“Misleading,” says ABC Ombudsman. Two years later a reporter sacked, others gone, and a police investigation into FriendlyJordies threats buried. Joshua Barnett investigates.
The Friendlyjordies saga reads like a crime drama, and it isn’t over. Jordan Shanks’ Bondi home was firebombed in November 2022, and police said retaliation for his videos was a “strong possibility”. Nearly four years on, Shanks says the people meant to investigate the threats against him, the ABC and the police, didn’t.
At the centre of it is Mahmood Fazal, a Four Corners reporter who, Shanks’ producer alleges, passed on threats from the Alameddine crime network. Fazal denies it. In 2024 the ABC stood by their reporter and told the producer to take his fears to the police.
Two years later, Fazal has been sacked, five of his stories have been pulled, and the ABC Ombudsman has found two of them gave audiences “a misleading impression”.
Sick of being quiet
On 22 October Shanks posted a 39-minute video on Fazal. “Sick of being quiet,” he says. Much of it is a personal attack on Fazal.
Its central charge is aimed at the ABC.
“When first faced with these allegations, these investigative journalists, let me emphasise, literally investigative journalists, you know what they did? They refused to investigate,” Shanks says.
The public record backs the outline of that complaint.
Who’s who in the Mahmood Fazal affair. Dashed lines are alleged or disputed; Fazal denies passing on threats. Graphic: Michael West Media
What was alleged in 2024
In May 2024 Kate McClymont reported in the SMH that Fazal, a former Mongols bikie turned Four Corners reporter, had passed on “menacing messages from an organised crime gang” to Shanks’ producer, Kristo Langker.
Shanks’ Bondi home had been set alight on 23 November 2022. Police linked it to a fire reported at the same house six days earlier.
Three months before that he had published a video called “Coronation”, about the property developer that had briefly employed former deputy premier John Barilaro. It used photos of alleged Alameddine associates first published in a Rolling Stone story by Fazal.
According to Langker’s police statement, quoted by Sally Neighbour in The Monthly, Fazal met him and his lawyer, former Four Corners reporter Mark Davis, in January 2024. The statement records Fazal saying: “These people kill people. If you don’t take the video down something bad is going to happen”.
Senator Sarah Henderson read the same words into the Senate record in May 2026.
Davis told The Monthly: “There’s no doubt in my mind – unquestionably he was there brazenly passing on a death threat.”
Fazal denied it.
He told the Herald he had “not engaged in any unlawful conduct” and that the story was “a case of attempting to stereotype me”. NSW Police told the Herald their investigation into the threats had stalled because Fazal was reluctant to give a statement, which “impacted any further investigative avenues”.
Shanks had already pulled the video, in February 2024, saying it came down “because of death threats against multiple people”.
There is no suggestion that Coronation, any member of the Nahas family or John Barilaro had any knowledge of or involvement in the attack on Shanks’ home.
“Aghast”. The ABC’s response
The ABC’s answer ran in McClymont’s story itself. A spokesperson told the SMH that Fazal “does extremely challenging, impactful and important public interest journalism for the ABC and the ABC stands by his reporting”.
Four Corners went further. Its staff, from reporters to the executive producer, issued a statement that Media Watch would later quote: “Mahmood is an award-winning, ethical, and fact-based reporter of the highest standard. The entire team rejects any suggestion to the contrary.”
Neighbour reports some of that team were “aghast” the endorsement was given in their name “without the allegations having been examined or tested”.
Langker wrote to the ABC, including to news director Justin Stevens. The reply, according to The Monthly: “We have no evidence of any illegality or misconduct by an ABC employee. If you have any evidence … please report it to the authorities.”
Langker wrote again, saying he and Shanks still feared for their safety. Stevens answered six weeks later, telling him the place to report it “is to the police”. Police had told the Herald in May 2024 that their investigation had stalled.
“I was astounded the ABC didn’t do anything, absolutely astounded. They didn’t even blink,” Davis told The Monthly.
The ABC’s answer to a warning about its own reporter was to point to
a police inquiry that had stalled.
Fazal stayed at Four Corners until he went on leave in late 2025.
The Mahmood Fazal affair, 2022 to 2026. The dashed outline marks a disputed claim; Fazal denies passing on threats. Graphic: Michael West Media
The Downfall was a podcast.
What finally moved the ABC was a side job. In September 2025 Fazal appeared on a podcast, Word on the Street, with Ryan Naumenko.
ABC Media Watch reported in October that it was sponsored by an online casino with a Costa Rican address, and published purported texts in which Fazal asked to be paid in cash so as not to “trip up work stuff”. The ABC said Fazal’s manager withdrew endorsement after the interview aired with gambling ads.
Days later the Herald published further alleged texts about Shanks. Fazal said one was fabricated and the rest were taken out of context. Independent outlet Lamestream later reported that the most incendiary of them “appear to have substantial discrepancies and inconsistencies that suggest they may be fraudulent”. His lawyers sent Nine a concerns notice seeking $800,000.
Shanks announced a hiatus “until further notice” within days of the Herald texts.
On 28 May 2026 ABC managing director Hugh Marks told Senate Estimates that Fazal had been “terminated”.
Marks said the investigation “specifically related to the external work request that Mr Fazal made”. Liberal senator Sarah Henderson read the 2024 allegations into the record and asked whether they were material. Marks replied: “That relates to the comments that you’re making about a 2024 analysis of whether Mr Fazal’s reporting the ABC should stand by at the time”.
Editorial director Gavin Fang told the committee “the appropriate way to deal with those allegations was to refer them to police”. Pressed on whether the ABC should have taken the allegations more seriously at the time, he said: “I’m not aware of what else was conducted.”
Watch the full Senate Estimates exchange, 28 May 2026:
Stevens had announced his resignation the day before, citing “reasons both professional and personal”. The ABC has said senior managers from that period left for unrelated reasons.
Pulled stories and the Ombudsman finding
Then the journalism itself came apart. On 24 July the ABC removed Cocaine Nation and Meth Highway over “concerns identified about the veracity of certain sources”.
A Background Briefing episode followed a week later. On 17 August the ABC pulled two more stories and cut a segment from a third, saying its verification policies for anonymous interviewees “were not followed to a level that meets our editorial standards”.
Media Watch found that “Remy”, who appeared as a cocaine dealer in a hired luxury car, described her appearance as “an acting role and a favour to Mahmood”. Media Watch said her account should be treated with caution. It also established the ABC had paid for the car.
The ABC Ombudsman, Fiona Cameron, found both Four Corners programs breached standards for accuracy, fair and honest dealing and integrity. One person appeared in Cocaine Nation “in two significantly different ways”. She found the breaches flowed from “management’s failure to properly interrogate”, “inadequate upward referral” and “a culture that favoured limiting knowledge about sources”.
The ABC has accepted the Ombudsman’s recommendations in full. The failure she describes is the one the ABC showed in 2024, aimed at his sources rather than at him.
Fazal rejects “the suggestion that I fabricated, staged or knowingly published information that I believed to be false”. He said his stories were approved and cross-checked before broadcast, and accused the ABC of making him a scapegoat. In September he dropped his Fair Work claim against the ABC.
Who answered for the fire?
One man has been jailed over the attack on Shanks’ home. Tufi Junior Tauese-Auelua, described by police as an Alameddine associate, received five years in September 2025 for the arson and an unrelated bashing.
The court was told he was hired “as some kind of muscle”. AAP reported that the motive “was not detailed in court” and that the case against a second man was dropped for insufficient evidence.
In December 2023 police said “at least four people were involved”. MWM could find no report of anyone charged with ordering the attack.
“This story alone uprooted our lives for years.
We had to go into hiding for months,” Shanks says.
MWM has asked NSW Police whether Fazal was ever interviewed as part of the arson investigation, and whether anyone has been charged with ordering the attack. There is no suggestion Fazal had any knowledge of or involvement in the firebombing.
Josh is a journalist, musician and cameraman who is working with Michael West Media to develop The West Report and other visual content across major social media channels, as well as researching and writing articles.