AAP
A crackdown on NSW crime gangs has revealed the illegal importation of more than 200 Glock pistols, along with plots by rival bikies to use explosives against each other.
Five men appeared in court in Sydney on Wednesday, a day after police raids across the city, the state's south coast and Port Stephens.
Artist and convicted criminal Goran Mackic faced Central Local Court accused of offering to sell three sticks of explosives to fuel warfare between outlaw bikie gangs.
Police allege the 52-year-old, from Callala Bay on the south coast, attempted to sell the explosives for $8000 last April at Annandale, in Sydney's inner west.
The court heard he was trying to offload them to one gang to be used against another.
"The sale of explosives to criminal organisations does pose a very real risk to public safety," prosecutor Adam Checkley told the court during Mackic's failed bail application.
None of the alleged items were recovered, with Mackic's lawyer David Leney arguing the incident was a case of mistaken identity and informing the court his client was pleading not guilty to two charges of supplying and possessing explosives.
Mackic was convicted on two counts of manslaughter in 2002 and released from custody in 2004.
However, Mr Leney said the charges stemmed from a home invasion in which Mackic was not an active participant.
He said he'd been convicted of being an accessory after the fact because he did not report the incident.
Police said one of the charges against another of those arrested, Hells Angel bikie boss Felix Lyle, 56, related to the attempted sale of 50 Glock pistols.
Detectives failed to locate the guns but are investigating links between the alleged deal and 220 Glocks illegally imported from Germany last year.
"(Investigations) are still ongoing and these inquiries are being made as we speak," Acting Assistant Commissioner Arthur Katsogiannis told reporters on Wednesday.
In addition to Mackic, four other men appeared in local courts in Sydney and Newcastle charged with drugs and weapons offences.
One of them was granted bail while the other three did not apply for it.
Police expect to charge five more men, bringing the total facing charges to 19 among a total of 30 people arrested.
Strike Force Alistair comprised 350 officers who took part in the Tuesday's dawn raids, executing 30 warrants.
Senior members of the Hells Angels, Comancheros and Rebels, as well as Asian and Balkan crime gangs, were among the targets.
Three of the raids were deemed high risk, requiring tactical police and negotiators to coax occupants from their homes.
The arrests were the culmination of two years' work involving the NSW Crime Commission and police, 95 surveillance warrants, 41 telephone intercept warrants and the monitoring of more than 500,000 phone calls.
Officers seized 17 guns, $350,000 cash, heroin, ice, steroids and pseudoephedrine.
Police said the raids came after a number of Alistair arrests three weeks ago over a conspiracy to import 400kg of amphetamines.
Two clandestine drug labs were found and police seized a Harley Davidson motorbike, two luxury cars and 80 cases of wine worth $150,000.
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