Hells Angel bikie gang tried to sell NSW Police its own stolen gun back — but they refused to pay
HOURS after a detective left his police-issued firearm in a backpack under a table at McDonald’s, senior police were faced with a difficult choice. They could heed to the demands of a bikie gang and pay thousands of dollars to get the gun back, or risk letting it circulate in Sydney’s underworld, hoping one day it turned up.
The police chose the latter, hedging their bets — and crossing their fingers — that the Glock pistol would not be used to orchestrate a serious crime.
The bet paid off. A few months later the stolen gun was discovered during a raid on a house near Bankstown in Sydney’s southwest.
As the hunt to find a police Glock semi automatic pistol stolen recently from a detective’s unlocked car in Rydalmere continues, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal two other cases in which police Glock handguns have ended up in the hands of criminals and where eventually retrieved.
In April, 2013, an officer who was with colleagues at McDonald’s in Mascot accidentally left his back pack — with his Glock and ammunition inside — in the fast food restaurant.He raced back to find it less than an hour later, however local thief Benjamin John Aurisch had made already the most of the opportunity and pinched it.
CCTV from inside McDonald’s captured Aurisch curiously peering at the unattended bag as he walked past it several times. He eventually rummaged through it and hit the jackpot.
By the time police caught up with him hours later, Aurisch had already off-loaded the gun.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation confirmed the police gun passed through several hands until it reached the local Hells Angels bikie gang chapter.
Police found out, but negotiations to get the weapon off the street fell apart when the bikie gang demanded police buy their own Glock back for a hefty sum, in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Fortunately a few months later the gun turned up during a search warrant.
A NSW Police spokesman said all investigative efforts were made to get firearms back when they fell into the hands of criminals.
“Thankfully in relation to police firearms, it's a rare occurrence,” he said.
A Glock ripped from the hip of a police officer at the Wetherill Park Police Station in 2006 vanished for several years.
Constable Elizabeth Roth was on-duty alone at the southwest Sydney police station when she was shot with her own handgun.A 32-year-old man climbed over the front counter, attacked Constable Roth with two knives before pulling her gun out of her holster.
She was shot in the stomach but survived.
“David” Ngoc Qui Khuu was later charged over the shooting but the gun’s whereabouts remained a mystery for years.
It turned up in April, 2013, when Gang Squad officers banged down the door of a house in Sefton and found it stashed behind a couch.
It was the home of low-level drug dealer Edgar Khoury, who was the target of an unrelated investigation.
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