In an escalation of Sydney's increasingly brazen gangland wars, NSW Police on Tuesday pounced on a group of men driving through Revesby in Sydney's southwest with balaclavas and pistols.
The three men - Kevin Mundine, 19, Greall Tighe, 18, and 26-year-old Tyrone Tuiluga Rio - have been charged with conspiracy to murder, accused of trying to intercept and kill their target as he picked up a child at a daycare centre.
The public wasn't in danger because the the men, who were travelling in two cars, were under tight surveillance and contingencies were in place, Assistant Commissioner Scott Cook said.
"They were never going to be allowed to make it to a (daycare) centre - the collateral damage would have been far too great," he told reporters on Wednesday.
The intended victim's identity hasn't been revealed.
The plot was believed to have been driven by "an internal matter" with the target allegedly chosen because of a dispute within an organised crime network, police said.
The targeted man is known to police and is co-operating with authorities.
Tighe and Rio faced Bankstown Local Court on Wednesday afternoon. Neither applied for bail and they were remanded to appear in court on December 3.
Tighe appeared in the court dock, wearing a blue plastic forensic suit and with a number of bruises on his face.
Mundine was remanded in custody before an expected court appearance on Thursday.
The three charged men were well known to police but were not believed to be high-ranking members of an organised crime group.
Police instead described them as junior guns for hire.
Mundine and Tighe were arrested in one car on The River Road in Revesby, while Rio was nabbed in a second vehicle nearby.
Three guns, balaclavas, body-worn cameras and jerry cans containing fuel were seized during searches of the two cars and a property linked to the men.
The cars were stolen and had cloned number plates, police allege.
The trio's behaviour during routine surveillance indicated they were going to do "something of a serious nature", Detective Superintendent Peter Faux said.
Tighe and Mundine are charged with multiple offences, including conspiracy to commit murder, possessing an unauthorised pistol, participating in a criminal group and breaching bail.
Rio is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and participating in a criminal group.
The alleged plot was uncovered during a routine surveillance operation in the Condell Park area, carried out under Strike Force Flodine.
Premier Chris Minns backed police after the dramatic arrest on a busy road that involved non-fatal bullets being fired.
"It's a reminder of how dangerous that job is and how we ask often young police officers to put themselves in harm's way to protect the public," he said.Â
Sydney has been in the grip of a gangland warfare since late 2024, with more than a dozen public shootings, arson attacks and assaults.
In the latest arrest by a 100-detective-strong taskforce, a 15-year-old was charged on Wednesday over allegations he staged a getaway car used by Dawood Zakaria's killers.
Zakaria, 32, died when the ute he and gangland figure Samimjan Azari were in was riddled with bullets in Granville on May 25.
14°C