Click on the image above to see a map of Sydney showing famous crime locations. Then click on any blue marker to find out more.
As a favored haven, Australia has long been talked about as a ‘pot of gold’ or El Dorado for American mafia investment abroad. It is now literally true. It was discovered in 1985 that, in Sydney and Melbourne, mafia front companies had actually been set up to deal specifically in… Keep Reading
Two decades after the event, police files on gangsters in Miami, Florida, have unlocked the key to the emergence in Australia of sophisticated, international-style organised crime. Miami, more so than Las Vegas, Nevada, has been a free city’ — free from territorial monopoly rigidly enforced by crime families elsewhere in… Keep Reading
If the opium-heroin warlords of the Golden Triangle can maintain armies of thousands of men, and marihuana growers of Griffith can build grass castles, the man in the street has cause to shudder at the mind-boggling profits amassing in the hands of the hidden masterminds of Australia’s illicit drug trade.… Keep Reading
Almost every businessman, at one time or another, has endured the frustration of delays in having telephones connected or transferred. Not so in the illicit world of organised crime. For Telecom, Australia’s largest government instrumentality, has been used to facilitate the shadowy network of illegal bookmaking. As quick as police… Keep Reading
The disappearance of Kings Cross newspaper publisher Juanita Nielsen has been one of Australia’s most intriguing mysteries. On Friday morning, 4 July 1975, Juanita Nielsen, then aged 38, went to an appointment at a Kings Cross nightclub — and afterwards disappeared. Although two men have since been gaoled for… Keep Reading
‘If you repay me not on such a day . . . Let the forfeit be . . . an equal pound Of your fair flesh.’ Such were the immortal words of Shylock, the usurious character penned by Shakespeare centuries ago Appropriately, twentieth-century loan sharking — very much the domain… Keep Reading
Merchant banker Frank Nugan viewed the world of high finance like a game of chess. For every move there was always a countermove — until checkmate. If outmanoeuvred when actually playing chess, he would sit back imperiously and utter his favourite saying: ‘so I’m in a corner. So what?’ If… Keep Reading
In evidence before the NSW Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking, identities named as the major figures controlling the Griffith-based marihuana racket were described as little educated and having limited understanding of financial matters. Who, then, did they look to for professional accountancy and tax advice? Judging by witnesses called before… Keep Reading
Each week, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians have a bet on the races, or have a fling on other forms of gambling. Most lose. If their accounts were to be believed, Australia’s most successful punters happened to go on parade before the NSW Royal Commission into Drug… Keep Reading
Horse racing is eulogised throughout the world as the Sport of Kings. In Australia, it is also very much the playground of the Mr Bigs and Mr Big-Enoughs of organised crime. No wonder punters are called mugs; races, more so than other sports, are regularly fixed. Racing became more than… Keep Reading
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