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.
After the Sydney syndicates consolidated their hold over organized crime in New South Wales during the battles of 1967-8, the revolver gave way to the briefcase as the symbolic weapon of the underworld and leading Sydney personalities began to cultivate contacts among the American Mafia. From the late 1960s, regular… Keep Reading
Almost simultaneously with the political controversy over illegal casinos, the press and opposition parliamentarians raised allegations that American and Australian organized crime figures had penetrated Sydney’s licensed clubs. The subject of the only Royal Commission authorized during Premier Robert Askin’s decade in office, these charges provoked the first major inquiry… Keep Reading
Perhaps the most obvious evidence of the new standard of political morality was the sudden opening of a network of lavish, Las Vegas-style gambling casinos across Sydney in the 1960s. Unlike the spartan environment of the two-up and baccarat schools, the new casinos invested heavily in expensive assets that could… Keep Reading
Involving only relatively minor criminal figures, the 1974 violence represented a bit of underworld housekeeping aimed at the elimination of one particularly unruly figure who refused to subordinate himself to syndicate discipline; the young John Stuart Regan. A standover collector known for his near-pathological violence, Regan, twenty-nine, was an independent… Keep Reading
Although reported at the time in the sensational style of the city’s tabloids, Sydney’s gang wars of 1967-8 have since been almost completely ignored by various Royal Commissions and Parliamentary committees established during the 1970s to analyze organized crime in New South Wales. Characteristic of the police and government view… Keep Reading
The survival of the SP bookmaking business despite the establishment of the TAB was but one element in the rapid expansion of organized crime activity in New South Wales during the decade following the election of a State Liberal-Country Party coalition government in 1965. Symptomatic of a major change in… Keep Reading
In response to the mounting policial controversy, the N.S.W. Labor government established a Royal Commission under Judge Kinsella in 1962. Abandoning its longtime opposition to any radical change in the betting laws, the AJC had earlier advocated legalization of off-track betting to tax the illegal SP business whose turnover it… Keep Reading
Perish ran a major drug manufacturing and distribution business for over a decade on the east coast, managing to build a fearsome reputation in the underworld while escaping police attention almost completely. He was brought undone by a personal killing. In the September 2011 trial of Anthony Perish and his… Keep Reading
Smith was born in 1944 and was a major criminal, involved particularly in armed robbery, heroin trafficking, and murder. He became a Sydney celebrity because of his close relationship during the 1980s with corrupt police detective Roger Rogerson. It was the type of relationship that had often existed before –… Keep Reading
Richard Walsh (pictured above left) has been chosen as a good example of the criminality widespread in outlaw motorcycle gangs. However, many others could have been selected, as the gangs have an extensive history of crime and no particular hierarchy. Powerful members involved in criminal activity tend to come and… Keep Reading
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