By Clare Sibthorpe and Kate McClymont
Sydney personality Fadi Ibrahim has been hit with an apprehended violence order by police to protect one of his closest friends and business partners in an extraordinary fallout despite the pair appearing tight-knit as recently as June.
Police have also taken out an AVO to protect Fadi’s former close friend, Benjamin Scott, from another Ibrahim brother, Sam. Both are brothers of Kings Cross nightclub tsar John Ibrahim.
Fadi Ibrahim following an earlier court appearance.Credit: Nikki Short
The circumstances surrounding the orders, which include ones protecting Scott’s family members from the Ibrahim brothers, are yet to be heard in court.
No criminal charges have been laid in relation to the AVO matters.
However, an affidavit written by Scott and tendered to the court ahead of Fadi’s June sentencing for possessing $600,000 worth of suspected proceeds of crime paints a picture of Scott’s unwavering support for Fadi regarding his struggles spanning more than a decade.
Fadi was given a two-year suspended jail sentence.
In the affidavit, 45-year-old Scott described his close friendship with 50-year-old Fadi, sparked by a coincidental meeting through a family friend during a 2007 holiday in Thailand.
Benjamin Scott outside a Sydney court in 2017.Credit: AAPIMAGE
“Fadi and I get on very well together, sharing a lot of common interests,” Scott, a TV producer, wrote.
“Through our many shared experiences over the years, our friendship progressively developed into a very strong one. I catch up with Fadi multiple times per week.”
Scott described investing in a joint business with Fadi in 2012, with a goal of buying and redeveloping properties to resell.
In 2009, Fadi was shot several times in a suspected gangland hit as he sat in a black Lamborghini outside his then-home in Castle Cove on Sydney’s lower north shore. He was in a coma for nearly three weeks.
In his affidavit, Scott recalled having plans to meet Fadi at a nightclub the night he was shot.
“We waited and waited at the nightclub, but he did not turn up. I figured he had decided not to come,” he said.
“It was not until early the next morning that I received a phone call bringing my attention to news that Fadi had been shot and was in a critical condition. I immediately rushed to the hospital.”
An AVO has also been taken out to protect Benjamin Scott from another Ibrahim brother, Sam (pictured).Credit: SMH
When Fadi emerged from his coma, he was “unrecognisable … weak and frail”, Scott wrote.
He described Fadi’s mental and physical health challenges and post-shooting reliance on pain medication, saying he was “patient and understanding” with his friend, who “has a big heart”.
In August 2017, Fadi was one of 18 people arrested by the Australian Federal Police and state police during raids in Australia and the United Arab Emirates over alleged drug and tobacco importation rings.
Scott wrote that Fadi’s incarceration in Dubai was a “terrifying period” involving assaults by prison guards and several hospitalisations.
After being extradited from Dubai, Fadi was freed on $2 million bail, with a court ordering him to live under effective house arrest at his Dover Heights clifftop mansion.
Scott put up a $1.46 million mortgage on his Vaucluse home as surety, alongside Fadi’s wife, Shayda, who offered a mortgage on a $740,000 investment property.
“Over the last seven years, I have spent thousands of hours helping Fadi with his criminal matters,” Scott wrote.
“I have attended numerous legal conferences with him, assisted with providing documents and affidavits, and spoken to various legal advisers to try to understand the issues surrounding his criminal proceedings.”
In the six months since Scott wrote that affidavit, which concluded by asking the court to consider Fadi’s “positive attributes”, tension has clearly clouded the pair’s friendship.
On Wednesday morning, a procedural mention regarding the AVO matters was briefly heard in the local court.
They will return to court on February 26.
‘A remarkable coincidence’
In 2021, the friends were embroiled in a NSW Supreme Court battle in which a Sydney dentist and young construction worker, both linked to the Ibrahim family, were ordered to repay almost $16 million they received in “spotters’ fees” from a well-known developer.
Despite having nothing to back up their claims, in March 2018, Fouad (Fred) Deiri, a major developer, agreed to pay “site identification” fees of $7.89 million to Fadi’s dentist, Bill Zafiropoulos, and $7.92 million to his nephew-in-law, Sam Kanj.
Neither man could produce “a single piece of paper or documentation” to substantiate their claims. Justice Julie Ward noted it was “a remarkable coincidence” that Kanj and Zafiropoulos suffered a “similar misfortune” of their computers being stolen.
It was submitted that the justifications for the payments were “absurd” and “beyond ridiculous”.
Zafiropoulos, a dentist in Miranda, gave evidence that his single-page signed fee agreement had been kept in his gun safe, but due to a robbery at his home, he no longer had a copy.
Most of the dentist’s millions went to Scott, while Kanj’s almost $8 million was transferred into a money-laundering entity for Michael Ibrahim, a fourth Ibrahim brother serving a lengthy sentence for drugs and money-laundering.
ASIC records show Fadi and Scott remain business partners and are listed as directors and shareholders of property development and construction company DI Developments.
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