Inside life of ‘UK’s Pablo Escobar’ who ran samurai sword-wielding gang ‘The Family’ and drug empire worth £9billion
A DRUG kingpin nicknamed “Europe’s Pablo Escobar” ran a samurai sword-wielding gang that terrorised streets in Britain.
Huseyin Baybasin, 67, took control of much of the heroin exported from poppy fields in Afghanistan during the 1970s.
Also known as “The Emperor”, Huseyin hails from the rural south-east of Turkey.
His criminal career is understood to have started in trafficking, before he moved into the heroin trade with his brothers and launched his business internationally.
He is said to have controlled up to 90 per cent of the UK’s heroin market – worth £10billion – along with his two brothers who quickly became known just as “The Family”.
Huseyin based himself in the Netherlands and became the kingpin of the Hackney Bombers.
Brother Abdullah, who is bound to a wheelchair after being shot by a rival in the 1980s, arrived in Britain via Gibraltar in 1997.
He was reportedly working as an informant for UK Customs and MI5, providing information relating to corruption among Turkish politicians.
In exchange, he was allowed to move to the UK, but soon began waging war on the streets.
Third brother Mehmet worked with Merseyside gangs to oversee the importation of vast quantities of cocaine into the UK from South America as the gang’s influence spread beyond London.
The brothers recruited gangs of young thugs, who became known as the Bombicilar, or Bombers, and spread fear across their base in north London.
The gang would force their way into shops and businesses armed with weapons and demand money.
It includes a heinous incident in which a gang of 20 thugs raided a Turkish cafe in Stoke Newington armed with samurai swords, metal bars and pool cues before a man had his index finger chopped off.
Shopkeepers were forced to pay up to £10,000 a year and faced death threats.
Huseyin was eventually jailed for 20 years in the Netherlands after being convicted of murder, kidnapping and drug smuggling in 2001.
But The Family continued and went from strength to strength as wheelchair-bound Abdullah took over the Hackney Bombers.
He centred the criminal enterprise on the kebab shops and groceries within a six-mile radius of Green Lanes in north London.
Their rivalry with Kurdish gangs in the area is said to behind at least 25 murders.
But Abdullah, now 64, was jailed in 2006 after pleading guilty to blackmail, perverting the course of justice and drugs smuggling.
He was later cleared following a retrial, but has been deported.
Mehmet, meanwhile, was jailed for 30 years at Liverpool Crown Court in 2011 after he assumed control when his two brothers were imprisoned.
He was imprisoned for his involvement in trying to import 40 tonnes of cocaine into the UK.
It comes as Abdullah was seen in Barcelona last month with drug lord Tekin Kartal, who was shot dead soon after leaving.
Members of the Baybasin clan went on social media to deny involvement.
Last Wednesday a leading figure in Baybasin’s old gang was the intended target of a shooting at a restaurant in Dalston, north east London, sparking fears it was a tit-for-tat revenge.
He escaped unharmed but a stray bullet hit the girl.
The incident has led to fears the bloody gang war between Tottenham Turks and rivals the Hackney Turks could be reignited.
It comes after Dr Simon Harding, Director of the National Centre for Gangs Research Ltd told The Sun Hackney’s streets are still being torn apart by gangs and organised crime groups whose reach extends across the planet.