Mejid Hamzy: Bassam Hamzy’s brother part of Sydney’s criminal underbelly
Jailed gangster Bassam Hamzy’s slain younger brother Mejid Hamzy, 44, was quietly one of the major players in Sydney’s criminal underbelly even as he ran a gourmet chocolate and dessert bar.
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Mascarpone with rose water and strawberry marinated in Cointreau syrup — and a side of murder and methamphetamine.
Mejid Hamzy, 44, was nowhere near as notorious as his publicity-loving younger brother Bassam Hamzy, but he was quietly one of the major players in Sydney’s criminal underbelly even as he ran a gourmet chocolate and dessert bar.
Police believe that in October 2016, he was one of the killers of Hamad Assaad, 29, who had the word ‘Executioner’ tattooed across his chest. Assaad was linked to the attempted murder of Mejid’s aunt, family matriarch Maha Hamze, 44, who was shot in the legs as she stood at the front door of her home at Auburn Rd, Auburn, in 2013.
Just last week, on October 14, Mejid was charged with possessing drugs and was due to appear before Bankstown Local Court on November 4. He beat drug importation charges in 2019.
The crime commission also sought to seize the other duplex Mejid built on the same block which had been rented by underworld figure Safwan Charbaji before he was shot dead in a gunfight outside a Condell Park smash repair business in April 2016. The crime commission was also seizing another house of his in Albert Rd, Auburn, which is rented out. The homes are owned by Mejid ‘s company HZY International Pty Ltd.
Mejid Hamzy’s main occupation seems to have been as a dessert guru. He used to own Burwood’s Melt Chocolate Bar where reviewers gushed over the “gourmet venue with a focus on organic, premium and fresh ingredients”.
But he was always in the background as the rest of his family was covered in blood — his mother Lola and aunt Maha both shot in attempted murders, and his cousin Mahmoud Hamzy accidentally shot dead by bullets meant for another cousin, Mohammed Hamzy, 35, known as Little Crazy and LC.
Brother Bassam Hamzy was jailed for a 1999 murder.
Mejid Hamzy grew up in Auburn in a family with parents Lola and Khaled, who had married in Lebanon in 1975.
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He was the oldest in the family with younger brother Bassam, sister Mejida, and twin brothers, Hayssam and Ghassan, the Supreme Court was told in 2002.
Their dad was a member of the Lebanese Army before migrating to Australia to escape the unrest in his homeland. Khaled Hamzy went to jail when Mejid was around 12 for his role in a sophisticated drug syndicate and died recently after a long illness.
While in custody, the father severed ties with his family because he disapproved of Mejida’s marriage in a dispute that split the family for a time.
Company records show that Mejid was setting up the Melt Chocolate Bar in 2012 at the same time as Bassam Hamzy’s Brothers 4 Life were involved in internal warfare between the Hamzys’ Lebanese Bankstown BFL chapter and the Afghan BFL Blacktown chapter.
Bassam Hamzy formed BFL from his jail cell at Lithgow in 2007 with cousins Ghassan Hamzy, 42, and Mohammed Hamzy.
His mother Maha was shot on March 9, 2013. On October 28 that year, an attempt was made on Mohammed’s life but another cousin, Mahmoud Hamzy, was shot dead in the head by mistake at Revesby Heights.
A year later, Mejid was said to be livid as his mother Lola, 57, was rushed to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition after being shot in the stomach at her Auburn home. She survived.
On October 20, 2012, three boxes said to have contained clothing arrived by FedEx in Sydney addressed to a Mr Peter Suca. Inside was 5.939kg of methamphetamine.
Evidence at the trials of Mejid Hamzy and another man, Gianmarco Romolo, relied on both men using mobile phones and email addresses in the name of Peter Suca and CCTV recordings of them at internet cafes. The prosecution case was that the two men conspired to secure the release of the boxes.
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Police found a receipt was from the Melt Chocolate Cafe. On the back of the invoice was written the consignment details. The men got separate trials. Romolo was initially convicted in the District Court and jailed for 11 years six months. He later won an appeal against his conviction.
As Mejid Hamzy was awaiting a retrial, Hamad Assaad was gunned down by two masked men outside his Georges Hall home on October 25, 2016. Police believe one of the shooters was Mejid but no one has been convicted over the murder. The only person charged was a 24-year-old plumber alleged to have been behind the wheel, but he was acquitted.
Assaad was a suspect in the attempted assassination of mafia figure Pasquale Barbaro in Leichhardt in 2015.
In February last year, the District Court ordered a permanent stay of the methamphetamine proceedings against Mejid Hamzy after the prosecution added “unknown others” to the charge.
HOW THE HAMZYS BECAME SO FEARED
The Hamzys are one of Australia’s most feared criminal families and have been linked to the creation of the notorious Brothers 4 Life gang, a bloody gangland war, underground drug rings and a string of grisly shootings.
The family’s criminal ties date back to the 1990s when the late Khaled Hamzy — the father of Mejid and Bassam — was jailed for his role in a sophisticated drug syndicate.
Bassam lived up to the family’s gangster reputation, in 2007 founding the southwest Sydney gang Brothers 4 Life while locked up in jail for the murder of a teenage boy.
Later, he became known as Australia’s most dangerous criminal after standing accused of running a multimillion-dollar drug syndicate from his jail cell — including organising a kidnapping, torture and drive-by shooting.
He was forced into solitary confinement in the maximum security section of Goulburn Correctional Centre, which is designed for the nation’s most dangerous inmates — but even there he got into trouble for assaulting a prison officer.
A gangland war erupted in 2014 between the Hamzys and Bassam’s fellow inmate, who is known only as “XL”.
Bassam’s brother Mejid, who was aged in his 40s and killed in a drive-by shooting on Monday, rose into the spotlight in 2010 when he was charged with allegedly importing a commercial quantity of the drug ice into Sydney via FedEx.
Their mother, Lola Hamzy, was shot in the stomach at the doorstep of her Sydney home in December 2014. Earlier that same year, their aunt, Maha was left wheelchair-bound after being shot eight times in the leg in Auburn by XL.
The women have never been accused of any wrongdoing or criminal involvement.
Bassam’s cousin Mohammed was in 2012 found guilty of the manslaughter of a fellow Brothers 4 Life member Yehya Amoud and his other cousin Mahmoud was shot dead in 2013.
