$1million reward announced in Victoria Police murder investigation

Mohammad Keshtiar, known as 'Afghan Ali' was gunned down in South Yarra in 2023.

Transcript

00:00I'm here this morning to announce a $1 million award in relation to information that relates

00:07to the shooting murder of Mohammed Keshia, which occurred in South Yarra on the 4th of

00:15August 2023, just over 12 months ago.

00:20At about 11.37pm on that Friday night, the 4th of August, Mohammed was in company of

00:29a male associate and they were walking along Almeida Crescent in South Yarra when a grey

00:37coloured Toyota Prado slowly drove past them and a passenger in that vehicle fired a number

00:45of shots that hit Mohammed and he fell to the ground at that point in time.

00:52The associate that was with him managed to run away and he remained safe.

01:00The Toyota Prado then pulled up moments later and a passenger got out of that vehicle and

01:08ran over to Mohammed who was obviously incapacitated on the ground and fired a number of other

01:14shots at Mohammed.

01:17That offender then returned to the grey Prado and got back inside that vehicle and it drove

01:23off and it drove off along Almeida Crescent and turned left into Chapel Street heading

01:30north and we have CCTV footage of it then turning right into Alexandra Parade and travelling

01:39east along that road.

01:42Now as I say, he was struck a number of times and what we then know is that at about 4.38am

01:52on that Saturday morning, a Toyota Prado fitting the description of our offending vehicle was

02:00located on fire in Churchill Park Drive in Dever Hills.

02:06We believe obviously that this shooting incident of Mohammed Keshtia was a deliberate, planned

02:14and organised assassination of him on that particular evening of Friday 4 August 2023.

02:25We have credible information to suggest that there were other people involved in the burning

02:32of the Toyota Prado and we are particularly keen to hear from anyone that has any knowledge

02:39of those responsible for the shooting of Mohammed Keshtia and also those involved in the burning

02:46of that Toyota Prado that as I say occurred during the early hours of the following Saturday

02:52morning about five hours later.

02:56We know that our victim has connections to a number of organised crime groups and this

03:03has added complexity to the investigation and obviously makes it difficult for us to

03:10understand the true motive behind Mohammed's shooting.

03:16We also know that there are multiple individuals in the community who will have inside knowledge

03:21of who was involved A, in the shooting and B, who was involved in the burning of that

03:28vehicle and obviously the motive behind it.

03:32We're keen to hear from those people and we're hoping that that $1 million reward will be

03:37something that will make people think and hopefully come forward to share that information

03:44with us.