Read an extract from Kingpin and the Crooked Cop by Neil Mercer.
NED
Sometime after the Kelleher interview airs, 60 Minutes is chasing another key figure in Sydney’s underworld.
Arthur Stanley Smith, better known to his associates as ‘Ned’ or ‘Neddy’, met Warren Lanfranchi in jail in 1979 or 1980, maybe a bit earlier. Smith was already a major heroin dealer and armed robber, among many other things. By early 1981, he was supplying Lanfranchi—at least, that was the allegation at the time.
Ned Smith also knew Roger Rogerson, having met him in the second half of 1976.
What sort of relationship did they have?
That depends on whether you ask Roger or Ned.
Nevertheless, when the police started looking for Warren in 1981, Ned Smith played a pivotal role.
He was the go-between. He knew Warren and he knew Roger. He set up the fateful meeting, personally driving Warren to Chippendale and dropping him off in Cleveland Street, close to the Britannia Hotel.
Ned knows a lot of stuff about drugs, police, Sydney and something called the green light.
Well-known 60 Minutes reporter Mike Munro sets up a lunch.
I assume we’ll meet in one of the inner-city pubs favoured by Smith—the Broadway Hotel, the Captain Cook, the Star—for a pie and a schooner or six.
Wrong.
Lunch is at Prunier’s, which is in the upmarket suburb of Woollahra and boasts an equally upmarket clientele. Well, most of the time. Starched white tablecloths, immaculate waiters, all set in beautiful rose gardens. Dangar Place seems like another country.
Our aim is to persuade Smith to do an interview on camera. Things are progressing nicely when in walks former NSW Police officer Murray Stewart Riley, with an entourage of young blokes dressed in pastels—pale pink or lime-green shirts, white slacks, loafers with no socks. They look like they’ve stepped out of the TV series Miami Vice.
Riley, tanned and well dressed, greets Smith like an old mate. Which he is. Riley has not long been released from jail, caught trying to import 2.7 tonnes of marijuana on a yacht called the Anoa. He always has a scheme on the go to make money or get something for nothing.
Ned introduces us.
Charming to a fault, he calls Riley ‘the prince of promises’.
Introductions over, we continue our lunch. Riley and his sidekicks take up a table behind us. I
notice they’re making impressive inroads into the restaurant’s supply of Veuve Clicquot. They’re having a fine old time. Lots of laughing.
Meanwhile, Smith has expressed some reluctance about doing an interview with 60 Minutes but says he’ll consider it.
Making the usual small talk, we ask how he’s getting on. He tells Mike and me that he’s a humble invalid pensioner, just doing the best he can. As yet, there’s no sign of the Parkinson’s disease with which he was diagnosed a few years earlier. All through lunch, the big man—he’s six foot three at least and around 110 kilograms—is softly spoken, polite, almost deferential. One of Australia’s best-known QCs later describes him as possessing ‘a certain dignity’. Guess we’ll see about that.
Lunch continues for some hours. When the bill arrives, late in the afternoon, I’m a bit startled. It’s over $1000.
Murray Riley, aware of the reputedly lavish 60 Minutes expense account, has put all the Veuve Clicquot on our bill. Hilarious.
We tell Smith—as politely as we can—that we can’t possibly pay it all. Our boss, 60 Minutes executive producer Gerald Stone, will have a fit.
Smith looks over at Riley’s table, which is in stitches.
He reaches into his pocket and, with a few choice words, pulls out a huge wad and peels off four or five hundred dollars. Thanks, Ned. Cheers.
He then drives off in a late-model Mercedes. Some invalid. Some pension.
Kingpin and the Crooked Cop
by Neil Mercer
The life and crimes of our most corrupt policeman and most notorious gangster – featuring astonishing new evidence.
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