The son of a notorious UK-based Turkish drug baron and gang founder has been shot multiple times in Germany, in an incident feared to be connected to a murderous feud that has already claimed lives in London.
A Targeted Attack in Düsseldorf
Cagdas Baybasin, whose father is the infamous Abdullah Baybasin, founder of the Hackney Bombers gang, was a passenger in a taxi in Düsseldorf on Tuesday when two gunmen opened fire on the vehicle as it waited at a red light. Photographs from the scene showed a white Lexus taxi with approximately ten bullet holes in its windscreen.
Earlier that same day, Cagdas had been involved in a protest outside the Dutch Consulate in Düsseldorf, demonstrating against the continued imprisonment of his uncle, Huseyin Baybasin. The 69-year-old, once dubbed 'Europe's Pablo Escobar', is serving a life sentence in the Netherlands for complicity in murders and drug trafficking.
Links to a Bloody London Gang War
The Baybasin family is at the centre of a protracted and violent conflict between the Hackney Bombers and their rivals, the Tottenham Turks. This feud has resulted in at least a dozen murders. Abdullah Baybasin himself was jailed in London for 22 years in 2006 for heroin supply and later deported.
The gang war spilled into the public eye in a horrifying way in May 2024, when a shooting at the Evin restaurant in Dalston, North East London, left a nine-year-old girl with a bullet lodged in her head. It is believed members of the Tottenham Turks were targeting rivals from the Hackney Bombers.
In a suspected reprisal, senior Tottenham Turks member Izzet Eren, 41, was shot dead in Chisinau, Moldova, six weeks later. More recently, in August 2025, a leading Hackney Bombers figure, Erdal Ozmen, 45, was gunned down in Stoke Newington, North East London, amid fears it was a revenge attack.
Threats and Fears of Escalation
Following the shooting of Cagdas, a now-deleted message on X, reportedly from his uncle Huseyin, issued a stark threat: "I will find these dogs. I will make your bloodline extinct... Let all of you who belong to these dogs, along with their entire lineage, go now and hide."
However, a source suggested the violence in Germany may not be directly linked to the UK shootings, stating, "I think we can expect a reprisal to this murder but probably in Spain." The Baybasin clan has connections there; Abdullah was seen in a Barcelona restaurant in May 2024 with German-Turk drug lord Tekin Kartal, who was shot dead soon after.
Abdullah Baybasin, 65, who uses a wheelchair, responded to the attack on his son via a video on TikTok, saying, "Today in Dusseldorf my son was attacked. Thank god, his life is not in danger. The culprits were not successful. God is great." He indicated he would make a further statement soon.
With the Metropolitan Police still investigating the UK-based murders and no arrests made in several high-profile cases, authorities on both sides of the Channel are monitoring the situation closely, concerned that the latest shooting could trigger another wave of tit-for-tat violence within European organised crime networks.
