s sergeant-at-arms – was in line to take control of the national bikie gang network after leader Mick Murray was jailed while awaiting trial for a 2019 murder.
Police on Wednesday admitted that the Comancheros was Australia’s ‘largest criminal organisation.’
It follows links between the bikie gang and the Alameddine crime family – where the bikies act as brutal enforcers.
Zahed has been in and out of jail after setting his dog on one man, stamping on another man’s skull in a drug row – leaving him brain damaged – and shooting another after a wild street fight
Zahed has effectively been the recent leader of the NSW Comancheros since state boss Mark Buddle fled overseas in 2016 after he was linked to the murder of a Sydney security guard.
And Zahed’s own life of crime dates back 27 years to 1995 when he was first convicted of assault.
Since then, Zahed has been in and out of jail after setting his dog on one man, stamping on another man’s skull in a drug row – leaving him brain damaged – and shooting another after a wild street fight.
More recently, the Comancheros had been linked to an alleged $1million drugs haul of meth and MDMA seized by police in Bankstown last December which saw two other members of the bikie gang arrested.
Zahed was also said to have been making enemies while living in Victoria, which may also have sparked the hit.
But police phone call intercepts from 2020 also revealed he was on the hit list of the Alameddine’s deadly rivals, the Hamzy clan.
Investigators are also probing whether the latest shooting is linked to the execution of Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad two weeks earlier.
Detectives admit there is no shortage of suspects, even within the Comancheros.
‘The gangland murder a few weeks ago is one of the lines of inquiry but we can’t discount an internal conflict either,’ said homicide squad chief Danny Doherty.
‘There’s opportunities for people to take their place and there’s a real power struggle within organisations for people to take their place.’
Even before Tuesday’s shooting, one police source admitted: ‘We don’t know who would want that to happen.
‘In that world, someone’s always wanting to kill someone. They are always upset.’