>>11509800 (lb)

>Peter Abeles

>Watch the water

Hmmm…

Sir Peter occasionally cut a controversial figure with alleged business tactics,[citation needed] and was seen as unsympathetic towards minority shareholders.[by whom?] He was also caught up in the allegations of corruption that centred on then NSW Premier Sir Robert Askin, with journalist David Hickie accusing him of buying his 1972 knighthood from Askin,[citation needed] and giving Askin a seat at the board of TNT, plus 110,000 shares.[6] He has been accused of being an associate of crime boss Abe Saffron and of being involved in drug trafficking with the Nugan Hand Bank.[7] When alive, Abeles admitted to having common business interests with US West Coast Mafia boss Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno, but claimed that he did not know that Fratianno was a Mafioso.[8] He did, however, admit to having given another mafioso, Venero Frank "Benny Eggs" Mangano (later the underboss for the Genovese crime family), a 'consultancy fee' of $US300,000 for 'advice' on how to acquire an east coast shipping line, Seatrain, and other matters related to the New York waterfront."[9]

Abeles was also connected to Rudy Michael Tham, leader of Local 856, "the second largest Teamsters' branch in San Francisco and mafia 'associate'."[10] In the 1970s, TNT's US operations were besieged by a number of "strikes, shootings and bombings."[10] These stopped when Tham intervened.[10] It was Tham who introduced Abeles to Fratianno, and Mangano, associate of Frank Tieri, who was then the boss of New York's Genovese family.[9]

Abeles' denial of any knowledge of mafia involvement in his business is supported in an interview conducted by the Australian Federal Police with Fratianno in San Francisco in 1979 when he told them that "I don't think that he knew these guys had connections."[11] The payments, Fratianno said, were all legal, paid to corporations to ensure there would be no Union trouble on the docks; nothing was given "under the table."[11]