Lead text: Toper Hassan, 58, was arrested at Stansted Airport in connection with plotting the suspected gangland execution of Tottenham Turks crime boss Izzet Eren in Moldova in July
A former British lawyer has been charged with conspiracy to murder in Moldova of the boss of a gang suspected of a shooting that left a nine-year-old girl fighting for her life.
Toper Hassan, 58, was arrested at Stansted Airport on a warrant from Moldova in connection with the gangland execution of Izzet Eren in the country’s capital Chisinau on July 10 2024. Eren is believed to have been a senior member of a violent north London criminal organisation known as the Tottenham Turks. Hassan, a former solicitor who was struck off in 2013, is accused of plotting the murder with persons “known and unknown” in Chisinau.
He was arrested in August by National Crime Agency officers and was later remanded in custody. Eren, 41, was shot seven times outside a cafe amid fears it was a revenge attack. UK police are thought to be probing a link to the death to May’s attack in Hackney, East London, when a girl and three men, aged 26, 37 and 42, were shot. One of the male targets in Dalston was said to be in the Hackney Bombers. He was previously shot in the neck by a possible Tottenham Turks member.
The gangs’ drugs war has reportedly led to at least 20 murders and a series of kidnappings. Convicted Turkish drug dealer Eren had lost an application for asylum. He was jailed in London for 21 years in 2015 for being armed with a submachine gun to murder a rival. Eren was moved to a jail in Turkey in August 2019 but escaped a month later. Scotland Yard then traced him to Moldova, where he was arrested in 2022. The Met launched an extradition case, but Eren was reportedly freed.
Jermaine Baker, 28, of Tottenham, was shot dead by police in 2015 outside a North London court during Eren’s foiled jail break. Ozcan Eren, 32, was jailed for the bid to free his cousin. A National Crime Agency spokesman said: “Toper Hassan, 58, was arrested at Stansted Airport on 29 August 2024 by specialist National Extradition Unit officers from the NCA’s Joint International Crime Centre (JICC). He is wanted by Moldovan authorities in connection to conspiracy to murder, and extradition proceedings are ongoing.”
