Detectives are still hunting for the cold blooded killers who gunned down underworld kingpin Bassam Hamzy’s brother – but police had already predicted that the stolen getaway car would be used for an underworld hit three months earlier.
Ghassan Amoun, 35, was shot dead in a brazen daylight execution at about 1pm on Thursday, as he sat in a BMW outside an apartment building in Western Sydney.
Amoun, a high-ranking organised crime lieutenant, was the known ‘next target’ in Sydney’s bloody gang war between the Hamzy and Alameddine families.
He was set upon by a man ‘wearing dark clothing’ who had his face covered in what investigators called a ‘quite obviously targeted’ attack.
A second assailant is then thought to have picked up the triggerman in a Mini Cooper before speeding off and eventually setting it alight in a neighbouring suburb.
Police made a chilling warning about the small car just three months ago, fearing it would be used to target men linked to the Brothers 4 Life founder, Bassam Hamzy.
The body of slain Ghassan Amoun, 35, (pictured) lies in the street body covered by a blue sheet as police and forensic officers swarm onto the crime scene
Ghassan Amoun (pictured) was gunned down in broad daylight on Thursday less than a year after police told him he was a marked man, and ‘next’ on the list to be executed
Executed Ghassan Amoun is the brother of imprisoned Brothers 4 Life gang leader, Bassam Hamzy (pictured)
Detectives issued a public alert for a grey 2017 Mini Cooper that was stolen from a Warrawee home on Sydney’s Upper North Shore on October 28 along with three other cars.
The aggravated break-in was part of a wave of high-performance auto thefts in the area between October 25 and November 2, which were later used in underworld hits.
‘We have previously seized more than 40 luxury stolen vehicles used in crimes across Greater Sydney — including vehicles used in an alleged murder attempt at North Sydney earlier this year and a double murder at Guildford last month,’ Detective Superintendent Grant Taylor said at the time.
Police foiled an alleged gangland hit on Ibrahim Hamze in August last year when officers spotted a Mercedes – one of the four vehicles reported stolen.
Salim and Toufik Hamze weren’t so lucky in October when they were gunned down outside their home in Guildford.
The long-running feud between the waring crime clans has been going on for years, as Bassam Hamzy continues to call the shots from his Goulburn Supermax prison cell after being sentenced for murder.
Pictured: The taped off scene in South Wentworthville where police and paramedics rushed to the scene around 12.45pm on Thursday to find Ghassan Amoun fatally shot in the road
Detectives issued a public alert for the grey 2017 Mini Cooper (pictured) that was stolen from a Warrawee home on Sydney’s Upper North Shore on October 28, fearing it would be used in a gangland hit
The Mini cooper (pictured on Una Street) was found burnt out and is believed to have been the getaway car
The modus operandi of the hitmen contracted to take out Hamzy associates is to sneak up on the target – often in a public place – and pepper them with bullets.
They then speed off in a stolen car with cloned number plates before dumping it in a nearby suburb and torching it.
A witness who saw the frightening scene play out on Thursday described the moment masked men set the Mini Cooper on fire in Una Street, Wentworthville.
‘There was a bang and everything started exploding,’ Ruth Simpson told Nine News.
‘Then there was just black smoke and all of this orange fire. Oh my god it was just like, “wow”!’
At about 3pm on Thursday, the 35-year-old’s body was still lying in the street covered by a blue sheet, as police and forensics officers wearing gloves and and masks and carrying clipboards swarmed over the crime scene.
Acting Superintendent Glen Fitzgerald said the shooting was ‘quite obviously targeted’ and detectives were investigating ‘obvious connections to criminal networks’.
Streets and a highway (pictured) were sealed off with crime tape as police combed the scene for clues and forensic officers wearing masks and gloves gathered evidence
The grey BMW Amoun drove to the location remains on the street, its door open, after the slain Hamzy family lieutenant’s body was found and pronounced dead at the scene
‘There appears to be a driver and a shooter that got out of one of the vehicles,’ acting Superintendent Fitzgerald said.
Amoun had been approached as he got into his car in a ‘very brutal attack’.
‘Any type of incident like this is a worry,’ acting Superintendent Fitzgerald said. ‘This is what happens when firearms are in the possession of the wrong people.’
Police and paramedics rushed to the shooting on Rawson Road in South Wentworthville about 12.45pm on Thursday, but Amoun died at the scene.
Amoun is the third Hamzy relative to be assassinated in less than two years after Bassam’s brother Mejid Hamzy in 2020 and cousin Bilal Hamze in 2021.
In June last year Bilal Hamze, 34, was shot dead after a date with a woman at trendy Japanese restaurant Kid Kyoto on Bridge Street, near Circular Quay.
Despite knowing he was a marked man, Amoun brushed off police fears he was ‘at risk’ and attended his executed cousin’s Sydney funeral with grieving family members.
Amoun, who was executed on Thursday, was among mourners at his cousin’s funeral last year (above) despite being warned he was the family’s next target on the gangland war list
Another Hamzy brother Ibrahem (kneeling in grey hoodie) is pictured last year at his cousin Bilal Hamze’s gravesite after Hamze was executed
Bassam Hamzy’s older brother Mejid Hamzy, 44, was gunned down outside his home in Condell Park by two black-clad men on the morning of October 19, 2020.
Last year a court heard that prior to Amoun attending Bilal Hamze’s funeral, a judge had concerns for his safety associating with other mourners.
Amoun had secretly fought police at the NSW Supreme Court court for the very right to be at the funeral.
Lawyers for Amoun had applied for the court to relax serious crime prevention orders which banned them from associating with two cousins for the duration of the funeral.
Police intelligence obtained earlier that week ‘suggests that (Ghassan Amoun) is said to be the next person to be targeted’, Justice David Davies told the court 24 hours before the June 2021 funeral.
Firefighters race to put out the Mini Cooper believed to have been set alight by the killers