When aspiring nurse Stanislava Kukusheva turned to Tinder, she hoped a casual swipe right might spark romance.
Homesick for her native Bulgaria and working punishing hospital shifts, the glamorous blonde flicked through the dating app in search of a distraction.
But instead of love, one fateful match would pull her into the chilling underworld of one of Britain’s most feared crime gangs – ending in a brazen execution inside a north London social club.
Within just five days of meeting a suitor by the name of ‘Hamza’ – Kukusheva found herself entangled in an assassination plot linked to the ruthless Tottenham Turks syndicate.
For the man she had matched with was actually Ali Danish Syed, a 29-year-old suspected hitman-for-hire.
Their whirlwind romance – fuelled by late-night messages and sexual trysts – would end with a father-of-two shot dead and Kukusheva standing trial at the Old Bailey.
Today, the former student nurse, 36, is behind bars – while the man she quickly fell for has vanished.
The astonishing chain of events can be traced back to July 25, 2023, when Kukusheva – then working at North Middlesex hospital – matched with ‘Hamza’ on Tinder.
She thought he looked ‘Iranian, Iraqi or from a country similar to Turkey’ – he was in fact Dutch and of Pakistani origin.
‘We started chatting on phone and we agreed to meet on the same evening,’ Kukusheva later recounted to detectives.
‘Our first meeting was just him driving and us talking. He was so nice with me.
Stanislava Kukusheva is serving five years in prison after helping Ali Danish Syed, a man she had matched with on Tinder five days prior, to dispose of a murder weapon
CCTV footage shows the moment a hooded Syed walks into a sleepy Turkish social cafe in Tottenham, north London, and holds a gun up at Talip Guzel before firing a shot
‘We continued chatting on the phone and we met again around 26 or 27 July. We were at a Turkish restaurant in Wood Green.
‘After, he came home with me and we had sex. He was at my house for an hour and he left.’
Over the next few days, the relationship intensified quickly with the pair repeatedly meeting up for sex. Kukusheva, who moved to Britain in 2019, was seemingly infatuated.
Then, on July 30 – as can be seen in footage obtained by the Daily Mail – events took a deadly turn.
At 11.19pm, a hooded gunman walked calmly into a Turkish social club above a shop on White Hart Lane in Tottenham, north London.
Moments later, he raised a SIG-Sauer P75 self-loading pistol and fired a single shot at Talip Guzel.
The bullet struck the father-of-two in the lower torso. He stumbled, clutching his wound, before collapsing to the floor.
The execution bore all the hallmarks of a professional hit.
Prosecutors believe Syed had been recruited by the notorious Tottenham Turks – a violent north London gang with Kurdish roots – to silence Guzel.
The violent gang – whose terrifying war with the rival Hackney Bombers has led to at least 20 murders on London’s street – feared he held key information relating to the torture and murder of Turkish DJ Koray Alpergin, 43, nine months earlier.
Alpergin, who owned a Turkish radio station but ran a lucrative side-hustle as a drug smuggler, was found dead near Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium after being abducted in October 2022.
He had suffered a brutal catalogue of 94 separate injuries, including black eyes, a fractured eye socket and bruising of his genitals and rectum.
Two alleged Turks ringleaders, Ali Yildirim and Cem Orman, who fled to Turkey shortly after the killing, are believed to have commissioned the hit on Mr Guzel.
Less than an hour after Mr Guzel was killed in cold blood, Syed pulled up outside Kukusheva’s flat in Chiswick, west London.
He stayed for just 85 seconds.
Prosecutors say that fleeting visit was enough to deposit the murder weapon at his lover’s address – before beginning a dramatic escape across to Pakistan via Edinburgh, Brussels and Doha.
Kukusheva, originally from Bulgaria, was a student nurse at the time her life changed course overnight. She argued in court that her DNA was found on the murder weapon because it had been transferred by Syed after they had sex together
It is believed Syed was recruited by the Tottenham Turks to kill Talip Guzel (left) over fears he held key information relating to the murder of Turkish DJ Koray Alpergin (right) nine months earlier
Weeks later, Met police recovered the weapon used to kill Mr Guzel in Enfield.
The firearm was hidden inside a balaclava, wrapped in black bin bags, concealed within a black Dolce & Gabbana drawstring bag, which was then stuffed inside a white Moschino bag.
Nearby was a yellow cloth wrapped around a magazine loaded with seven rounds.
Forensic tests revealed Kukusheva’s DNA on both designer bags – and on the grip plates of the gun.
She was arrested and charged with perverting the course of justice and possession of a firearm.
At her Old Bailey trial, Kukusheva – who had obtained an £11,000 grant to study nursing at Anglia Ruskin University’s campus in east London – denied any knowledge of the weapon.
Her barrister, Archangelo Power, argued that Syed must have transferred her DNA to the firearm after their sexual encounters.
She told jurors he had touched her ‘everywhere’ and had not showered or washed his hands after their hour-long sexual liaisons.
Asked if she had anything to do with the murder weapon or helped Syed in any way, Kukusheve told jurors: ‘I had no idea’.
‘He was a good liar and manipulator,’ she added in her strong Bulgarian accent.
The court heard that shortly after Syed fled her home, Kukusheva began searching online for ‘killed boy’ and ‘killed boy Londin’.
The Metropolitan Police did not announce details of the murder until breakfast time – 8.05am.
Mukul Chawla, KC, prosecuting, told jurors: ‘It follows that Syed had clearly told Kukusheva about the murder given the short amount of time between the murder, the visit to her and the searches starting.
‘As death had only been pronounced at 12.16am, it follows that Syed must also have received news of the death from someone in or around the social club.’
Kukusheva claimed in court Syed had told her that a friend of his had been killed.
Mr Chawla told the jury: ‘Once it became clear that the shooting had resulted in death, it appears that Syed panicked, left the gun with Kukusheva and quickly fled the jurisdiction.
‘It is believed that he currently remains outside the jurisdiction of this court and explains why he is not here to stand his trial.’
Yet, even after Syed’s sudden disappearance, the couple continued to exchange small talk.
While he waited for his flight to Brussels, he messaged: ‘Yeah babes how are you’ and then added: ‘What u doing’
‘Working,’ she replied.
‘Nice everything okay Yh,’ Syed said, ‘I’m gonna call u in couple hours just dealing with something.’
Giving evidence Kukusheva admitted erasing some messages to and from Syed.
She said: ‘I did recently deleted messages between me and him from my phone as we had exchanged sexually explicit messages and pictures and I would be very embarrassed if people see this.’
In November last year, after 36 hours and 27 minutes of deliberations, the jury returned its verdicts.
Kukusheva, who had no previous convictions, was cleared of perverting the course of justice and assisting an offender.
But she was convicted of possessing a firearm – with jurors rejecting her claim that her DNA had been transferred innocently.
Her barrister insisted in mitigation: ‘This is a lady who was training to be a nurse. She was in the business of saving lives, not taking lives.’
Sentencing her to five years in jail, judge Anthony Leonard, KC, told her: ‘You kept the gun for 12 days.
‘You did what you did because you wanted your relationship with him to continue.’
Her co-defendant, Jan Mercan, who had unknowingly driven Syed to Tottenham in a rental van after being told he was selling a bicycle, was cleared of murder.
Syed, believed to be still in hiding in Pakistan, remains at large. Jurors were told that he likely had ‘no direct knowledge of Guzel’ but ‘was provided with the gun and instructed to shoot’ his target.
The case has once again shone a spotlight on the feared Tottenham Turks – among Britain’s most-feared mobsters and whose prime income comes had long flowed from heroin trafficking.
They are among several gangs with Turkish roots to have carved out enclaves of control across swathes of north and east London.
On the surface, members blend in as cafe owners, barbers and businessmen.
Behind closed doors, detective says, they run lucrative drug rackets while patrolling their turf with footsoldiers armed with illegally-imported weapons.
A long-running feud and bloody feud between the Tottenham Turks and the Hackney Bombacilar – or Bombers – has been linked to around 20 murders, turning parts of the capital into a battleground.
Speaking to the London Standard this year, one source said: ‘It’s very much like the Mafia in Italy and the US where they are part of the fabric of society.
‘In Wood Green, and around areas like Lordship Lane, families come from Turkey and the gangs will lend them money to buy a business like a café or barbershop. Sometimes the interest on the loans is quite reasonable.
‘Obviously if the repayments are not met, that can mean trouble. By keeping these businesses in the community, the gangs build a fortress where everyone owes them and they can keep control.’
The insider added: ‘It’s just like in The Godfather film where if you need a favour you go to the gang. But they’re part of the fabric of society and are hiding in plain sight. Even the Albanians, who are very scary, stay away from them.’
Police pictured at the scene on White Hart Lane in Tottenham following the shooting of Talip Guzel. The Turkish social club was located above a shop on the high street
Tottenham Turks leader Izzet Eren (pictured), who was shot and killed sitting outside a cafe in Chisinau, Moldova last summer
The violence has frequently spilled onto the streets – often with devastating consequences for innocent bystanders.
In May 2024, a gunman on a motorbike sprayed bullets at a restaurant in Dalston. Three men were hit – and a stray round struck a nine-year-old girl eating an ice cream outside. She suffered serious injuries.
Javon Riley, 33, was later jailed for three counts of attempted murder. Police said the intended targets were linked to a ‘beef’ between the Tottenham Turks and the Hackney Turks.
Police said Riley was Caribbean and that it was common for Turkish gangs to recruit would-be assassins from outside their community.
That was also the case in 2015 when Jermaine Baker was shot dead by police while sitting in a car near Wood Green Crown Court during an organised crime plot to free Turkish criminal Izzet Eren from a prison van.
Baker was not from the Turkish community but had allegedly been recruited for the operation.
Eren was later shot dead in a cafe in Moldova in 2024 following his release – a killing widely believed to be part of the same bitter cycle of reprisals.
In 2019, shopkeeper Ahmet Paytak, 50, was shot dead and his son injured when a gunman on a motorbike opened fire on their Holloway Road store.
Six years later, baker Erdogan Guzel was gunned down outside his café on Lordship Lane, leaving a woman seriously hurt. Both men were innocent bystanders.
The Metropolitan Police has placed Turkish organised crime groups at the top of their list when it comes to illegal firearms trafficking.
Chief Superintendent Rick Sewart has previously described them as ‘public enemy number one’ in the battle against smuggled guns.
London’s Met Police has put the Turkish gangs at the top of its list as public enemy number one’ when it comes to smuggling illegal weapons from abroad.
He revealed that 138 firearms and 2,500 rounds of ammunition were recovered from a Turkish organised crime group during a major crackdown.Officers have worked alongside Europol and the National Crime Agency to stem the flow of weapons into Britain.
