Fadi Ibrahim pleads guilty to possessing suspected proceeds of crime

Eastern suburbs identity Fadi Ibrahim has pleaded guilty to possessing the suspected proceeds of crime just days before he was due to go on trial on charges laid five years ago in connection to his brother Michael’s criminal activities.

Ibrahim,48,was extradited from Dubai in 2017 alongside his brother,and charged with dealing with the proceeds of crime in excess of $1 million,following a multi-agency sting targeting two international crime syndicates.

Michael Ibrahim was charged with conspiring to import more than 1.9 tonnes of drugs from the Netherlands and,in 2020,was sentenced to 30 years’ jail after pleading guilty two years earlier.

In August,his sentence was reduced to 25 years,with a non-parole period of 15 years,following a successful appeal.

The two men are the younger brothers of Kings Cross nightclub identity John Ibrahim,who has not been accused of any offences or connection to the conspiracy.

In 2009,Fadi Ibrahim was shot five times in a suspected gangland hit as he sat in a black Lamborghini outside his then-home in Castle Cove,on Sydney’s lower north shore. He was in a coma for nearly three weeks.

On Wednesday,five years since he was charged,and one week before his trial was due to start,Ibrahim pleaded guilty in the NSW District Court to the lesser charge of possessing the suspected proceeds of crime worth more than $100,000.

During Michael Ibrahim’s sentencing in 2020,the court heard he had conspired to import more than 1.7 tonnes of MDMA,136 kilograms of cocaine and 15 kilograms of methylamphetamine into Australia.

But the plan to import the drugs was in fact an undercover police operation targeting the syndicate operating between Australia,Dubai and the Netherlands,and an associate to whom Michael Ibrahim had promised “I’ll move anything you want” was an undercover police operative.

Fadi Ibrahim was freed on $2 million bail in 2017. A court initially ordered he live under effective house arrest at his clifftop mansion in an affluent suburb in Sydney’s east. After three months,he had the house arrest conditions overturned in lieu of a 9pm-7am curfew.

In a statement on Wednesday,the Australian Federal Police confirmed he is the last of 19 Australians who were charged as part of the Operation Veyda investigation to remain before the courts.

He remains on bail and is due to face a sentencing hearing on February 28.

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