By day, Abuzar Sultani was a mid-20s master’s student at an Australian university who ran businesses in the construction industry.
But secretly, the man known as “Abs” or “Boss” within his sophisticated criminal gang was living a double life as a ruthless hitman and one of the most feared figures in the city’s underworld.
Now Sultani, 35, has confessed to a fifth murder – all committed in the space of three years – making him one of the most prolific killers in Australian history.
On Tuesday, the former Burwood Rebels leader-turned-independent gangster and hit man pleaded guilty in the New South Wales Supreme Court to the murder of former fellow biker gang member Mark Easter more than eight years ago.
Easter went missing before council workers found his body dumped in bushland in Sydney’s northern suburbs on June 23, 2015.
The 37-year-old had been shot four times in the back of the head with a .22 caliber pistol, Crown prosecutor David Scully told the court.
He was last seen hopping into a white van outside his Little Bay home three days earlier.
Sultani was due to face trial over the shooting before entering his plea this week and will be sentenced at a later date.
It marks the fifth time he has copped to a murder charge, having previously pleaded guilty to killing four other men between 2013 and 2016.
The murder of Easter is the last charge Sultani is currently facing after almost eight years of court hearings, many of which the media had been prevented from reporting on.
Sultani is already serving three consecutive life sentences without parole for the slayings of Michael Davey, Mehmet Yilmaz, and mafioso figure Pasquale Barbaro, all shot dead by Sultani within months of each other in 2016.
A Supreme Court judge described those hits as a “mindless killing spree”, finding they were carried out either to enhance the Sultani crew’s reputation or – in the case of Barbaro – for personal reasons.
In the two years since, he has been sentenced to another 20 years in jail for the bashing murder of low-level drug dealer Nikola Srbin and 28 years for a raft of charges including selling and possessing guns, drug supply, and directing his criminal network.
Raised as the third child in a working-class family in Sydney’s west, Sultani has been described as a “clearly intelligent” man who should have made a decent contribution to the community.
He has told a forensic psychologist he fell in with serious criminals during a stint in jail for armed robbery as a teenager before becoming embedded in the underworld after starting work in the construction industry.
Before his arrest and unmasking as a gangster, Sultani was studying for a master of business at Macquarie University and was a director of labor hire companies.
At the same time, his group had weapons, ballistic vests, thousands of rounds of ammo, drugs, and stolen cars stashed in safe houses around the city to facilitate serious criminal activity.
Sultani’s double life was brought undone in November 2016 when police pounced to dismantle his gang, having spent months surveilling the group with hidden cameras and bugs in their cars.
Justice Peter Hammill last year sentenced the hit man over the death of Srbin, who died from severe head injuries after being savagely beaten at the order of Sultani.
Justice Hamill said the gangster was receiving distinctions in his master’s degree at the time of his arrest at the age of 27.
“A lot could be said about this young man and his transmogrification from a shy, quiet, intelligent middle child of a conservative, hardworking family to a notorious killer and gangster,” Justice Hamill said.
“It is a sad waste of life.”
During a separate sentencing in December, the NSW District Court heard Sultani had reflected on how “ruthless and cold-hearted” he had been during his criminal career.
He hoped to be moved out of the state’s highest security prison to take part in courses as he faces the rest of his days behind bars.