A man who allegedly let a three-year-old child pose with a gun is among the latest to be arrested by a New South Wales police taskforce working to find those responsible for a spate of drug-related shootings in Sydney.
The 21-year-old was arrested and charged on Tuesday after police allegedly found a photo of him posing alongside a child holding a pistol.
NSW police said the photo was found on a phone during a raid of a home in July while investigating the alleged gangland execution of Marvin Oraiha in May.
Det Ch Supt Jason Weinstein, who is the head of Taskforce Magnus, said the alleged images were “appalling and very disturbing”.
“I don’t think it gets any more serious than that,” he said. “It’s that disregard for life for the community … which is what Magnus is here to stamp out.”
The man was charged with 13 offences including four counts of possessing an unauthorised pistol.
It is one of several arrests made since the taskforce was set up.
The taskforce brings together 100 investigators and plain-clothed police officers to make connections between the string of shootings, beginning with the daylight execution of underworld figure Alen Moradian in Bondi Junction in late June.
Police have drawn up a list of about 150 people described as the “workforce” of organised crime in Sydney.
“They are very complex inquiries,” Weinstein said.
“We are progressing very well in respect to all of those homicides, and other shooting matters at the present time.”
But he said police are yet to establish any “firm suspects” for the recent shootings.
Five people were shot in Sydney over five days last week, including a man in his 20s who was killed on Thursday morning and Ahmad Al-Azzam who was shot in his car before dying in hospital a few days later.
The criminal lawyer Mahmoud Abbas was shot and seriously injured in his driveway in Greenacre. There is no suggestion Abbas was involved in any criminal activity.
Police said connections between some of the victims were being established but it was too early to say that if of them were linked.
Weinstein said work was being done within communities in an effort to divert children away from crime amid rising concern about the age of some offenders.
“It’s not just about arresting our way out of this. It’s about trying to get into the young kids, divert them away from being enticed into organised crime or the attraction to the money that may come from that.”
The police minister, Yasmin Catley, said the taskforce was “just warming up”.
“Those responsible for criminal activity on Sydney streets will be held to account and they will feel the full force of the law,” she said.
