According to evidence given by Lennie McPherson before the Moffitt Royal Commission, Delaney was `befriended’ by Chicago identity Joseph Dan Testa when he visited Australia in the late 1960s. During a get-together at Chequers Nightclub in Sydney, Testa, a wealthy Chicago mobster, was photographed with McPherson, Freeman, Iron Bar Miller and Delaney. Another party for Testa hosted by casino proprietor Ronnie Lee at his Watsons Bay home was attended by McPherson, Freeman and Delaney.

Neville Biber was associated with a whole host of criminals involved in the Kangaroo Gangs, both in Australia and overseas. His partner in Harry S. Baggs, Jimmy White, was arrested in Manchester, England, in 1973 and was officially registered as a`professional shoplifter’. Biber ended up living in a luxury home in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, and White graduated to Point Piper, just as high on the social scale. Biber also made a fortune from dealing in pirate cassettes and was once fined $300 after a company with which he was associated was caught selling pirate cassettes.

In 1968, Smith and Freeman were arrested together in Perth, Western Australia, on charges of conspiring to steal and receive. In previous years, Freeman had had convictions for stealing `stockings from store’ and stealing `cardigan from retail store’. In a NSW Police Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) dossier outlining illegal starting price betting operations controlled by Freeman and listing his associates, five of the criminals were referred to as organised shoplifters and associates also of Delaney.

Delaney was referred to in the dossier as a close friend and associate of Freeman, and had been booked for consorting with Freeman in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, in March 1975; at the Motor Club, George Street, later that same month; at the Taiping Restaurant, Elizabeth Street; in New South Head Road, Rose Bay, in June 1975; and again at the Taiping Restaurant on New Year’s Eve 1976.

The CIU report described Delaney as a`well-known shoplifter’ and stated that he did not appear to be involved in Freeman’s alleged betting operations. Delaney has convictions for breaking and entering, stealing, assault, possessing an unlicensed pistol, consorting, street betting, possession of explosives, offering bribe, place betting and driving offences.

Since then, Delaney has spent most of his time overseas, some of it serving gaol sentences. His wife, Barbara Ann Brooks, was arrested on shoplifting charges in Melbourne in 1981 after being targeted by undercover crime intelligence police in NSW and Victoria. The previous year, The Duke himself was charged in Copenhagen for complicity in the theft of a diamond worth $29 000. Police said he had been operating with a gang of five.

Duke Delaney has been nominated by Australian and overseas police as the main co-ordinator of international shoplifting gangs, and Callaghan was described before the Moffitt Royal Commission in NSW as an associate of Delaney. In a consorting case in a Sydney court in 1968, resulting in Iron Bar Miller being gaoled for consorting with McPherson, Smith and others, Smith was categor-ised by Detective-Sergeant Les Chown as a`standover criminal and international shop thief’. The previous year, Smith and Freeman, together with Delaney, had attracted the attention of Scotland Yard in London for what was outlined as an `organised campaign of shoplifting’.