John Kerr 
Crime Bosses 

AT THE TOP OF THE HEAP, IT’S A LONG WAY DOWN…The Little Fella, George Freeman, phoned to tell the owner of The Palace, an illegal Kings Cross casino, that everything was ‘sweet in town – for now’. An all-clear from Sydney’s gaming boss. He tended to have the right oil.Beer, served in contravention of liquor licence conditions, at heavily marked up prices, was the liquid gold that gave Abe Saffron his start as a crime boss. ‘Mr Sin’ rebuilt Kings Cross from there.Carl Williams joked that he ran Victoria, that he was ‘the premier’. He wasn’t of course, but he behaved like the State’s Lord High Executioner for five bloody years. Why?For 12 years, nine blocks of Cabramatta were Heroin Central. Tri Minh Tran’s 5T street gang ran them.L’Onorata Societa [The Honored Society], our mafia, in 2020, celebrated its first anniversary killing. Here, we look at how bosses handle succession and generational change. Shotguns appear regularly.