Lebanese criminal Hassan Hassan is building a scrap metal empire in the UK – working side by side with his eldest son Baiba Saulite and his murdered wife.

Documents obtained by the Sunday World, along with photos taken in the UK this week, reveal Hassan has moved his car dismantling operations from a small scrap yard in the East Midlands to a sprawling complex.

Aerial shots reveal how more than a thousand scrapped cars are crammed into the new facility, which spans several acres and is guarded by dogs and surveillance cameras.

The convicted car thief moved to the new facility in 2018 and now intends to turn his business into a dynasty, having welcomed the couple’s eldest son and his business to the compound in October.

His son’s new business, which was set up as a separate legal entity, also involves selling auto parts from scrapped vehicles.

The secure facility is a massive upgrade from the small dismantling yard that Hassan ran several miles when we previously photographed him in the UK in 2015.

At the time, Hassan made his living buying end-of-life vehicles in the UK and Ireland before dismantling them and sending parts and complete vehicles to a partner outlet in Tartous, Syria.

It has since expanded the scope of its operations, offering storage facilities and selling parts online via eBay.

Hassan’s Irish criminal convictions for car theft date back to February 2004

He was arrested at Mount Andrew Rise in Lucan, County Dublin, where the court was later told he was living with Baiba.

He was charged in Naas District Court with four counts of receiving stolen property.

His trial heard he stole custom luxury cars in Dublin and its neighboring counties and exported them for spare parts from a warehouse in Kilcullen, Co. Kildare, to the Middle East and Eastern Europe. ballast.

His three co-accused were two Syrians and another Lebanese.

Hassan was found guilty and sentenced to four years in prison.

It was while he was in prison for these offenses that his wife Baiba was murdered.

The convicted criminal has always denied giving the order for Baiba’s murder and even claimed that the effort to blame him was a set-up.

“I’m blamed for my wife’s murder. I’m framed. I didn’t kill my wife,” he said on one occasion.

Baiba, 28, was shot dead on the doorstep of her rental home in Swords, north Dublin, on November 19, 2006.

Following her murder, officers investigated suspicions that Hassan had beaten her and her lawyer John Hennessy after successfully coercing him to return their sons to her.

He had kidnapped the two boys on December 6, 2004, after taking them for an agreed three-day visit to his sister.

Instead, he sent them to live with his mother in Lebanon.

When he did not return them, Baiba became alarmed and telephoned him around 7:30 p.m.

He repeatedly cut off his calls and finally said, “You’ll never see them again.”

Baiba reported the disappearance of her children to Swords Garda station and her lawyer.

On Christmas Eve that year, Hassan was sent to jail for contempt of court, failing to appear in court with the children, as scheduled, on December 22.

He tried to induce the judge to release him by promising, “If you let me go, I’ll go get the children.

At first he said he had arranged for the boys to go to England to stay with some of his relatives, but it later emerged that they were in Lebanon.

The following spring, Baiba traveled to Lebanon and picked up her children.

On November 7, 2006, Hassan – 12 days before Baiba’s murder – pleaded guilty to two counts of child abduction under the Non-fatal Offenses Against the Person Act.

He was sentenced to two years in prison for the kidnappings.

Investigators believe a contract on Baiba’s life was originally taken over by the McCarthy-Dundon crime gang, who passed it on to the Dublin Mafia controlled by Martin ‘Marlo’ Hyland.

In turn, Hyland used some of the young criminals in his organization to carry out the murder.

Hyland himself was executed less than a month after the Latvian mother was murdered.

Slain gang leader Eamonn ‘the Don’ Dunne was also suspected of involvement in the murder, as a car used in the murder was found at a flat in Ballymun he was providing security for – but he never been arrested.

A long-running investigation into the gruesome murder of the innocent mother-of-two led Gardaí to recommend charges against senior members of the Dundon and Hassan gang in 2010.

The filing contained a recommendation that Hassan should be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but the DPP declined to prosecute on the evidence.

The same year, Hassan was released from Portlaoise prison, where he served his sentence for kidnapping and car theft.

After his release, he regained custody of the children and moved them to Tartous in Syria, from where he traveled back and forth to the UK.

Hassan got engaged to a woman in Tartous in January 2011.

They later married before returning to the UK with Baiba’s sons after the outbreak of war in Syria.

No one has ever been charged with Baiba’s murder.