Mejid Hamzy: NSW police were investigating alleged drug, murder connections

Law enforcement feared Mejid Hamzy posed a huge threat at the height of Sydney’s gangland war that they tried to have his freedom revoked, secret evidence reveals.

Slain crime figure Mejid Hamzy was suspected of leaving bullets and a menacing note in another man’s letterbox to deter him from giving crucial evidence in their drug case.

Such was the danger law enforcement believed Hamzy posed at the height of Sydney’s gangland war that the NSW Crime Commission tried to have his freedom revoked based on secret evidence.

Police are now combing through the 44-year-old’s list of enemies, forged as a member of a notorious crime family, while the investigation into his execution last month continues.

Friends of the father described him as a gentleman who had tried to turn his back on the underworld – a community his younger brother, prolific criminal and Supermax inmate Bassam Hamzy, was the puppet master of.

Mejid Hamzy was gunned down outside his home last month. Picture: NSW Court of Criminal Appeal

But The Saturday Telegraph can reveal why Hamzy, who was shot dead outside his Condell Park home on October 19 sparking fears of an underworld war, was a major organised crime target for police.

“He was a dead man walking,” one senior officer said.

It is understood the Criminal Groups Squad had an active investigation focused on Hamzy and unproven allegations he was involved in drug activity at the time he was killed.

Hamzy was also a prime suspect in the murder of gun-for-hire Hamad Assaad in Georges Hall in 2016.

That shooting was one in a series of tit-for-tat murders that resulted in four deaths and at least two other near misses.

At the time, Hamzy was on $1.2 million bail awaiting trial on a drug importation charge.

Law enforcement sources have confirmed that the NSW Crime Commission pushed to have Hamzy’s bail revoked in November, 2017 after receiving intelligence he was attempting to source firearms for another shooting.

The application was made in Wollongong District Court but the affidavit supporting the unusual revocation bid was suppressed.

Regardless, it failed and Hamzy stayed on the streets.

Police are investigating the shooting death of Mejid Hamzy in Condell Park. Picture: NSW Police Force

Two years earlier, his co-accused, Marco Romolo, in the drug matter was due to face trial in the District Court. His case was that he believed he was importing steroids – not cocaine – after meeting a man at City Gym in Sydney’s East.

On the morning his trial was to begin, bullet holes were found in the side of Romolo’s mother’s car at her home.

Inside a letterbox were five bullets and a letter that read: “If you talk or drop names in court this will be coming for your family.”

According to a judgment from 2016, Romolo then refused to name the man he met at the gym even after the offer of police protection.

Mejid Hamzy was facing a drug charge before his death. Picture: Facebook

Mejid Hamzy’s mugshot was tendered to court. Picture: NSW Court of Criminal Appeal

Romolo applied for a permanent stay on the proceedings, which was refused. His conviction was eventually overturned on appeal in 2018 and he was released from custody.

There is no suggestion Romolo was involved or a suspect in Hamzy’s murder.

Police sources have long believed Hamzy, who had his drug importation charge dropped last year, was behind the intimidation tactic to stop Romolo revealing crucial information.

Adding weight to the theory a long-running feud with a rival crime family could be behind Hamzy’s murder, police slapped 22 orders preventing friends and associates of his family and the Alameddines from entering certain suburbs late last month.

While the orders only last 72 hours, police are expected to apply for longer term serious crime prevention orders in court.

MORE NEWS:

How gangster Hamzy beat drug case but lost his life

Bassam Hamzy: ‘My brother’s execution was will of God’