Editor’s letter: new light on an underworld mystery

What really happened to Sydney law clerk Brian Alexander, the bagman for crims and corrupt police in the 1970s? A former cop has spilt the beans.

The key to investigating crime is immediacy – get in quick while the trail is hot. But sometimes it takes the passage of time for new information to emerge that might throw up a fresh theory or shed light on a long-held mystery. And so it is that journalist Tom Gilling has a ripper of a yarn today about one of the great puzzles of the Mr Asia drug syndicate years – what really happened to Sydney law clerk Brian Alexander, the bagman who traded information between criminals and corrupt police in Sydney in the 1970s?

The accepted theory, now part of Sydney’s criminal folklore, is that he was strapped to a stove and turfed off a ­police boat off Sydney Heads around ­Christmas 1981. Now a former copper has dropped a ­different story. Why did he wait all this time to reveal what he saw? Many of the old crooks from that time are dying – the ­notorious criminal Neddy Smith took his last breath in prison two months ago. With the passing of time, Tom’s informant feels it might finally be safe to talk.