Australian organized crime figure found dead in luxury car

Former Australian organized figure, Ricky Ciano was found dead in a BMW late Tuesday evening in the small town of Oberon, 180 km west of Sydney, local media reported on Thursday.

The 35 year-old victim, a high ranking member of Australia's largest outlaw motorcycle gang, the Rebels, vanished in Sydney on Saturday night only months after surviving an alleged assassination plot for deserting the gang, the media said.

Thought by police to be involved in drug trafficking, theft, prostitution, extortion and murder, the gang has more than 2,000 members reaching across all of Australia.

In 2015, he survived an earlier attempt on his life, when fellow Rebel member Abuzar Sultani was arrested and accused of plotting to kill the Ciano.

It is believed Ciano deserted the gang recently and was in hiding with some reports alleging there was a 1.5 million-Australian-dollar (1.1 million-U.S.-dollar) bounty on his head.

Police have not confirmed the cause of death, but are treating it as suspicious, with a postmortem to be completed in the coming days, reported the media.

One of his friends told reporters, "he caused problems, he ran out of places to hide." Enditem