Sydney gang warfare: Why more bloodshed may be on horizon

It was the summer that saw tit-for-tat shootings erupt as the war between two crime families played out. And there are fears it may not be over.

It was the summer that saw tit-for-tat shootings erupt over Sydney, as the bloody tribal warfare between two crime families – the Hamzys and the Alameddines – played out, leaving several gang members dead or in jail.

Now more bloodshed could be on the horizon, as gang members’ sentences expire and police are left with no choice but to see them released back onto the street.

“It’s not over,” Mark Morri, Crime Editor for the Daily Telegraph, said during an interview on True Crime with Amelia Saw.

“There was another very similar feud between [two unrelated crime families of Lebanese Muslim descent operating in southwest Sydney known as] the Razzaks and the Darwiches, that ended up with four or five dead. That stemmed over five or six years [2001-2009]. People went to jail, people came out of jail, and it started again. This is very similar scenario.”

The foundations for the summer shootings were laid in winter, when underworld figure Bilal Hamze, was peppered with bullets in a drive-by shooting as he left a restaurant in the Sydney CBD. It was believed to a million dollar hit.

Bilal is the cousin of Bassam Hamzy, the notorious Brothers for Life gang leader, who is currently serving time for murder in Goulburn Supermax Jail.

Bilal’s mother Maha Hamze, was herself a target of underworld violence, when her home was sprayed with bullets in February, 2021.

“The Hamzys obviously with their name and reputation at stake, had to try and hit back,” Morri said.

And on November 29, 2021, police believe someone connected to the Hamzy clan may have taken action.

“Now there was a shooting at World Gym at Prospect [western Sydney], where there was an Alameddine associate believed to be on his way there to go to the gym. It’s alleged that members of the Hamzy clan attempted to try to kill this person, but their bullets went into a childcare centre next to the gym, narrowly missing a couple of kids. I mean, it’s most frightening vision I’ve seen in a long time of how close these children came to death.”

The arrest of a man by Criminal Groups Squad detectives over his alleged role in a shooting at a gym at Prospect.

Five weeks later, gangster Ghassan Amoun was gunned down on a suburban street in South Wentworthville, western Sydney, on January 6. Amoun, the brother of Bassam Hamzy, had been out of prison just days when he was executed, and police had warned him he was a target.

“This is just three days after he’s been released from jail — because as part of the tactics of police trying to clean up the streets, [police] had actually locked him up under a Serious Crime Prevention Order and also told him: your life is in danger … he just didn’t listen,” said Morri.

Morri attended the murder scene and was struck by how chillingly close the broad daylight attack had been to a major thoroughfare, with Amoun shot as he was leaving a hair removal salon.

“It was visible from the highway where the body was lying, you couldn’t see the body because there were police around it,” he said, adding there were residential flats and a number of busy retail stores just steps away from the carnage.

2 Pictured at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney are mourners at the funeral for Ghassan Amoun who was shot dead in Wentworthville.

Police swooped in late January, recognising the only way to prevent further retaliation killings was to take as many as possible key players off the streets. “Soon after Ghassan’s murder, there was a major operation and police swooped all over the place and they locked up a number of high ranking members of both clans,” Morri said.

Law enforcement now believes the belt has been significantly tightened to keep the situation under control. However concerns hover over the release of Mohammed “Little Crazy” Hamzy, due for parole on February 25, 2023.

Little Crazy is currently serving a minimum of eight-and-a-half years for the shooting of two men in Greenacre in 2012.

“Police will be very concerned that [his release] could escalate or reignite what they believe that they’ve been able to quash recently.

“His family members got shot and he didn’t get to go to their funerals because he was in jail. Will he feel the need to show that he is after revenge or will he think I’ve just done a whole lot of time in jail and try to start afresh and have a new life? That will be interesting to see,” said Morri.

Originally published as Sydney gang warfare: Why more bloodshed may be on horizon