Lametta Fadlallah’s death: Boyfriend of slain gangster’s agony after her shooting death in Panania

The boyfriend of an executed gangster mum is ‘in shock’ about her shooting murder and ‘can only believe her past must have caught up with her’.

 The son of Adel Dayoub, who had been dating Lametta Fadlallah for about 12 months told Daily Mail Australia his father ‘handed over his phone’ and gave police anything he could to help investigate the 48-year-old’s execution-style murder. 

Ms Fadlallah was shot dead alongside her hairdresser Amy Hazouri in the backseat of a Toyota 4WD about 8.50pm on Saturday out the front of the Panania home she shares with her 16-year-old son.

Mr Dayoub said he and his father were  as mystified as everyone else as to why she was violently murdered.

‘We don’t know anything, we were just getting to know her over the last year,’ Mr Dayoub said. ‘We think it was her past catching up with her, but we don’t know.

‘She was very nice. My dad is in shock. He is not alright, he’s grieving.’

 Adel Dayoub and Lametta Fadlallah (pictured) had been dating for a little over 12 months and she was getting to know his family before her death on Saturday

The son of Adel Dayoub, who had been dating Lametta Fadlallah for a little over 12 months told Daily Mail Australia his father ‘handed over his phone’ to help  police investigate the 48-year-old’s shooting death

Mr Dayoub said reports that his father owned the Massaya restaurant in Strathfield – where Lametta and hairdresser Amy Hazouri had been heading for to celebrate an engagement party when they were fatally shot – were untrue.

‘We own the restaurant not him. She came there with him, that’s all.’

Investigators suspect Ms Fadlallah was targeted because of her connections to organised crime as the one-time lover of two well-known underworld figures – former gangster Shadi Derbas and 200kg standover man Helal Safi. 

The 48-year-old was first married to Derbas in the 1990s, a key member of the Telopea St Gang – coined after the Punchbowl, Western Sydney street – which rose to infamy between 1998 and 2000 as a hornets’ nest of Middle Eastern gang activity.

More recently, she was the long-term girlfriend of underworld figure Safi – who was found dead in a Sydney apartment in January 2021 after suffering a heart attack.

A crime world source has claimed Ms Fadlallah was an active member of the city’s drug trade and subsequently owed people money, with police noting her 30-year connection to some of the city’s most notorious gangsters. 

One source referred to her as ‘a very big drug dealer’, while another told Daily Mail Australia police were investigating potential debts she had amassed with other ‘scary’ underworld figures.  

Lameta Fadlallah (left) is understood to have been the target and Amy Hazouri (right) is believed to have been collateral damage 

Ms Fadlallah’s grieving family feel her reputation has been trashed in the days since her death

However, it has now been revealed she was suspected of leaking information to the NSW Crime Commission before she was violently shot dead. 

Earlier in the week, an underworld source who knew Ms Fadlallah told the Daily Telegraph she could have been killed because she ‘knew too much’.

‘She was right into the life. She would carry the guns for the boys, give alibis when needed and right up till she was killed mixing with gangsters,’ they said.

‘She always thought she was smart but this is the most dangerous Sydney has ever been. Killing women so openly is next level.’

Ms Fadlallah’s heartbroken mother Nadia also spoke to Daily Mail Australia on Monday, saying that her daughter’s reputation had been ‘trashed’ when she deserves to be ‘remembered well’.

Ms Fadlallah’s heartbroken mother Nadia also spoke to Daily Mail Australia on Monday, saying that her daughter’s reputation had been ‘trashed’ when she deserves to be ‘remembered well’

Nadia later told The Australian newspaper that she wanted revenge for her daughter.

‘I don’t want to them to go to jail – I want them to leave them on the street the same way they did to me daughter … someone else will get them back, in God’s name.’

‘It doesn’t matter how bad she is, they shouldn’t do that. We’re all going to die at some point,’ she told The Australian.

Ms Hazouri, the hairdresser who was also killed in the brutal shooting, is believed to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and an innocent party.   

Her devastated father has remembered her as an ‘angel’ and said he wished he could have taken her place.  

Multiple cars were found burnt out in nearby suburbs, a common method used in gangland hits