ONE of Australia's most feared gangland enforcers was shot 10 times in broad daylight on Saturday while sitting outside a Melbourne café.
The attack is just the latest instalment in a long history of savage gang deaths including the brazen bashing of a bikie with a metal bollard at an airport.
Gavin "Capable" Preston, 50, was hit with 10 bullets in a shocking and public attack at the weekend which has brought gang crime back to the surface.
Police are now on the hunt for two men who are suspected to have gunned down the notorious criminal. No arrests have been made.
Preston was released from prison earlier this year after serving more than a decade for the 2012 killing of drug dealer Adam Khoury.
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His death has comes amid an apparent surge in gang crime.
Just last week, a 14-year-old boy who police allege is a known gang member was arrested over the abduction of a Melbourne school student.
The student, also 14, was allegedly forced into a car by a group of people before falling from the moving vehicle, suffering "life-altering injuries", ABC News reported.
Police charged a second teenager, 15, in relation to the attack on Saturday.
Gang violence has plagued communities to the point where various state governments have had to intervene and set up groups such as the Crime Gang Task Force in South Australia.
Outlaw motorcycle gangs in the state are known to be involved in drugs, murder, and extortion, while those in Western Australia are usually associated with the drug trade.
In early 2009, the tragic consequences of warring bikie gangs became all too apparent when Comanchero Motorcycle Club and Hells Angels came face to face at Sydney Airport.
A Hells Angels bikie, 29, was beaten to death in plain view of witnesses, leading to 14 murder arrests including more than 10 Comancheros and two Hells Angels.
Just hours before the attack, Sydney-based Bandidos had been involved in a series of drive-by shootings in Auburn, New South Wales believed to be linked to a feud with another club, Notorious, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Four people were killed in Canberra and Sydney in the space of a week, prompting the New South Wales government to increase its anti-gang squad from 50 members to 125.
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Mediator and debt collector Domenic "Mick" Gatto, 68, is a high-profile member of Australia's underworld, having once been part of Melbourne's inner-city Carlton Crew along with Alphonse Gangitano, Mario Condello and Graham Kinniburgh who were killed in the gangland war that ran from 1998 to 2010.
In fact, he is so well-known that an Australian tourist recently and immediately recognised him as the heavily-tattooed man relaxing by the pool in Bali.
Gatto earned national fame in 2008 when he was played by Simon Westaway in popular crime drama Underbelly.
He shot dead hitman Andrew "Benji" Veniamin in the Carlton restaurant La Porchella in March 2004 but claimed self defence and was acquitted of murder.
Gavin Preston was once suspected of plotting to kill him.
Preston was nabbed by police, along with his close associate Nabil Maghnie, 44, outside Melbourne Town Hall in 2011.
It was believed the pair were heading to shoot Gatto at a restaurant, though Preston publicly denied the allegation.
Maghnie himself has a reputation for being one of the country's most dangerous men and is suspected of non-fatal shootings, drive-by attacks, and drug trafficking.
He and Preston are rumoured to have been behind the 2011 ambush of Bandido bikie Toby Mitchell at Brunswick.
Maghnie survived being shot twice - once by rival gangster George Marrogi - but was killed the third time in 2020.
Preston's death comes after Korey Kesici, 22, was last year killed in a similar execution-style shooting in Melbourne.
The young man was gunned down outside his home.
He was shot multiple times after he went to speak with men sitting in a stolen white BMW and died on the street in front of his parents and sisters.
The Herald Sun reported at the time that convicted killer George Marrogi, 34, was being investigated in relation to Kesici's murder, despite the fact he was locked inside Victoria's maximum security Barwon Prison.
It was alleged Marrogi had been running his gang Notorious Crime Family from behind bars.
An hour after Kesici's murder, a cryptic message appeared on Marrogi's Instagram: "Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."
Marrogi is serving time for the 2016 murder of fellow crime figure Kadir Ors and is suspected of being involved in other shootings.
He was a prime suspect when Nabil Maghnie was shot and wounded in 2016.
Matthew Johnson, 50, is another feared member of Australia's underworld, especially after he murdered drug boss Carl Williams in 2010 at Barwon Prison.
It has been suggested the killing was related to the severe potential implications that may have arisen if Williams had cooperated with police.
Johnson also shared telling insights to social media, such as the poem: "Problems are solved with mayhem and violence.
"Surrounded by concrete and a code of silence.
"People live and people die.
"We operate on an eye for an eye."
In a conversation with the ABC aired this week, veteran police reporter at the Herald Sun Mark Butler said Preston's death did not necessarily indicate imminent war.
He said: "There's been a number of incidents in the last year or so...
"I don't see any indication of any - any firm indication - of any gangland war erupting here.
"There's always these predictions after people are shot. After Nabil Maghnie was shot [there were predictions] there would be follow-up bloodshed and there wasn't so it's not a guaranteed thing."
But Mr Butler said some people would be "contemplating backing up" over Preston's death.
