Under the name Savas Guven, he's a high-flying company chief executive, with a $5 million Mosman harbourside home and plans for a $2.5 million renovation, featuring all the latest mod-cons.
He owns and runs construction services company AllRound Access and spruiks contracts with the Federal Department of Defence, the NSW Department of Transport, the City of Sydney and corporate heavyweights like Lendlease.
But Savas Guven is not his only name – and his alter ego has a very different life story.
The businessman used to be known as Savas Yucel – and is a violent convicted armed robber who was sentenced to four years jail for threatening to stab staff at a Tandy Electronics store with a knife before making off with $3000 in mobile phones and accessories.
His dramatic life story does not end there.
Guven was the central figure in an ugly unauthorised tree-felling incident in May in Lane Cove West on a site bought by his family interests when two women tried to stop the lopping.
And in another twist, Guven, who has served jail time under his other name, will face court on Tuesday on a fresh assault charge to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Corporate records and court documents show that Savas Yucel is an alias of Savas Guven. He was born in Carlton, Victoria, in 1979, living until the age of eight in Turkey before returning to Australia.
In June 2000, Savas Yucel, sharing the same date of birth, was sentenced to four years' jail for a violent armed robbery in which he threatened to stab a store worker with a knife. (It was later revised to three years' periodic detention on appeal from the Crown after he was released on parole after just three months.)
Saying he needed the cash, Yucel admitted to court he went to a friend's place to get a kitchen knife that "he intended to use to scare the staff of the store".
He walked behind the counter of a Tandy Electronics store, "holding a knife pointing outwards at waist level towards [a] victim.
"The defendant [Yucel] said, "Come on, it's a holdup, come on, quick, go out the back room."
When a staff member walked to the cash register, Yucel said: "Don't try anything, I'll stab you".
He and an accomplice took nearly $3000 in mobile phones and pre-paid mobile phone cards.
In court, he admitted a gambling problem and appeared with a broken nose and two missing teeth. He had several run-ins with the law as a child.
Guven appears to have set up AllRound Access in 2010, specialising in on-site engineering projects and scaffolding.
In May, two days after Guven put one of the subsidiary companies in the AllRound Group into voluntary liquidation, owing more than $500,000 to creditors, including $77,000 to the Australian Tax Office, a company linked to Guven spent $2.8 million buying a large parcel of land in an industrial estate on Mars Road in Lane Cove West.
Over consecutive weekends shortly after the purchase, local workers and residents witnessed men arriving at the site. On one occasion they were in trucks and wearing uniforms bearing AllRound company livery.
The workers revved up chainsaws and began cutting down nearly 20 trees, including mature gums, and when two female neighbours attempted to stop them, Guven intervened, and took the mobile phone of one woman who was attempting to call police.
A passerby filmed dramatic footage of the incident from council land adjoining the property.
Neighbours were alarmed as the land's previous owner had attempted to build a child care centre on the site but the application was thwarted by Lane Cove Council. An arborist's report submitted to council as part of the proposal identified significant trees that should be protected.
Michael Mason, Lane Cove Council's executive manager of environmental services, confirmed council is considering legal action and penalties as no permission was given to fell the trees. Council is also investigating the use of the land, which is filled with large industrial storage containers and scaffolding. Council has formally interviewed Mr Guven.
The tree felling, coming so soon after the property purchase is believed to have occurred before settlement, complicating the legal status of the property and potential legal action.
Asked if anything had come of the incident, NSW Police said it was "unable to obtain a statement from the victim, and as such, no further action can be taken". It did not identify who it considered the victim.
Fairfax Media has spoken with numerous local residents as well as workers in businesses in the industrial park who all declined to be identified. Several expressed concern over their safety, citing behaviour seen at the property.
It's not the first time Guven has come to the attention of a Sydney council for unauthorised work.
In September, Fairfax Media reported that Guven upset neighbours in harbourside Mosman, alleging unauthorised works had been undertaken on a Hopetoun Avenue property, purchased in 2014 in the name of his wife, above Cobblers Bay beach.
One neighbour, the controversial businessman Travers Duncan, alleged unauthorised works had been undertaken on the property such as partial demolition.
Others, financiers Peter and Anne Rozenauers, alleged Guvens began to demolish the property without permission shortly after taking control of the property.
"Since January 2015 we have had to endure dust and debris being carried on to our property, with the remains of the building being a fire hazard and attractions for rodents and other animals," the Rozenauers told council.
Guven told the Herald in September that the demolition was an attempt to root out termites from a door frame, windows and the roof.
"A quarter of the house was gone by that time as I chased these termite nests," he said.
The complaint details came to light in correspondence with Mosman Council as part of a development application from Guven's wife Jade to renovate the property.
The matter was in the Land & Environment Court last week for mediation talks with Mosman Council over the Guvens' application to build a new $2.5 million four-level, four-bedroom and four-bathroom home featuring a range of high-end mod-cons like a "vehicle stacker with a car workshop" and a "car turntable". Mosman Council had previously rejected the application.
Mr Guven left a series of creditors high and dry when one of the subsidiaries of AllRound Access was put into voluntary liquidation earlier this year, including owing $77,000 to the tax man. Amongst them were MJC Enterprises, owed $37,000 for construction materials and Traffic Facilities Maintenance, owed $17,000 for managing traffic around an AllRound Access project.
"It's frustrating and upsetting," a TFM staff member said. "An unpaid bill of that size makes a significant dent in our cash flow."
Mr Guven is due to appear in Hornsby Local Court on Tuesday charged with common assault in Lane Cove West on 1 July. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Guven did not respond to calls and text messages to him or calls and emails to AllRound. At an AllRound office near the Mars Road site, a worker speaking through the intercom declined to take a list of questions for Mr Guven.
Fairfax Media visited the Mosman address subject to a development application, the address supplied to the corporate regulator as his home address as a company director, and found it derelict.
Business addresses identified online as AllRound offices were no longer occupied, including one in St Leonards where neighbours said they had moved out several months ago.
A fork lift driver on the site of the tree felling said he had never heard of Savas Guven. Or Savas Yucel.