CIA: Michael Kanaan: Shoot to Kill

The next episode of Crime Investigation Australia examines one of Sydney’s most notorious underworld figures, Michael Kanaan.

Kanaan killed three men in the late 1990s, before he was finally captured in a wild shootout with Sydney police.

Kanaan dealt in illicit drugs in King’s Cross for organised crime figure Danny Karam. By 1998, at age 23, he had become a ‘lieutenant’ to Karam.

In July 1998, he made a passing comment to some people involved in a fight outside the Five Dock Hotel in Sydney’s inner west. When one of them approached him, Kanaan suddenly drew a pistol and shot two men dead. His attempt to shoot a third failed as he had run out of bullets.

A few months later, Kanaan led his gang on a drive-by shooting attack on the police station at Lakemba in Sydney, spraying the building with bullets.

In December 1998, he organised the brutal execution of his underworld boss Karam. A week later, Kanaan was finally cornered by police and arrested after a shoot-out in inner-city Rushcutters Bay, in which Constable Chris Patrech was wounded.

Hosted by Steve Liebmann, this episode features detailed re-enactments and interviews with parents of two of Kanaan’s murder victims, an eyewitness to one of his attacks and key Police Task Force Detectives.

It airs Thursday August 27, at 7:30pm on Crime & Investigation.