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Kerry Packer's Gold: The Sydney Bullion Mystery · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Appoche production.
0:14
Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm your host
0:16
Speaker 2: Adam Shand. Some crimes are so deeply hidden that the
0:21
Speaker 2: truth goes to the grave with the characters involved. The
0:24
Speaker 2: story of Kerry Packers gold is one such crime. On
0:30
Speaker 2: the last weekend in April nineteen ninety five, Australia's richest man,
0:35
Speaker 2: Kerry Packer, was relieved of two hundred and eighty five
0:38
Speaker 2: kilos of gold bullion. It was the largest theft of
0:42
Speaker 2: gold in Australia's history, surpassing the two hundred and thirty
0:46
Speaker 2: kilos stolen in eighteen fifty two from the Nelson, a
0:50
Speaker 2: ship at anchor in Port Melbourne. Packer's gold was snatched
0:55
Speaker 2: from a safe in his Sydney office. Somehow the thief
0:59
Speaker 2: got twenty five gold bars out of the building past
1:03
Speaker 2: security undetected. The crime scene told a simple story, a
1:08
Speaker 2: master thief working alone, executing a daring raid that went
1:13
Speaker 2: off without a hitch. However, the true story is anything
1:18
Speaker 2: but simple. Three decades later, a very different story is
1:25
Speaker 2: emerging from my investigation, suggesting that this heist was an
1:30
Speaker 2: elaborate setup, a conspiracy designed to create an illusion that
1:35
Speaker 2: an intruder had breached Packer's inner sanctum. Just how much
1:40
Speaker 2: Kerry Packer knew about the robbery is uncertain. He died
1:44
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, so he's not in a
1:47
Speaker 2: position to assist. Only a handful of people knew about
1:51
Speaker 2: the safe and its contents. Each one had a motive
1:54
Speaker 2: to be involved in the theft. My research suggests two possibilities,
2:00
Speaker 2: that someone left the safe open to ensure the theft happened,
2:06
Speaker 2: or that Kerry Packer stole his own gold. The Underworld
2:12
Speaker 2: favors the latter story. But there's just a few things
2:16
Speaker 2: that Dame Jell. No one actually ever saw it. No
2:18
Speaker 2: one never saw the ghost. It's all shit.
2:20
Speaker 1: Everything you did was smelly, Kerry Packers because cruel. It
2:24
Speaker 1: wasn't what you laugh. Good luck to him, which I
2:27
Speaker 1: was in the joke with him, But let's start sitting
2:30
Speaker 1: at me like he was just a businessman.
2:34
Speaker 3: Kerry Francis Bolmore Packer, I appear here so after theon reluctantly.
2:42
Speaker 2: Kerry Packer was a larger than life figure with a
2:45
Speaker 2: huge public following after his creation of the Rebel World
2:49
Speaker 2: series Cricket in the late nineteen seventies, He was brash, combative,
2:54
Speaker 2: and determined to get his own way in all things,
2:58
Speaker 2: as he demonstrated when he appeared before a parliamentary hearing
3:01
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one into his attempt to take over
3:05
Speaker 2: the John Fairfax newspaper empire.
3:08
Speaker 1: You're either going to have to believe me or call
3:10
Speaker 1: me a liar.
3:11
Speaker 3: I am telling you there is no arrangement, and I'm
3:14
Speaker 3: sick of telling people there is no arrangement. That is
3:18
Speaker 3: the situation. There is no arrangement, there is no agreement.
3:23
Speaker 3: I am not going to run John Fairfax's.
3:26
Speaker 2: Packer had a famous disregard for people and lawmakers who
3:30
Speaker 2: interfered with his business.
3:33
Speaker 1: I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now,
3:36
Speaker 1: of course, I am minimizing my tax.
3:38
Speaker 3: And if anybody in this country doesn't minimize their tax,
3:42
Speaker 3: they want their head room because a government, I can
3:44
Speaker 3: tell you you're not spending it that well that we
3:46
Speaker 3: should be donating extra.
3:51
Speaker 1: The story of Packer's gold, like his career, was not
3:54
Speaker 1: just about wealth. It was about loyalty, betrayal, and control.
4:00
Speaker 2: There was a sense that Kerry Packer had not shared
4:03
Speaker 2: all he knew with the investigating police. He'd use trusted
4:07
Speaker 2: insiders in New South Wales Police Force to keep the
4:10
Speaker 2: detectives on the job at arm's length. It was an
4:14
Speaker 2: investigation that was destined to fail. In fact, perhaps it
4:19
Speaker 2: was designed to fail from the get go. The police
4:23
Speaker 2: were provided with no evidence that the gold was ever
4:26
Speaker 2: actually in the safe. They were told that Packer had
4:29
Speaker 2: received the gold when he sold a steak in a
4:32
Speaker 2: Perth mining company. Rather than take cash for his stake,
4:37
Speaker 2: the media mogul had asked for his payment in gold,
4:40
Speaker 2: apparently for tax reasons. Packer had stored the gold bars
4:45
Speaker 2: in the old safe in his office, even though there
4:49
Speaker 2: was a much larger and more secure strong room in
4:52
Speaker 2: another office nearby. It's an odd thing to do storing
4:57
Speaker 2: ten thousand ounces of gold in a primitive safe. Normally
5:02
Speaker 2: you'd store it at a mint, a bank, or a
5:05
Speaker 2: broker that would give you a certificate of ownership. Maybe
5:09
Speaker 2: Packer when their assets of between two to three billion dollars,
5:13
Speaker 2: just like the reassurance of looking at his stake. He
5:16
Speaker 2: used to say that he had a squirrel mentality when
5:18
Speaker 2: it came to money, but even squirrels are more security
5:22
Speaker 2: conscious than this. So police were never shown a photograph
5:26
Speaker 2: of the gold in situ. They were asked to take
5:29
Speaker 2: it on faith that the gold had been there and
5:33
Speaker 2: that the thief was able to spirit the bully in
5:35
Speaker 2: past twenty four hour security and make their getaway undetected.
5:44
Speaker 2: The late Bert Kidd, one of the country's most ruthless crooks,
5:48
Speaker 2: discussed the caper with me, along with a longtime associate
5:52
Speaker 2: who shall remain nameless.
5:54
Speaker 4: It would have took some handling to get it out.
5:57
Speaker 1: Of the building. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. He
6:01
Speaker 1: couldn't be won out. Oh no, there's help, can't now.
6:07
Speaker 1: You got to be at least two.
6:09
Speaker 2: Typically a team of two or three would be involved
6:12
Speaker 2: in a job like this, one man to do the
6:15
Speaker 2: safe cutting, another on the roof with a police scanner
6:19
Speaker 2: as an early warning system, then also a driver for
6:22
Speaker 2: the getaway. But no accomplice has ever been named or
6:28
Speaker 2: even hinted at. A crime like this is almost too
6:32
Speaker 2: good to keep a secret. Eventually, even the staunchest crooks
6:37
Speaker 2: have to boast about their success, but not this time.
6:42
Speaker 2: The known and accepted facts of the robbery are scant
6:45
Speaker 2: and incomplete. The thief used a crowbar or a screwdriver
6:50
Speaker 2: to Jemmy open three sets of doors to reach Packers.
6:53
Speaker 2: In a sanctum, they found the old Chubb's safe hidden
6:58
Speaker 2: behind a drink's cabinet. The safe was from the nineteen forties.
7:03
Speaker 2: Kerry's father, Sir Frank Packer, had installed it decades earlier.
7:07
Speaker 2: It was antiquated, an easy target for any decent crook.
7:13
Speaker 2: The safecracker used an oxy acetylene torch to make a
7:16
Speaker 2: precise L shaped incision in the door.
7:20
Speaker 1: He knew where to cut.
7:21
Speaker 2: And he severed the one inch steel bar of the
7:23
Speaker 2: locking mechanism inside the safe. This was the standard method
7:29
Speaker 2: that had been used for a long time, and even
7:32
Speaker 2: low level crooks knew how to do it if they
7:34
Speaker 2: had enough time, which this one seemed to have. There
7:39
Speaker 2: was a single scorch mark on the carpet from a
7:42
Speaker 2: bead of molten slag from the cutting. The carpet had
7:46
Speaker 2: also been dappened to avoid causing a fire, Otherwise no
7:51
Speaker 2: trace was left behind. A fingerprint was found inside the safe,
7:58
Speaker 2: which sparked hopes of an early resolution of the case.
8:02
Speaker 2: The owner of the fingerprint was tracked down to South Australia,
8:05
Speaker 2: but this turned out to be a false lead. The
8:08
Speaker 2: man was a technician who'd serviced the safe years earlier.
8:13
Speaker 2: The gold had to be carried out past security. The
8:16
Speaker 2: Packer headquarters had twenty four to seven security, but it
8:20
Speaker 2: was known that the guards would often leave their posts
8:22
Speaker 2: to work out in the Hyde Park Club gym next door.
8:26
Speaker 2: Unless you'd paid them off, you couldn't be certain of
8:29
Speaker 2: their movements. In any case, security wasn't super tight in
8:34
Speaker 2: the Packer headquarters. Once a scammer had ordered an exotic
8:38
Speaker 2: sports car to be delivered to the building for James
8:41
Speaker 2: Packer Kerry's son to test drive, and when it came
8:45
Speaker 2: the guards didn't question.
8:46
Speaker 1: The stranger who drove away in the car.
8:51
Speaker 2: Later police got a tip on a possible suspect, and
8:54
Speaker 2: oddly enough, it came from the so called victim. Kerry
8:59
Speaker 2: Packer never explained how he came about this information, but
9:02
Speaker 2: he named Russell Paul Kelly, a career criminal with the
9:07
Speaker 2: history of safe breaking going back to the nineteen sixties.
9:13
Speaker 2: Kelly had been an apprentice to Bert Kidd in Melbourne.
9:16
Speaker 2: This partnership had ended badly when Kid had to sack
9:19
Speaker 2: him from the team.
9:21
Speaker 1: He learned most of what he knew off you. Back
9:23
Speaker 1: in the sixty he knew.
9:25
Speaker 4: To go around the safe companies and get their records.
9:29
Speaker 2: Kelly got the records to understand what he was facing
9:31
Speaker 2: in a heist, but it was a foolish risk that
9:35
Speaker 2: got him identified.
9:36
Speaker 4: He's got his photo taken in a safe company.
9:40
Speaker 1: A chub, wasn't he yet?
9:42
Speaker 4: Yeah? Fucking idiot, you know?
9:46
Speaker 1: Was he any good? That was as a cutout?
9:47
Speaker 5: I mean no, no, he couldn't cut He's learned off himself,
9:54
Speaker 5: but he got sacked for the night he turned up
9:57
Speaker 5: intoxicated on drugs.
10:00
Speaker 2: Kelly had a mixed run in Melbourne, which include doing
10:03
Speaker 2: time for safe breaking at a suburban bank. It continued
10:07
Speaker 2: when he left Australia for England in the late nineteen sixties.
10:11
Speaker 2: He did more jail after using too much explosive charge
10:16
Speaker 2: on the vault of a high street bank in London.
10:19
Speaker 2: He blew out the wall into the street and Kelly
10:22
Speaker 2: was nabbed. But he learned from that experience and was
10:26
Speaker 2: never caught again. He came back to Australia and targeted
10:31
Speaker 2: high value jobs and worked infrequently and by all reports
10:36
Speaker 2: was highly successful. He's regarded as the most successful safecutter
10:41
Speaker 2: never to be caught on a major job. The only
10:44
Speaker 2: distinguishing mark about Kelly was that he had a tattoo
10:47
Speaker 2: on his penis that read either B and E or
10:51
Speaker 2: break an enter, or so he told the cops when
10:54
Speaker 2: arrested one time. Kelly also had links to Kerry Packer.
11:00
Speaker 2: He frequented the same restaurant in Pott's Point, Sydney Lastrata
11:05
Speaker 2: as the billionaire did.
11:06
Speaker 1: During the same period.
11:08
Speaker 2: Kelly was said to have had a secret shareholding in
11:10
Speaker 2: the Italian eatery and a relationship with the owner. Even
11:14
Speaker 2: after the robbery, Kelly continued to frequent the restaurant as
11:18
Speaker 2: did Packer. What a strange lunchtime event that must have been.
11:24
Speaker 2: Kelly also lived in the same Willara apartment block as
11:27
Speaker 2: Kerry Packer's longtime secretary, Pat Wheatley. Wheatley had been Prime
11:31
Speaker 2: Minister Billy McMahon's PA and came with a reputation for
11:35
Speaker 2: loyalty and discretion. Packer respected her refusal to share any
11:40
Speaker 2: secrets of her days with the Prime Minister, despite his
11:43
Speaker 2: repeated attempts to cajole her into it. She handled Kerry's diary,
11:49
Speaker 2: kept his many secrets, and carried cash for him to
11:52
Speaker 2: gamble with when he traveled. She had the keys to
11:55
Speaker 2: the Kingdom. The Perfume Bulldozer, as she was known, was
11:59
Speaker 2: fiercely loyal to Packer for seventeen years until things began
12:04
Speaker 2: to change and the empire. If anyone would know about
12:08
Speaker 2: the safe in the office, it would be weekly. But
12:11
Speaker 2: her reign over Packer's office came to an abrupt end.
12:15
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one. Packer hired a controversial chief executive,
12:20
Speaker 2: al Chainsaw Dunlap, on the recommendation of a friend, British
12:25
Speaker 2: corporate raider James Goldsmith. Packer's three billion dollar empire was
12:30
Speaker 2: facing a liquidity crisis.
12:34
Speaker 4: Kerry Packer has suffered a massive heart attack. He was
12:37
Speaker 4: playing polo when his heart stopped beating and his clinging
12:40
Speaker 4: to life.
12:43
Speaker 2: In October nineteen ninety Packer had suffered a near fatal
12:46
Speaker 2: heart attack and he needed to slash costs and reorganize
12:50
Speaker 2: the business. Dunlap took on the job on the condition
12:54
Speaker 2: that Kerry stay out of his way and give him
12:56
Speaker 2: a carte blanche to make change. Dunlap had many traits
13:00
Speaker 2: of a psychopath, but considered them virtues.
13:03
Speaker 1: He was successful in our overhauling the.
13:05
Speaker 2: Empire, but destroyed many of the relationships that had built it,
13:10
Speaker 2: including the close bond between Packer and his secretary. In
13:14
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, before the robbery, Wheatley had been fired
13:18
Speaker 2: by Dunlap after he discovered she had a secret stash
13:22
Speaker 2: of alcohol in a hidden cupboard behind her desk. When
13:26
Speaker 2: a shocked Wheakly was marched out of the building, Packer
13:30
Speaker 2: did not defend his loyal servant. This was perhaps a miscalculation.
13:36
Speaker 2: Wheatley had been one of three people who knew about
13:39
Speaker 2: the safe, and the police suspected that she'd alerted Kelly
13:43
Speaker 2: to the opportunity, possibly out of spite for Packer's betrayal.
13:48
Speaker 2: Police also suspected that Kelly was playing a long game
13:52
Speaker 2: with Wheatley, even feigning a romantic interest in the spinster
13:56
Speaker 2: in order to get his hands on the gold. They
13:59
Speaker 2: knew the pair had been spending time together at the
14:02
Speaker 2: Wallara apartment block. He also maintained another secret residence across
14:08
Speaker 2: town and often disguised the true location when he was
14:11
Speaker 2: talking to Wheatley on the telephone. Despite intensive surveillance on Kelly,
14:17
Speaker 2: investigators could find nothing to link him to the break in.
14:21
Speaker 2: Wheatley was questioned by police but gave away nothing. If
14:25
Speaker 2: indeed she had been duped into giving inside information to Kelly,
14:29
Speaker 2: and the police could never establish that Wheatley knew the
14:32
Speaker 2: goal was in the safe, it had been nearly three
14:35
Speaker 2: years since she'd been in the building. How could she
14:37
Speaker 2: actually know the prize was still in Packer's office. Amid
14:42
Speaker 2: police suspicion about an inside job, Kerry Packer made sure
14:46
Speaker 2: Wheatly stayed quiet. He gave her a generous allowance for life,
14:51
Speaker 2: on the condition that she not write a book or
14:54
Speaker 2: ever talked to the media. Wheatley died in two thousand
14:58
Speaker 2: and eight from pancreatic cancer without ever revealing what knowledge
15:02
Speaker 2: she had of the affair. If she benefit from the robbery,
15:06
Speaker 2: she hid her share well. Kelly, if he's alive now,
15:10
Speaker 2: would be in his late eighties. He was never arrested
15:13
Speaker 2: over this or any other matter. Since he lived quietly
15:17
Speaker 2: in Sydney, displaying no trappings of wealth and apparently having
15:21
Speaker 2: very few friends. Kelly was a good crook of the
15:25
Speaker 2: old school. He lived a modest lifestyle for years. He
15:29
Speaker 2: drove the same old Ford yute, and his only indulgence
15:33
Speaker 2: appeared to be occasional trips to Asia. My investigation into
15:40
Speaker 2: this matter began in twenty nineteen with a documentary for
15:44
Speaker 2: the Nine Television Network's Australian Crime Stories series. It was
15:49
Speaker 2: a cold case with little hope of resolution, but it
15:52
Speaker 2: seemed worth revisiting simply because of the packer factor. It
15:56
Speaker 2: ran in prime time on a Sunday night in twenty
15:58
Speaker 2: nineteen and was one of the highest rating episodes of
16:01
Speaker 2: the series, and it's been rerun many times since. After
16:06
Speaker 2: the show first aired, a received a call from a
16:09
Speaker 2: safe technician who had taken the Chubb safe away when
16:12
Speaker 2: the police had finished with it. There was a single
16:16
Speaker 2: crime scene photograph of the inside of the safe, which
16:19
Speaker 2: featured in the show, and it raised questions for this
16:22
Speaker 2: safe technician. The locking mechanism appeared to be in the
16:26
Speaker 2: open position, not closed, as it should have been. If
16:31
Speaker 2: the safe had genuinely been cut open, the locking pins
16:34
Speaker 2: would still have been in the locked position even though
16:38
Speaker 2: the locking mechanism had been cut through from the grainy photograph,
16:43
Speaker 2: it appeared the safe had been cut when the door
16:46
Speaker 2: was already open. This crime was a sham and it
16:50
Speaker 2: had fooled the investigators. Frustratingly, the evidence disappeared quickly after
16:57
Speaker 2: the robbery, the safe technician himself had given it away.
17:02
Speaker 2: He and another staff member were in the loading dock
17:05
Speaker 2: Packer's headquarters putting the safe onto a truck for disposal.
17:10
Speaker 2: A man who identified himself as one of Packer's executives
17:13
Speaker 2: came up to them and asked if he could.
17:15
Speaker 1: Have the door.
17:17
Speaker 2: It would be a souvenir of the incident. He said
17:19
Speaker 2: he wanted to make a hearth for his fireplace out
17:22
Speaker 2: of it. The door was never seen again, and no
17:25
Speaker 2: one seems to know the identity of the so called
17:28
Speaker 2: executive who approached the safe technicians. There was something else
17:33
Speaker 2: that didn't quite add up. The antique safe was only
17:36
Speaker 2: rated at thirty thousand dollars for insurance purposes, Yet Packers
17:41
Speaker 2: insurer had paid out on ninety percent of the value
17:45
Speaker 2: of the bullion, that's four and a half million dollars.
17:49
Speaker 2: There was a newspaper story a month after the robbery
17:52
Speaker 2: that said the insurer FAI Insurances, had employed a private
17:56
Speaker 2: investigator to look at the heist. However, an FAI executive
18:01
Speaker 2: was quoted as saying they expected to soon pay out
18:04
Speaker 2: on the claim. Packer had done business with the Adler
18:08
Speaker 2: family that controlled FAI, but this was an extraordinary act
18:12
Speaker 2: of generosity, paying out four point five million on a
18:16
Speaker 2: claim that deserved only thirty thousand dollars. In twenty twenty one,
18:24
Speaker 2: I published an update on the case in a podcast,
18:27
Speaker 2: raising the suggestion that Kerry Packer had not shared everything
18:31
Speaker 2: he knew about the robbery. However, with only one photograph
18:35
Speaker 2: to hand, the possibility of advancing this theory seemed remote.
18:40
Speaker 2: The podcast drew no fresh leads. All the momentum behind
18:44
Speaker 2: the story has come from the TV show. On May
18:48
Speaker 2: twenty eight, twenty twenty three, the Packer's Goal episode was
18:51
Speaker 2: run again on Channel nine and a news source popped up.
18:56
Speaker 2: They had some sensational information about another investigation that had
19:01
Speaker 2: never come to light, and there were more photographs of
19:05
Speaker 2: the safe, but changed the nature of the heist. In fact,
19:09
Speaker 2: these photographs suggested this wasn't a heist at all, but
19:13
Speaker 2: a setup, a multi million dollar insurance fraud, and the
19:19
Speaker 2: policyholders of the insurer had footed the bill. The insurer itself,
19:24
Speaker 2: teetering on the point of collapse, paid out on the
19:27
Speaker 2: fraudulent claim. The news source was adamant that this was
19:31
Speaker 2: a scam and an actor has voiced his messages to me.
19:36
Speaker 6: I'm a retired locksmith and safe technician. Things were done
19:40
Speaker 6: very differently back then. Multiple outside specialists were unofficially consulted.
19:46
Speaker 6: While I cannot and will not divulge my involvement, I
19:49
Speaker 6: can tell you what was common knowledge openly circulating in
19:52
Speaker 6: closed circles at the time. Apparently the word was that
19:56
Speaker 6: both the lock and bolt works were in the open
19:59
Speaker 6: position at the time the hole was cut. In other words,
20:02
Speaker 6: the door was already unlocked when the open hole was cut.
20:06
Speaker 2: The informant claimed that senior police and members of the
20:09
Speaker 2: New South Wales Crime Commission had carried out their own
20:12
Speaker 2: investigation into the robbery in nineteen ninety five, and they
20:16
Speaker 2: had gotten to the door before it could be spirited away.
20:20
Speaker 2: They had definitive evidence that the safe was open when
20:23
Speaker 2: it was cut. They'd engaged locksmith's and safe technicians who
20:27
Speaker 2: took photographs of the inside of the safe. The evidence
20:33
Speaker 2: was clear the oxy torch had filled the door cavity
20:37
Speaker 2: with black soot, which had covered the inside of the mechanism.
20:41
Speaker 2: The lock was effectively frozen at the time when the
20:44
Speaker 2: cut was made. If the mechanism were moved later, it
20:47
Speaker 2: would be obvious showing a patch of clean steel. That
20:52
Speaker 2: pattern that was on the door clearly showed it was
20:55
Speaker 2: open when the oxy torch was applied to it. Someone
20:59
Speaker 2: had set this robbery up to the smallest detail, and
21:02
Speaker 2: maybe that someone was Kerry Packer. I cajole the new
21:09
Speaker 2: informant for new details, but even after all these years,
21:13
Speaker 2: he feared Kerry Packer's power, even from the grave.
21:17
Speaker 1: You are right about Packer influencing the outcome.
21:20
Speaker 6: Please understand that I am unable to tell you exactly
21:23
Speaker 6: what I know, as there is a confidentiality between myself
21:27
Speaker 6: and the authorities I was dealing with. That said, you
21:31
Speaker 6: and the detective's questions are correct in thinking the inner
21:33
Speaker 6: sanctum was involved.
21:35
Speaker 1: Keep pushing in that direction.
21:37
Speaker 6: On another matter, your podcast also mentioned the insurance rating
21:41
Speaker 6: of the safe being inadequate, which should have voided the
21:44
Speaker 6: insurance but seemingly didn't.
21:47
Speaker 2: He later told me he had personally seen the polaroid
21:50
Speaker 2: pictures taken by a colleague that confirmed the safe was
21:53
Speaker 2: open when the cut was made. He was also scornful
21:56
Speaker 2: of the idea that Kelly was a master safecutter.
22:00
Speaker 6: I know nothing about Kelly other than his name whoever
22:03
Speaker 6: opened the safe with an oxy is the worst of
22:05
Speaker 6: worst safe breakers. No safebreaker would ever use an oxy torch.
22:10
Speaker 6: An A grade safe cracker would open the safe with
22:12
Speaker 6: no holes. A B grade cracker would use a single, small,
22:16
Speaker 6: drilled hole.
22:17
Speaker 1: And that was the end of the new information.
22:20
Speaker 6: Please, under no circumstances mentioned me or my name, or
22:24
Speaker 6: linked to me in any way whatsoever. I wish to
22:27
Speaker 6: remain completely anonymous, and like you, I am acutely aware
22:31
Speaker 6: that accusations like this could lead to a life of
22:33
Speaker 6: misery for those making them, think the New South Wales
22:36
Speaker 6: Police and the immensely powerful Packer family. The only way
22:41
Speaker 6: this can be advanced is for you to discreetly request
22:43
Speaker 6: the police evidence photos. There are more than one. You
22:47
Speaker 6: need photos to flesh out and add color to your story.
22:50
Speaker 6: You need to discreetly get your hands on the police
22:53
Speaker 6: evidence photos without telling them you intend to get a
22:56
Speaker 6: professional analysis.
22:59
Speaker 1: That's all easier said than done.
23:02
Speaker 2: Surely, if Kerry Packer knew about this scam, he would
23:05
Speaker 2: have taken steps to make sure those incriminating polaroid pictures
23:09
Speaker 2: never saw the light of day. Maybe they are stored
23:13
Speaker 2: somewhere within the archives of New South Wales Police. But
23:16
Speaker 2: all the cops who worked on the case are retired
23:18
Speaker 2: now and most of the players are dead. My request
23:22
Speaker 2: to the police to access these photographs have been declined.
23:26
Speaker 2: If someone out there has more evidence of what really happened,
23:29
Speaker 2: I look forward to hearing from you. Please email me
23:32
Speaker 2: Adam Shanner writer at gmail dot com. I'll respond instantaneously.
23:37
Speaker 2: That's our key aim on the story. So what happened
23:41
Speaker 2: to the gold in the end, Perhaps we'll never know.
23:44
Speaker 2: But in nineteen ninety nine, then former New South Wales
23:48
Speaker 2: police officer Roger Rogerson told a hearing that he and
23:51
Speaker 2: another officer had planned a raid on a house where
23:55
Speaker 2: some of Packer's goal was allegedly stashed. Rogerson claimed that
24:00
Speaker 2: Packer had actually recovered his gold, except for a few
24:04
Speaker 2: bars that were still unaccounted for.
24:07
Speaker 1: The rest had been returned to Packer and a reward
24:10
Speaker 1: was handed over.
24:12
Speaker 2: If so, what a payday for Packer, a four point
24:15
Speaker 2: five million insurance payout and he got all but a
24:18
Speaker 2: few ingots of his gold back. And if Kerry Packer
24:22
Speaker 2: did steal his own gold, then maybe it just makes
24:25
Speaker 2: his legend loom a little bit larger. If you've got
24:29
Speaker 2: information about a crime, please call crime Stoppers on one
24:32
Speaker 2: eight hundred triple three, triple zero. Or if you don't
24:36
Speaker 2: trust the cops, you can always get in contact with
24:38
Speaker 2: me by emailing me on Adam Shann writer at gmail
24:42
Speaker 2: dot com. Thank you very much. This has been Adam
24:45
Speaker 2: Shann for Real Crime. Thanks for listening.
24:56
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25:00
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