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