A north London narco mansion belonging to a notorious Turkish crime family is now on sale for £1.8million after being seized by the courts, the Daily Mail can reveal.
At the height of their powers, the Baybasin brothers were known as the ‘most dangerous men in Europe’ for overseeing a global drug trafficking network that controlled 90 per cent of the heroin flowing into Britain.
Despite this, they were somehow able to settle in the UK in the early 1990s, before buying a seven-bedroom family home on Dukes Avenue in the exclusive Canons Drive estate in Edgware.
While many of them have now been jailed, the Baybasins still wield control over the Hackney Bombers, or ‘Bombacilars’, a London drugs gang locked in a deadly feud with their rivals, the Tottenham Turks.
In August, a 33-year-old hired thug was convicted of four counts of attempted murder for arranging a hit – allegedly ordered by the Turks – on three Bombacilars sitting at a restaurant in Dalston, east London.
One bullet struck a nine-year-old girl in the head, leaving her with potentially lifelong health complications.
Locals on upmarket Dukes Avenue told the Mail that the Baybasins’ former family home had been boarded up ‘a couple of months’ ago, with no one seen there since at least the spring.
The house was seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act at Liverpool Crown Court after the youngest of the three brothers, 59-year-old Mehmet, was jailed in 2011 for plotting with a Merseyside gang to import £4billion of cocaine from South America.
The Baybasin clan were once based in this seven-bedroom family home on Dukes Avenue in north London’s exclusive Canons Drive estate
Huseyin Baybasin (left) was once called the ‘Pablo Escobar of Europe’. He is now in jail alongside his brother, Mehmet (right)
Abdullah Baybasin was regularly seen by neighbours on Dukes Avenue. He uses a wheelchair after being shot by a rival in the 1980s and is now believed to be in Turkey
Family patriarch Huseyin, 68 – previously known as the ‘Pablo Escobar of Europe’ for dominating the trade in heroin from Afghanistan – is serving a life sentence in the Netherlands after being convicted of drug trafficking and conspiracy to murder in 2001.
Three years earlier, he had an estimated fortune of £10billion, or approximately £22.2billion today.
Abdullah, 64, was also jailed in 2006 for importing heroin, but was later freed on appeal. He is now thought to be living in Turkey.
Former neighbours recalled seeing Abdullah coming out of the house in a wheelchair – which he used after being shot in the spine by a rival – accompanied by his wife and young children.
Despite the jarring contrast between the quiet, leafy area where the Baybasins lived and their blood-soaked careers in the upper echelons of organised crime, locals insisted they had not been bad neighbours.
‘They seemed really friendly,’ one woman told the Mail. ‘They were always nice and polite any time I spoke to them.’
A man described the crime family as ‘nice enough’, but intensely private, while a second woman said Abdullah appeared to relish the company of his children.
None described seeing a visible security presence at the house, although the peace of the neighbourhood was occasionally interrupted by police raids.
Having been in the hands of the Baybasin family for more than 30 years, the 3,000-square-foot mansion is touted as a ‘modernisation’ project.
Photos of the Baybasins’ former family home show a series of spacious yet tired rooms
The house is described as a ‘modernisation project’
It features a large back garden, with photos showing a child’s slide that has been left by the Baybasins
Weeds are sprouting through the paved driveway, while interior photos show a series of spacious yet tired rooms.
The house is described as ‘ideal for families seeking a residence where multiple generations can live comfortably together’ with ‘private spaces for each family member’ alongside ‘communal areas for shared activities’.
The Baybasins – who are ethnic Kurds – trace their origins to Turkey’s rural south-east, where they began refining heroin in the 1970s.
By the late 90s, they were making millions exporting the Class A drug to Europe.
The question of how the clan was ever allowed to settle in Britain has long baffled observers.
A potential answer came in 2004, when a tribunal heard evidence that Huseyin and his relatives had been offered ‘sanctuary’ in the UK after he agreed to pass information about heroin trafficking to Customs and Excise.
Following his 2001 conviction, the family business was taken over by Abdullah, who has been described as a Godfather-like figure who expected associates to kiss his hand during meetings.
Abdullah ran his operation from a shop in Hackney but would return in the evenings to the family home on Dukes Avenue – which he owned jointly with his brothers.
Despite the jarring contrast between the leafy area where the Baybasins lived and their blood-soaked criminal careers, locals said they had not been bad neighbours
A nine-year-old girl was shot last year during an attempted hit at the Evin restaurant in Dalston
Javon Riley, 33, was found guilty of attempted murder for helping the gunman (right), who has never been traced
Over the years, the Baybasins’ Hackney Bombers outfit has repeatedly clashed with the Tottenham Turks in a Europe-wide feud linked to more than 20 murders.
Last year’s shooting in Dalston saw three alleged Bombers – Mustafa Kiziltan, Kenan Aydogdu and Nasser Ali – narrowly escape with their lives.
The innocent nine-year-old victim had been eating with her family when the gunman opened fire from a motorbike, with one of the bullets lodging in her brain.
The only person convicted so far over the shooting, 33-year-old Javon Riley, will serve a minimum of 34 years in jail.
With the conclusion of Riley’s trial in August, the Mail identified Erdal Ozmen, a father of two shot dead in Stoke Newington on August 5 – friends identified him as a member of the Bombers and another potential victim of their feud with the Turks.
Although Abdullah’s 2006 conviction was later overturned, a judge in 2013 still ordered him to repay £700,000 in illicit gains from one of his protection rackets.
The judge noted that Abdullah, then 52, had also been secretly recorded discussing firearms, collecting ‘protection’ payments, and sharing the profits of his gangland activity.
Mehmet was not put off by his brothers’ downfall and plotted with Liverpool gangster Paul Taylor to ship 40 tonnes of Colombian cocaine into the UK – hidden inside wood pellets or tins of fish.
Police listened in on calls between Mehmet and Taylor as they talked of ’36s’ (£36,000 for a kg of cocaine) and buying ‘200 bits’ (shipments of 200kg).
Following Mehmet’s subsequent trial and conviction, a legal battle began over the fate of the family home, with officials in the Netherlands and the UK both seeking the proceeds of its sale.
According to a previous judgement handed down by the High Court, the property was jointly owned by Huseyin, Abdullah, Mehmet, and another brother who has not been linked to organised crime.
It has now been seized by a court-appointed receiver, who is overseeing its sale.
