breaking my silence

Summary

Friendlyjordies presenter Jordan Shanks revisits the firebombing of his home and the controversy surrounding former ABC reporter Mammud Fazal. Shanks argues that later events made his earlier reporting on alleged links between New South Wales politics, property development, and organised crime seem less far-fetched than it was initially treated.

Coronation Property video and alleged threats

Shanks says his 2022 video scrutinising Coronation Property—where former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro later worked—examined the company’s links to corporate lawyer John Lander and Andy Nass, whom Shanks describes as having criminal associations. After Shanks’s home was firebombed in November 2022, NSW Police charged an associate of the Alameddine crime family in connection with the attack. Shanks says police publicly suggested it may have been retaliation for one of his videos.

According to Shanks, in early 2024 Fazal contacted people on Shanks’s team, claiming that Nass and Alameddine associates were threatening him and Shanks unless the Coronation video was removed. Shanks says he took it down because he feared for the safety of people around him. He criticises NSW Police for not adequately investigating the alleged threats or questioning Nass. He also says the ABC was given evidence but initially declined to examine it, while publicly defending Fazal and his journalism.

ABC investigation and reporting concerns

Shanks says the ABC acted only after a separate scandal surfaced in 2025. Messages published by Media Watch, which Fazal disputed, appeared to show him seeking cash for a podcast with Melbourne underworld figure Ryan Ninkco, despite telling the ABC the podcast was unpaid. The podcast was reportedly sponsored by an online casino. Other messages attributed to Fazal included hostile comments about Shanks and references to the Alameddines.

Shanks says the ABC began an internal investigation, which ended with Fazal’s dismissal. He also notes that several ABC executives and producers later resigned or lost their positions.

The video broadens its criticism to Fazal’s Four Corners reporting. Shanks describes concerns raised by ABC colleagues about whether some anonymous criminal sources were genuine or had been played by an associate appearing in different roles. He also highlights a Media Watch report in which a woman featured as a cocaine dealer said she had been acting a role, and that the ABC had paid for the car used in the segment.

Shanks argues that these examples raise questions about the accuracy and verification of Fazal’s stories, and about the ABC’s willingness to scrutinise a colleague it had publicly backed.

Shanks’s conclusion

Shanks rejects the idea that Fazal was simply an unconventional reporter whose work was misunderstood by cautious bureaucrats. He argues that Fazal’s claimed access to the criminal world was not matched by meaningful investigative reporting on powerful people connected to those circles.

The video’s central charge is that police and the ABC failed to respond seriously to earlier warnings, and that the ABC’s defence of Fazal damaged its credibility as an investigative broadcaster. The allegations recounted in the video are presented as Shanks’s account and as claims reported by other outlets; Fazal’s work and some of the attributed messages are disputed.

Presenter and contributors

• Presenter: Jordan Shanks (Friendlyjordies)
• Journalists and reporting cited: Kate McClymont, Mark Davis, Stephen Rice, Sally Neighbour, and Media Watch