$1m hit on crime figure Bilal Hamze: Sydney’s gang wars claim another scalp

Even after hearing a $1m bounty had been placed on his head, Bilal Hamze — Supermax inmate Bassam Hamzy’s cousin — rejected help from police. Five days later he was dead.

Five days ago, police officers knocked on the front door of Bilal Hamze’s city apartment and warned him his life was in danger.

A million-dollar bounty had supposedly been put on Hamze’s head and also on his brother, Ibrahem Hamze.

In line with his family’s staunch opposition to co-operating with law enforcement, Hamze, the cousin of Supermax inmate Bassam Hamzy, rebuffed the police officers’ olive branch last week.

Five days later he was dead, the target of a calculated assassination on the street in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.

Bilal Hamze, 34, was shot dead in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. Picture: News Corp

“This was a brutal execution style murder carried out on one of the busiest streets in the Sydney CBD,” Homicide Squad Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said. “It is extremely fortunate a member of the public wasn’t injured.”

Hamze had finished dinner with a woman at Japanese restaurant Kid Kyoto about 10:30pm on Friday and stepped into the laneway when he was ambushed.

A gunman or gunmen in a black Audi opened fire on the 34-year-old in the laneway, not far from popular restaurants Mr Wongs and Establishment.

Hamze was shot after leaving a restaurant on Bridge Lane about 10:30pm. Picture: Adam Yip

He made it onto Bridge St while the gunman continued to fire shots.

“(The gunman) fired from the laneway then after that about 10 seconds later 10 bullets were fired,” witness Sayad Hussein said.

“ (Hamze) was screaming on the floor … everyone was trying to help him.”

Hamze was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst but died that night.

His death, the second senior figure murdered within the Hamzy/Hamze family in eight months, has NSW Police on high alert that simmering tensions in the southwest will erupt as the victim’s associates look for retribution.

The notorious families have been locked in a decade-old feud over territory, money and status.

According to police sources, the bad blood between the Hamzy and the Alameddine families is rooted in the shooting of Maha Hamze in 2013.

Mrs Hamze, the mother of Bilal Hamze, was shot in the legs at her Auburn home.

The man accused of the shooting, an underworld figure who can’t be legally identified, shot Mrs Hamze because her son extorted his mother.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of Mrs Hamze.

People gathered at the home of Maha Hamze, Bilal Hamze’s mother, in Auburn on Friday. Picture: News Corp

That man and his acc­omplice were known associates of the Alameddine family.

However, police suspect the feud kicked up a notch in the past few years after an associate of the Hamzy family allegedly broke into the Alameddine’s safe house and stole five kilograms of cocaine.

But depending who you ask, the rum­our was that an Alameddine ripped off the Hamzys.

Adding to the tensions is a struggle for power and territory in the suburbs.

“There has always been a general hatred between the groups,” one investigator said.

The crime scene on Bridge St in Sydney’s CBD. Picture: Adam Yip

The recent block of violence ignited last October when an associate of the Alameddine family was bashed with a metal pole during a brawl in Sefton.

One of the men involved in the fight was Ibrahem Hamze, Bilal’s brother.

The details were aired during the police’s successful attempt to slap Hamze and his cousin, Ghassan Amoun, with serious crime prevention ­orders in a bid to deter a spike in violence.

It is understood Amoun has also left the southwest and is staying in the inner west.

After the fight, the Alameddine family home in Merrylands was peppered with bullets.

The next day, Mejid Hamzy was executed outside his Condell Park home.

The car used in the shooting was found torched on Fleming Street in Northwood. Pic: Toby Zerna

Police suspect there have been two other murders and drive-by shootings linked to the feud.

In recent months and in the face of constant warnings about his safety, Bilal Hamze moved into a secure apartment block in Haymarket.

“Someone would have had to be surveilling him,” one ­investigator said.

“They would had to have been following him to that point and knew he was in the restaurant.”

In May, Hamze was charged with drug possession but escaped with only a $250 fine.

Bilal Hamze moved to the CBD earlier this year to escape the focus in southwest Sydney. Pic: News Corp

Since relocating from the western suburbs to the CBD, Criminal Groups Squad Detective Superintendent Robert Critchlow confirmed police had visited Hamze on multiple occasions.

“He has been warned that he is at risk, he has been given advice as to his safety,” he said.

“That advice was not received in the sense it was given. He sought to live his life the way he wanted to and made some choices.

“There are regular things that arise in the criminal space that we act upon quietly and in a way that doesn’t attract ­attention and we avert a lot of these crimes.

“But ultimately if a violent criminal group wishes to use violence towards another person to achieve their own goals, they will do it. What we do now is gather the evidence and lock them up.”

Over the next few weeks, Strike Force Raptor is expected to become a constant presence in the lives of both families.

On Friday, police visited the homes of several associates across Merrylands and Auburn, where Hamze’s associates were gathered in force at his mother’s home.