Naked City podcast: Abe Saffron and Sydney’s corrupt cops

The Naked City podcast will take a journey into the dark depths of the Australian criminal underworld. In this series you will hear recordings of some of Australia's most dangerous criminals, all of whom have been remarkably frank in their recollections.

In a city renowned for corruption Sydney’s Abe Saffron was gold medal standard. That is if there was a competition for being a no-good rat.

Sydney nightclub owner Abe Saffron in 1951.Credit: FRIFEAT

Although known by the nickname Mr Sin and being named in countless inquiries as an organised crime figure he remained the friend of senior police, politicians and judges.

He was a regular visitor at police headquarters and ran vice parties for many in power, often filming them as insurance if he needed to blackmail them later.

Even though six of his Sydney properties burned down in deliberately lit fires between 1980 and 1982 he was not the subject of a serious investigation for a simple reason.

The devastation after the Ghost Train fire at Luna Park in Sydney in 1979.Credit: Rick Stevens

No one could afford to get rid of Abe because of what he paid them and what he knew of them.

His reach was such that compromising reports, court documents and in some cases potential witnesses simply disappeared.

One property that Saffron had always had a greedy eye on was Sydney’s Luna Park that sat on a prime piece of harbour-side real estate.

On June 9, 1979, the ghost train at the park was engulfed in flames, killing six children and the father of one of them.

Within hours, police wrongly concluded the fire was due to an electrical fault and then deliberately ignored or concealed evidence that didn’t fit their theory. With indecent haste they bulldozed the site, destroying the crime scene and any clues that could point to the truth.

The policeman put in charge of the Luna Park investigation was Detective Inspector Doug Knight, who was neither an arson nor homicide expert. Five years earlier a royal commission found him to be a liar and in business with a Saffron associate.

Can there be a worse crime than covering up the murder of seven people, including six children? After his pathetic investigation Knight was twice promoted, retiring a superintendent. No one was ever charged over the Luna Park fire.

Abe Saffron died in 2006. The world is a better place without him.