Abe Saffron

Abraham Gilbert Saffron (6 October 1919 – 15 September 2006) was an Australian hotelier, nightclub owner, and property developer who was one of the major figures in organised crime in Australia in the latter half of the 20th century.

For several decades, members of government, the judiciary and the media made repeated allegations that Saffron was involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including illegal alcohol sales, dealing in stolen goods, illegal gambling, prostitution, drug dealing, bribery and extortion.

He was charged with a range of offences including "scandalous conduct", possession of an unlicensed firearm and possession of stolen goods, but his only major conviction was for federal tax evasion.

He gained nationwide notoriety in the media, earning various nicknames including "Mr Sin", the "Mr Big of Australian crime" and "the boss of the Cross" / "King of King's Cross" (a reference to the Kings Cross red-light district, where he owned numerous businesses).

In March 2021, ABC Television aired an investigative documentary series, "The Ghost Train Fire", which directly implicated Saffron in an arson plot at Luna Park Sydney in 1979, resulting in the deaths of seven people, including six children.

Former senior police officers testified on camera that Saffron ordered the crime, which was swiftly and systematically covered up by corrupt police and government figures.

Saffron always vigorously denied such accusations, and was renowned for the extent to which he was willing to sue for libel against his accusers.

Saffron was born in Annandale, New South Wales in 1919, of Russian Jewish descent.

He was educated at Annandale and Leichhardt primary schools and at the selective Fort Street High School.

Although his mother hoped he would become a doctor, Saffron left school at 15 and began his business career in the family's drapery firm in the late 1930s.

On 5 August 1940, Saffron enlisted in the Australian Army and was promoted to the rank of corporal before his discharge in January 1944.

Saffron is reputed to have served in the merchant navy.

However, Saffron's name does not appear in the Merchant Navy category of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to have then served in the Merchant Navy from January to June 1944.

Upon leaving the Merchant Navy, he became involved with a notorious Sydney nightclub called The Roosevelt Club, co-owned by "prominent Sydney businessman" Sammy Lee.

It is claimed that Saffron began his rise to power in the Sydney underworld through his involvement in the lucrative sale of black-market alcohol at the Roosevelt.

At the time, NSW clubs and pubs were subject to strict licensing laws which limited trading hours and regulated alcohol prices and sale conditions.

When Saffron began working at the Roosevelt, alcohol sales were also subject to wartime rationing regulations.

In 1947, Saffron, in partnership with Hilton Granville Kincaid and Mendel Brunen, took over the ownership of the Roosevelt.

In 1948, Saffron returned to Sydney and began purchasing licences for a string of Sydney pubs.

It was later alleged that he also established covert controlling interests in numerous other pubs through a series of "dummy" owners.

A subsequent Royal Commission into the NSW liquor trade heard evidence that in the early 1950s The Roosevelt Club was clearing over £1000 per week in alcohol sales, of which only £100 was being banked as liquor takings.

In January 1953, the club was closed after being declared a "disorderly house" by the NSW Police Commissioner.

After Saffron sold the Roosevelt, it was able to be re-opened.

Saffron then relocated to Newcastle; he worked there for a time as a bookmaker, but it has been reported that he was not successful.

When questioned by a Royal Commission about how he had obtained the substantial sum (£3000) with which he bought his first pub licence in Newcastle, he claimed that the money had come from savings he had accumulated from his bookmaking activity, although he was notably vague when pressed about the exact sources of this income.

The 1954 Maxwell Royal Commission heard evidence that Saffron used these pubs to obtain legitimately purchased alcohol, diverting it to the various nightclubs and other businesses that he operated and selling at black market prices, realising vast profits.

Among the most damning material was the detailed evidence tendered to the 1954 Maxwell Royal Commission into the NSW liquor trade, which concluded that Saffron had established covert controlling interests in numerous NSW pubs to supply his "sly grog" outlets, and that he had systematically made false statements to the commission and sworn false oaths before the NSW Licensing Court.

In the second edition of The Politics of Heroin by Alfred W. McCoy, in a chapter summarising the Nugan Hand Bank it is mentioned that Askin and Saffron regularly had dinner together at the Bourbon & Beefsteak, owned by American expatriate Bernie Houghton.

By the 1960s, Saffron owned or controlled a string of nightclubs, strip joints and sex shops in Kings Cross, including the Sydney club Les Girls, home of the famous transvestite revue.

During this period he began to expand his business operations into "legitimate" enterprises and to establish holdings in other states, such as the Raffles Hotel, Perth, leading several state governments to launch inquiries into his activities.

The Australian Commonwealth Police alleged that Mr Saffron met with Chicago mobster, Joseph Dan Testa, in 1969, while Testa was in Australia.

One of the most contentious incidents in Saffron's career was his rumoured involvement in the disappearance and presumed murder of newspaper publisher and anti-development campaigner Juanita Nielsen in July 1975.

Although no direct connection to the crime was ever established, Saffron was shown to have had proven connections with several people suspected of being involved in Nielsen's disappearance.

Saffron owned the Carousel nightclub in Kings Cross, where Nielsen was last seen on the day of her disappearance; his long-serving deputy James McCartney Anderson managed the club; one of the men later convicted of conspiring to kidnap Nielsen was Eddie Trigg, the night manager of the club; it was also reported that Saffron had financial links with developer Frank Theeman, against whose development Nielsen was campaigning.

In the 1980s investigative journalist David Hickie published his landmark book The Prince and The Premier, which included a substantial section detailing Saffron's alleged involvement in many aspects of organised crime in Sydney.

The book's central thesis was that former NSW Premier Robert Askin was corrupt, that Askin and Police Commissioners Norman Allan and Fred Hanson received huge bribes from the illegal gaming industry over many years, and that Askin and other senior public officials had overseen and approved of a major expansion of organised crime in New South Wales.

Using only material that was already in the public domain, obtained from evidence tendered to royal commissions and allegations made by politicians under parliamentary privilege, Hickie devoted an entire section of his book to Saffron's business activities.

The NSW Police were unable to effect any substantial convictions against Saffron over a period of almost 40 years, which only served to reinforce the public concerns about his alleged influence over state police and government officials, but after the establishment of the National Crime Authority in the 1980s, he became a major target for the new federal investigative body.

In May 2007, The Sydney Morning Herald published an article on Saffron's reputed involvement in the infamous Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney in 1979, when a suspected arson attack destroyed the popular ride, killing seven people.

In an interview with Herald journalist Kate McClymont, Saffron's niece Anne Buckingham linked Saffron to the fire, stating that her uncle "liked to collect things" and that he intended to purchase Luna Park.