LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Over the past year, a brutal criminal gang has waged a campaign of terror in Australian suburbia.

There've been murders, shootings, knee-cappings and extortion carried out by gangsters wearing the insignia of "Brothers For Life", a gang founded in prison by one of Australia's most notorious criminals, Bassam Hamzy.

The convicted killer gained notoriety when he was caught using a smuggled mobile phone to run a violent drug network from his prison cell.

Despite a crackdown, 7.30 has learned he's been able to continue his activities, even though he's still behind bars.

Until now, a sweeping court suppression order has prevented us from bringing you this story. Today key parts of that order were revoked, lifting the veil of secrecy on Hamzy and his gang.

Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop has this exclusive report.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP, REPORTER: It's October, 2012 in south-western Sydney. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, two gang members pull up in a Mercedes. They're waiting on a suburban street in Greenacre to meet with their boss. They've been summoned here. They're in deep trouble over a drug debt. But they have no idea what's about to happen.

27-year-old Yetya Hahmoud was one of seven men from Sydney's south-west brutally executed in the same number of months.

JAMAL RIFI: I had to attend too many funerals and I had to go to Rockwood Cemetery too many times in the recent past. We want this to stop.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The body of Yetya Hahmoud remained at the scene for hours next to a crucial clue: the numberplate on the bullet-riddled car bore the tell-tale initials "BFL", meaning Brothers For Life.

CLIVE SMALL, FMR NSW ASST POLICE COMMISSIONER: Well it was Brothers For Life for sure. And it was a statement of authority and a assertion of power.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Police are going into battle against the Brothers For Life. Officers were dressed for a warzone when they arrested this man in February over two shootings. The Brothers For Life insignia he's wearing, showing two AK-47s, is modelled on the colours worn by bikie gangs.

JAMAL RIFI: We have seen the Brothers For Life insignia worn around and especially at time of funeral and times of tensions. Probably is sending a message to someone else within the community: "Don't come near me. I am part of the BLF, so be afraid of me and be very afraid of me."

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Dr Jamal Rifi is a local GP and community leader. In his clinic he hears the stories of a mounting number of victims, innocent bystanders and grieving family members.

JAMAL RIFI: Well a lot of people who these killing taken place in their street or around the place, they're definitely suffering from acute post-traumatic stress and unfortunately it's progressing to a chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately they are perceived that they are in a warzone.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The Brothers For Life gang was founded in jail by convicted murderer Bassam Hamzy.

PETER SEVERIN, NSW CORRECTIVE SERVICES COMMISSIONER: He has certainly been assessed and identified as highly manipulative, as quite influential outside the prison system as part of a broader network.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Hamzy grew up on the streets of Kings Cross, a drug addict for most of his teenage years. At the age of 19, he gunned down a teenager on a Sydney nightclub strip. Hamzy was jailed for 21 years for murder.

He was sent to Australia's highest security prison, the Supermax.

CLIVE SMALL: He converted at some point to radical Islam and while in jail was able to draw in a number of younger people - adults, but younger people who'd been jailed, draw them in to converting to radical Islam and around that conversion, built himself a strong gang while he was in the jail.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Hamzy was moved to Lithgow Jail and into segregation. But in 2008, guards spotted this on security cameras: a mobile phone being passed between cells on a line of dental floss. Police started listening in. They discovered Hamzy was running an extensive criminal enterprise through his relatives.

CLIVE SMALL: Found to be making something like 450 calls a day. So that shows the extent of the communication.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: From his jail cell, Hamzy was trafficking drugs from Sydney to Melbourne, a quarter of a million dollars worth in trucks every week.

He flew his cronies to Melbourne and Adelaide to carry out two kidnappings and a shooting.

The intercepts of Hamzy's calls are chilling. 7.30 can now reveal details of the phone taps after a court ruling today.

BASSAM HAMZY (intercepted phone call, male voiceover): "Can you slap him once in the face?

INTERLOCUTOR (male voiceover): "I've already done it, cuz. I've already chopped him. I've got blood everywhere, mate."

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: In this call, Hamzy directs a violent kidnapping. He demands $30,000 from the victim.

BASSAM HAMZY (male voiceover): "They're gonna cut your fingers off. After they cut your fingers off, I'm gonna cut your ears off, alright?"

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Hamzy's next victim owed him $20,000. Once again, Hamzy directs the torture from his prison cell.

BASSAM HAMZY (male voiceover): "Put something in his mouth. Tie his mouth up so he can't scream. He's lucky I don't put a bullet in his head. If I ever have to come up there again, I'm gonna cut all his fingers off. Next time I'll take his ears and make them into a necklace."

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Bassam Hamzy was sent back to the Supermax, thrown into solitary confinement and designated as Australia's first and only extreme high-risk restricted inmate.

PETER SEVERIN: You're' dealing with a person who's very manipulative. He's very bright. Somebody who obviously is determined to not only beat the system, but to continue committing a crime or having an influence outside the corrections system while he's serving a sentence.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Late last year prison guards discovered Hamzy had once again got hold of a mobile phone. 7.30 understands it was one of several he'd recently had access to in jail.

PETER SEVERIN: He has been doing that, as I understand, to continue to engage in illicit behaviour outside prison. That is a very serious matter and certainly one that we are extremely concerned about. He became wind of the fact that the staff were searching specifically for a mobile phone and literally within seconds before that could be secured, he flushed it down a toilet bowl.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Fellow prisoners claim Hamzy's cronies have got the phones into jail by standing over prison guards, threatening to harm their families and paying them for their help. Hamzy has also had disputes in jail which have allegedly been spilling onto the streets.

Police allege that in March a former fellow inmate who'd fallen out with Bassam Hamzy tried to kill his aunt. Nearly 30 gunshots were pumped through her front door.

One of the bullets hit a neighbour's house.

WOMAN: My young brother was sitting, playing PlayStation like any normal kid would do. He was lying down with a pillow and he come, like, really close to the pillow, like, really close to his head.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The BFL have also been targeting the wider community.

JAMAL RIFI: I know of many cases, large sums of money were asked, $50,000 for protection money and for extortion and people, if they don't pay, their livelihood will be affected. We have seen that places been burnt down, places closed or people were forced to relocate. ...

... There is a perception that these people are somehow untouchable. And they fear if they're gonna go and give some information to the police, that there may be some retaliation, someone may knock the door on them and shoot someone else.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The NSW Police have reached out to their counterparts in Lebanon to help crack the wall of fear.

RONY GHANEM, INTERNAL SECURITY FORCE, LEBANON: We are afraid now if there's some connection between these guys here and the guys of Lebanon - in Lebanon, some relationship between them.

SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: For the past two months, Bassam Hamzy's legal team has fought to prevent details of his crimes from being published, but today the Court of Criminal Appeal has pulled back on a sweeping suppression order. And tonight, 7.30 can report that Bassam Hamzy will spend another 22 years in jail for his crimes. The question is whether that will curb his power.

CLIVE SMALL: The violence will still be there. His gang is still there. They will be exercising violence whenever they need it to survive and whenever he tells them.

LEIGH SALES: Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop with that report.