Excavators are conducting a deeper search of a rural property on Sydney's northwest outskirts where the body of gangland figure Raphael Joseph is believed to have been disposed of four years ago.
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The 37-year-old was last seen in March 2014 getting into a silver Commodore at McDonald's in Auburn. He was likely killed by fellow drug dealers, with greed a possible motive.
Search crews, including the riot and bomb squads, are combing a Putty Road property at Blaxland Ridge where Joseph's body could be buried.
On Wednesday, excavators and other equipment moved in after police identified sites of interest.
Footage of the property released by NSW Police shows a collection of 44-gallon drums, with one theory that Joseph's body was put into a drum before being burnt, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Homicide detectives say they know the identities of several people involved in the murder and the suspects should "expect a visit" in the near future.
Police have also recovered the silver Commodore along with a white Toyota HiAce believed to have been used to transport Joseph's body.
Six years before he vanished, Joseph was extradited from the US over his suspected role in a fatal shooting of Dimitri Debaz in Sydney's west in 2002.
The case against him was dropped, but Joseph had pleaded with US authorities to keep him in the country, claiming he had a $100,000 bounty on his head.
NSW Supreme Court Justice Graham Barr in 2004 referred to Joseph as "a man of bad character" while sentencing his friend Sandro Mirad to at least 18 months behind bars for his role in the killing of Debaz.
Mirad, who pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder, requested protection due to numerous threats received from relatives and associates of Debaz after the murder.
The violence included shots into his family home and a hand grenade being thrown into a friend's house.
The sentencing also revealed the extent to which Joseph himself was being hunted.
In 2003 one of Joseph's cousins was "kidnapped, assaulted, shot in the leg and interrogated about the whereabouts of Joseph", Justice Barr said.
Shots were also fired into a home that belonged to the parents of his friend Ramon Youmaran.
Two other men were also kidnapped, assaulted, shot and interrogated as crime figures became increasingly ruthless in their search for Joseph.
Joseph fled to the US but was arrested in San Diego in 2006 and eventually returned two years later.
Australian Associated Press
