ambushed and shot<\/a> outside his home in Greenacre, in southwest Sydney, as he was about to drive to work about 6am (local time) on Tuesday.<\/p>\nHe underwent surgery after being left with serious leg wounds from the attack and remained in hospital.<\/p>\n
New South Wales Police said an SUV was found shortly after the incident, on fire, and they believed both incidents to be linked.<\/p>\n
Around 12.45am on Wednesday, police were called to Menzies Circuit in St Clair after shots were fired at a home. A woman in her 50s was inside but uninjured.<\/p>\n
Shortly after, emergency services responded to a car fire on Freeman Street in Colyton. Fire and Rescue NSW extinguished the blaze and the vehicle was seized for forensic analysis.<\/p>\n
About 6.05am, officers were called to Hunt Street in Guildford West, where a house and nearby vehicle were found on fire. Both were extinguished and no injuries were reported.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, six properties were raided across Sydney, with two 19-year-old men, an 18-year-old man, and a 16-year-old arrested over the shooting of Utai and the firebombing and shooting of homes linked to his son Iziah.<\/p>\n
Iziah Utai, believed to be overseas, is a former associate of the once-powerful Alameddine crime family and police this week said they were investigating his links to a group dubbed the “Coconut Cartel”<\/p>\n
Three vehicles, 1kg of cocaine, knuckle dusters, electronics and clothing relevant to the investigation were seized during the warrants, NSW Police said.<\/p>\n
Police set up a dedicated task force to crack down on the escalating gang violence, furnishing it with more than 100 investigators.<\/p>\n
Matt Utai starred in the 2004 NRL grand final, scoring two tries as his Bulldogs knocked off the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n
His former club said it was deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the shooting.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand and Samoa international played 167 NRL games, joining the Wests Tigers in 2011 and spending three seasons with the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four teenagers, including a 16-year-old boy, have been arrested over a spate of shootings and firebombings in Sydney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-292749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}