Other Stuff
The Sydney Connection and the Black Knights of the NSW police force
Donald Mackay murdered in Griffith in 1977
The Sydney Connection
Published by the Network to Investigate the Mackay Murder.
John Jiggens' latest book, The Sydney Connection, reveals the darkest secret
of the Black Knights of the NSW police force, with several former detectives
having been involved at the highest level of the global drug trade and acting as
trans-shipment agents linking the U.S. Mafia to Asian drug armies allied to the
CIA. It brings to light some of the darkest themes of the relationship between
the Police and big crime in recent Australian history around the issue of the
murder of anti-drugs activist Donald Mackay. Jiggens gives the name �the
Sydney Connection� to the coalition of police, politicians, business and
criminal interests that pioneered the modern illicit drugs industry in Australia
and its connections with the US illegal drugs market.
The role of the Sydney Connection was pioneered by John Wesley Egan and the
Corset Gang in the 1960s and was developed in the 1970s by Murray Riley, with
the assistance of the Nugan Hand bank. Protected by association with prominent
politicians, corrupt police and powerful businessmen, they were prepared to
murder to guard their secret. The murder of Donald Mackay in Griffith in 1977
was inspired by this conspiracy.
Although the Mackay murder sparked the biggest manhunt in Australian history,
the NSW police were unable to solve the crime. In 1986, a small-time criminal
named Jimmy Bazley was framed for the Mackay murder. Bazley protested his
innocence and claimed: �The dogs have been barking for years that a NSW
policeman killed Donald Mackay. That policeman was Fred Krahe�.
Says author John Jiggens: �As I researched the Mackay murder I came to see
that Jimmy Bazley was right. What I discovered was that Coleambally, the crop
Don Mackay was murdered over, was TOO BIG for the Australian market: it had to
belong to the U.S. market. And Coleambally was not the only seizure which was
�too big� for the Australian market. The Australian marijuana market in this
period was distorted by what I call �the Sydney Connection�, an
international drug-smuggling conspiracy with powerful links to the �Black
Knights� of the NSW police�.
Following this network led Jiggens to Frank Nugan and the other major clue, the
story of the Nugan Group�s secret accounts, and Frank Nugan�s hiring of Fred
Krahe, the �Killer Cop�, to investigate the secret accounts affair. Fred
Krahe was the man Jimmy Bazley nominated as Mackay�s murderer. There were a
lot of notches on Fred Krahe�s gun, said Jimmy Bazley, and Don Mackay was one
of them.
Jiggens had examined the Mackay murder in his previous book, Marijuana
Australiana, and had already developed doubts about the conviction of Jimmy
Bazley for the murder. As he continued to investigate the links between the
principals of the Sydney Connection, these doubts grew. It seemed to him that
the official story of the murder of Don Mackay, the story retold in all the
books and newspaper articles, was a lie. Jiggens set out to expose this lie.
John Jiggens' research is in the best traditions of such writers as Evan Whitton
and Bob Bottom. His main achievement here has been to show the interrleationship
between the Australian and US criminal networks dealing with drugs, a
relationship which has its parallels with the political and military
relationships we have developd with that country since the days of the Vietnam
War.
Drew Hutton