Underworld crime figures who made headlines in 2023

Like clockwork, some of the Illawarra's most prominent and notorious crime figures wound up before Wollongong courthouse this year to confess to their actions from the petty to the ultra-violent.

Some of these recidivist offenders have made headlines in the Mercury for over a decade - and 2023 was no different.

Three out of the four in the list below are awaiting punishment for their latest crimes from behind bars.

Once dubbed Belinda 'Van Evil', the Wollongong woman became internationally infamous over her role in organising the murder of her father in 2001.

She was in the adjacent room in an Albion Park house while her friend Keith Schreiber hacked him to death with a tomahawk.

Van Krevel served a six-year jail sentence for her involvement in the murder. Since then, she has continued a life of crime.

In 2014, Van Krevel was jailed for stabbing a previous boyfriend in a Sydney apartment.

She was jailed again in 2017 for stealing an elderly woman's handbag, and returned to court in 2022 for a bizarre magazine heist.

In November 2023, Van Krevel solidified another serious crime on her record when she confessed to stabbing her boyfriend John Green after a verbal in a kebab shop.

Mr Green tried to call himself an ambulance, however, Van Krevel stood over him and stabbed him again, laughing as she said: "You can't get anyone better than me".

She is awaiting her sentence in custody.

It was another year of 'Tuff Luck' for Troy Fornaciari, so says the tattoo inscribed on his eye lids.

The one-time high-ranking Finks bikie has become one of the Illawarra's most instantly recognisable criminals, courtesy of his facial ink which includes 'Not Guilty' in running script on his left cheek.

In 2019, Fornaciari told a court he wanted to remove his tattoos and start a new life. He was sentenced to three years and six months jail for an affray that year.

The father-of-one was arrested by tactical police in 2022 on drug supply and wounding charges.

He was set to face a trial in August, 2023 after he pleaded not guilty, however, he made an 11^th hour confession minutes before it was about to begin.

"Yeah, I'm guilty," Fornaciari admitted at Wollongong District Court.

Fornaciari was in thousands of dollars of debt when he wounded a fellow alleged meth dealer, causing a three centimetre gash on his scalp.

He will learn his fate in March.

In 2018, former Brothers4Life gang leader Damien Featherstone made not-so-grand plans to shoot Fornaciari in broad daylight at the Wollongong CBD.

Featherstone started putting the wheels in motion in 2017. He was full of bravado, telling his right-hand man he had the bullets and guns to settle the score.

"Let's rock and roll," he told Andrew Coe in 2018.

He even organised a car to get there. Yet an empty fuel tank and a flat tyre ultimately meant the plans never came to fruition.

Featherstone fled to the ACT after his North Wollongong home was raided and he was locked up in a maximum security Canberra jail for crimes related to an ice-fuelled rampage.

Five years later, in February 2023, he was finally extradited back to Wollongong to face the conspiracy to shoot charges.

He up pleading guilty in September to the failed plot and remains behind bars.

One-time Finks bikie associate Jacob Nyrhinen revealed in court this year that he wears a knife around his neck to protect himself from Fornaciari.

Nyrhinen was brutally bashed by Fornaciari in 2017 after he crashed Fornaciari's $60,000 Harley Davidson during a ride in Dapto.

A few years later, Nyrhinen was stabbed 17 times by six inmates while on remand for serious domestic violence offences, after he terrorised his ex-partner.

Police pulled Nyrhinen over in May 2022 for a random breath test and busted him wearing an 18 centimetre steel knife around his neck.

He told police he wore it for "protection - with people like Troy Fornaciari after me". Nyrhinen pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July 2023.