Kerry Packer knew who stole $5.4 million in gold from his safe

EXCLUSIVE: KERRY Packer not only knew the thief who stole $5.4m in gold bars from his office, they dined at the same places, at the same time.

Kerry Packer pictured leaving the ACP building after $5 Million gold bullion robbery.

MEDIA mogul Kerry Packer not only knew the thief who stole $5.4 million in gold bars from his office, they dined at the same restaurants, at the same time, at different tables.

But the two men never acknowledged each other.

In one of Sydney's most notorious unsolved crimes, a master safecracker broke into Mr Packer's office in the former Australian Consolidated Press building in Park St in April, 1995, cut through the safe at exactly the right spot to open it and made off with gold bullion weighing 285kg - now worth about $12.5 million.

A detective who worked on the case admitted: "Mr Packer was well aware of our inquiries and our major suspect.''

Legendary restaurateur Giovanna Toppi knew both of the men who frequented her restaurants La Strada at Potts Point and Machiavelli in the city. She knew Mr Packer as one of her best customers - and the stocky career safecracker as a good friend of her late husband Walter.

But Ms Toppi, 78, said she had no idea how her husband's friend made a living.

``I don't know if my husband knew. He never tell me. What I know? I never see him for years,'' Ms Toppi said yesterday.

``Mr Packer, he was the best customer of mine. He was a lovely man, I wish he was still here.''

For at least some of the time that the two men circled each other, police believe the master crook was having a secret affair with Mr Packer's former secretary, Pat Wheatley.

That was how they believe he got the inside information about the gold bullion locked in the old Chubb safe hidden inside the drinks cabinet in Mr Packer's office together with a jar containing ``scrap'' gold including nuggets and gold wire and a gold and silver necklace.

Puzzled at how he got past private security guards, detectives were later told by a former employee that the guards commonly spent much of their shifts in the pool, gym or on the squash courts at the neighbouring Hyde Park club which was part of the area they were paid to keep secure.

When Ms Wheatley died in 2008, aged 64, she left property worth around $2.5 million, including an art deco Bellevue Hill apartment with harbour views and her Bowral home which had three bedrooms, three ensuites and a tennis court. She had sold her other eastern suburbs unit before moving to Bowral.

The criminal suspect, now 74, lived nearby and police conducting surveillance saw them visiting each other around the time of the theft.

The crook sold his own unit two months ago and moved elsewhere in the eastern suburbs. He could not be contacted for comment at the new address.

Police mug shot of the man believed to have been involved in the theft of Kerry Packer's gold.

However, he was well known to police not only as the country's top safebreaker but also as a ladies' man.

Although he was short in stature, he told detectives during his one and only arrest in the 1970s for breaking into the Chubb safe factory in Waterloo that he had a distinctive tattoo on his penis - the initials B and E, or possibly the entire phrase "Breaking and Entering".

``He wasn't much to look at but you could probably call him a charming rogue,'' a former detective said.

Detectives revealed the identity of their suspect to Mr Packer during an expletive-filled meeting in the months after the theft. They were summonsed to Mr Packer's office after he heard that one section of the media was planning to write a totally ridiculous account of the gold theft with a scenario police had totally discounted. The story had come from a prisoner serving a sentence for drug dealing.

``Mr Packer thought police had given the media the story and was fuming,'' one of those present said.

It was then that detectives told him the identity of their major suspect.

Someone who used to dine with Mr Packer at La Strada has confirmed that the media tycoon knew that the fellow diner was a top safecracker, but said Mr Packer had never confided that the man was behind the theft of his gold.

"He was pretty well known, the safecracker," the source said.

No-one has been charged over the theft and the gold has never been found.

Detectives had information that the bullion was taken to Melbourne where it was melted down and that the doctor-turned-crime figure, the late Nick Paltos, was involved through contacts he had in Melbourne.

Dr Paltos, who did time in jail for smuggling $45 million worth of cannabis into Australia and for perverting the course of justice, had spent 12 years as superintendent of the casualty department at Sydney Hospital.

When he took up private practice in Woolloomooloo, Kerry Packer was one of his patients.

Mr Packer died in 2005. La Strada has since closed its doors in Macleay St, Potts Point.

For some time while he was still under surveillance, police followed the safecracker to Machiavelli most days.

He now appears to have slipped back under the radar, which is how he has lived most of his life.

"He was the ultimate professional," one former detective said.