Moments before crime figure Hamad Assaad was killed in a hail of bullets outside his Sydney home, he received a frantic call from his brother.
Tarek, who lived a few doors down on Sturt Avenue in Georges Hall, wanted his 29-year-old sibling to know there was a police car sitting outside his house.
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Man shot dead in Sydney's south west
A man believed to be in his twenties, has been shot dead in Georges Hall, south west Sydney.
In an air of arrogance that was synonymous with Mr Assaad, he took a peek outside the recently renovated home he shared with his mother but brushed it off.
Not long after, on the morning of October 25, the person in that same police car became a witness to Mr Assaad's brazen downfall.
Almost two weeks after the man known as "H" was peppered with bullets and gunned down on his driveway, it has been revealed that police on a surveillance operation were outside as the murder unfolded.
It is understood the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOCS) was sitting out Mr Assaad's home that morning after serving him with a firearms prohibition order a week earlier.
A FPO gives police the power to search its target, their home or car without a warrant whenever they please.
Eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage seized from cameras outside Mr Assaad's home have helped piece together the final moments of his life.
An officer involved in the surveillance reported spotting Mr Assaad getting ready to leave his home just after 9am.
Mr Assaad then moved a car from the driveway, before he jumped into another vehicle to leave with a 12-year-old relative.
A black Audi then pulled up outside his home and two people dressed in black emerged.
The gunmen, carrying hand guns, opened fire at Mr Assaad as, in vain, he tried to take cover. After firing many bullets, the shooters jumped back in the waiting car and sped off.
That car was found three days later burnt out next to a park at Birrong.
Mr Assaad then collapsed in a pool of blood on his driveway. The brazen shooting was over and done within a matter of seconds with police involved in the surveillance left shocked.
Fairfax Media has been told their presence in the street that morning did not go unnoticed with Mr Assaad's brother picking the police car out earlier.
Mr Assaad was no stranger to conflict and enemies, having been suspected of carrying out shootings against some of Sydney's prominent figures and their relatives.
Police had him as a suspect in the non-fatal shooting of Pasquale Barbaro in Leichardt in 2015.
He was also looked into for involvement in the shooting of Michael Ibrahim, the brother of nightclub boss John Ibrahim, in the CBD in January, 2015. However there were other prominent suspects in that case.
Most prominently, he was a suspect in the shooting murder of Walid "Wally" Ahmad at Bankstown Central shopping centre in April.
It was a brazen hit on the patriarch of one of the south-west's most prominent crime families that sparked fears for equally violent retribution.
MEOCS had a strike force tasked with keeping a lid on any retaliatory attacks. FPOs are seen within the police as an effective tool for achieving this.
News of Mr Assaad's suspected involvement in Ahmad's death had recently not only reached police but associates of Ahmad, a feared stand-over man.
An obvious line of inquiry is whether a hit was placed on Mr Assaad in retribution for taking out Ahmad. However Mr Assaad gave others reason to seek revenge given a history of drug rips and suspected shootings.