Chilling footage shows the moment notorious gangster Bilal Hamze met his ‘Kim Kardashian lookalike’ date outside a trendy Japanese restaurant, just hours before a rival pumped ten bullets into his chest.
Hamze was shot several times in a brazen drive-by shooting on Bridge Street, near Sydney’s Circular Quay, at about 10.25pm on Thursday after a huge underworld contract was placed on his head by an enemy criminal group.
More than a hundred mourners gathered to wash the crime boss’s bullet-riddled body and pray for it on Wednesday at Lakemba mosque, before it was buried under a mound of soil at Rookwood.
That evening, frightening CCTV footage obtained by 9 News relayed the moments before the 34-year-old ate his final meal at the upper-class CBD eatery, Kid Kyoto.
Pictured: An attractive woman walking down a CBD alleyway to meet Bilal Hamze on Thursday
She hugged Hamze, who is the cousin of Brothers 4 Life leader Bassam Hamzy, before they enjoyed a $200 meal of kingfish sashimi and wagyu beef (pictured)
An attractive woman wearing tight black pants and boots could be seen walking down a city alleyway.
She hugged Hamze, who is the cousin of Brothers 4 Life leader Bassam Hamzy, before they enjoyed a $200 meal of kingfish sashimi and wagyu beef.
Hours later, he was dead and the woman – who crouched against a brick wall with her head in her hands following the shooting – watched her date flailing and screaming on the ground in agony, according to security footage aired by 7 News last week.
Paramedics desperately tried to keep Hamze’s organs from falling out in the aftermath of the shooting but he went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and was unable to be revived at St Vincent’s Hospital.
Police later found the burnt-out wreckage of an stolen Audi RS3, believed to be the getaway car, on a quiet street 17 minutes away in Northwood on the Lower North Shore.
A shocked witness is seen burying her head in her hands after the brutal drive-by shooting of Hamze on Thursday night
Hamze had been living in the heart of the CBD in a desperate bid to evade contract killers targeting him. Pictured: Thursday night’s crime scene
Gunshots are seen being fired from a black Audi at Bilal Hamze on Bridge Street, near Sydney’s Circular Quay, at about 10.25pm on Thursday
Two of Hamze’s family members have since been given the same warning about their safety the crime boss received but dismissed in the lead up to his death.
He had been hiding out in the city during underworld conflict with members of the rival Alameddine clan.
It’s understood Hamze was warned by police he was under threat and urged to contact them if he was concerned – a warning he ignored.
On Wednesday, Daily Mail Australia revealed details of an extraordinary police warning about a threat to his relative Ghassan Amoun, which was disclosed in court on Tuesday but kept secret until after the funeral concluded.
Police intelligence obtained earlier this week ‘suggests that (Ghassan Amoun) is said to be the next person to be targeted,’ Justice David Davies told the court.
Family members, many of them masked, are seen carry the coffin of slain gangster Bilal Hamze following his funeral prayer service at Lakemba mosque on Wednesday
Police found the burnt-out wreckage of an Audi, believed to be the getaway car, on a quiet street in Northwood on the Lower North Shore on Friday morning
Pictured: Police at the scene where Hamze was shot ten times by a rival gang on Thursday
On Tuesday, a lawyer for Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told Justice David Davies officers feared Amoun could be ‘at risk’ if he attended the funeral service with his grieving family.
However, despite police fears, Amoun attended today’s service with family – but was believed to have kept his face hidden behind a mask throughout the proceedings.
The service was closely monitored by uniformed and plain-clothed police, including the gang-busting Raptor Squad, with officers performing drive-bys every few minutes in the lead-up.
Few at the service would have known of the drama about the funeral that has unfolded behind closed doors in a Sydney courtroom this week.
Paramedics struggled to keep his organs from falling out after the shooting, with witnesses saying they heard ‘five or six gunshots. Pictured: the cordoned off crime scene on Friday morning
Hamze was shot twice in the stomach times after leaving Kid Kyoto restaurant. He then went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and was unable to be revived when arriving at St Vincent’s Hospital. Police later discovered a burnt out Audi
Lawyers for Amoun and Ibrahem applied for the court to relax serious crime prevention orders which banned them from associating with two cousins, Haissam and Tareek, for the duration of the funeral.
But their plea was furiously opposed by NSW Police. ‘Police received late this morning intelligence that suggests that there is a level of threat against Mr Amoun,’ barrister Christine Melisa said on Tuesday.
Ms Melis said officers had warned Amoun that the threat may be ‘real’ and his movements at the funeral may be monitored by ‘people who are a threat to him’.
However, Ertunc Ozen SC for Amoun argued the funeral would be the subject of a heavy police and media presence. ‘It would seem to me the safest place for Mr Amoun to be is, in fact, if this intelligence is correct, at the funeral,’ Mr Ozen said.
Ms Melis argued that allowing Amoun to speak with family at the funeral could give him and his associates the opportunity to plot a retaliatory attack on Alameddine associates.
But Mr Ozen said it was ‘abhorrent’ to suggest his client would use the opportunity to plot a criminal conspiracy.
The judge eventually varied the orders so Amoun and Ibrahem Hamze could console their relatives at the service.
Bilal Hamze was the cousin of Brothers 4 Life gangster Bassam Hamzy (pictured) who is currently serving time in Goulburn Supermax over a litany of crimes. Bilal enjoyed a lavish Japanese meal with a date (mock-up receipt, left) moments before being shot dead
Crime boss Bilal Hamze enjoyed a fine dining experience at Kid Kyoto (pictured) on Thursday night with a glamorous woman. He was executed just moments after leaving the trendy Japanese restaurant
Female mourners were ushered into a separate area of the mosque as they arrived for Hamze’s funeral
But Judge Davies suppressed the hearing until 4pm on the day of the funeral out of concern for Amoun’s safety.
Detectives from the NSW Police State Crime Command’s Homicide Squad established Strike Force Englorie to investigate the ‘brutal execution-style murder’.
Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said a ‘major line of inquiry’ would be whether the murder was linked to rising tensions between warring Middle Eastern crime families or the recent Operation Ironside busts last week.
‘Police were told a number of shots were fired by a per or persons … more than one person anyway, who was passing in a black vehicle,’ Superintendent Doherty said.
‘This was a brutal execution-style murder that was carried out in a busy street in the middle of Sydney CBD.’
About a hundred men gathered at Rookwood necropolis to bury Bilal Hamze, 34, who was shot dead last Thursday evening in the Sydney CBD after dining at a trendy Japanese eatery
Hamze sinks to the ground by his sibling’s grave, surrounded by family members
‘It was extremely fortunate that no members of the public were injured.
‘We believe he left an establishment nearby and as he walked onto Bridge Street he was shot down in a hail of bullets.’
Convenience store worker Mohammed Hamad told the Daily Telegraph he heard ‘five or six rounds’ before horrified witnesses told him there had been a shooting.
‘It’s hard not to be scared. When you work in our society and you hear gunshots in the middle of the city,’ he said.
Another witness said she was reading in bed when she heard the shots ring out.
‘All of a sudden I heard several shots go off three, four or five and I was like, ‘Is that a gun?’,’ the woman told the ABC.
‘I didn’t hear any cars or anything for at least a minute or two and I thought that I should go outside and look … then I heard sirens, probably a few minutes later.’
A group of women, believed to include Bilal Hamze’s mother Maha, sat off to one side while men attended to the burial
As is customary, Bilal Hamze’s body was buried under a mound of soil and palm fronds placed in the ground
The shooting by two gunman followed a brawl the previous week between members linked to Hamzy’s notorious Brothers 4 Life gang and an associate of the Alameddine crime family.
Hamze is the son of matriarch Maha Hamze, who in 2013 survived a spray of eight bullets to her home in an ongoing underworld war.
In April, Hamzy was charged over the murder of 15-year-old Brayden Dillon, who was shot in an ‘execution-style’ killing while sleeping in his home in Glenfield on Good Friday 2017.
The NSW Supreme Court heard the notorious underworld figure, who has been detained since 1999, masterminded the hit as payback for the death of his nephew Adam Abu-Mahmoud.
The triggerman Conrad Craig was jailed for at least 30 years for the callous murder.
Brothers 4 Life associate Abdul Abu-Mahmoud was also found guilty of murder for organising and financing the shooting.
Hamzy is currently serving a 40-year sentence for a litany of serious crimes.
In April, Strike Force Raptor officers conducted 47 raids and seized $600,000 worth of drugs, cars, weapons, cash, sports cars, and jewelry from stockpiles across Sydney.
All of the 11 arrests made were believed to be connected to the warring Hamzy and Alameddine crime families.