Abraham Gilbert Saffron (6 October 1919 – 15 September 2006) was an Australian hotelier, nightclub owner, and property developer who was one of the major figures in organised crime in Australia in the latter half of the 20th century.

[3] In March 2021 ABC Television aired an investigative documentary series, "The Ghost Train Fire", which directly implicated Saffron in an arson plot at Luna Park Sydney in 1979, resulting in the deaths of seven people, including six children.

At the time NSW clubs and pubs were subject to strict licensing laws which limited trading hours and regulated alcohol prices and sale conditions.

The 1954 Maxwell Royal Commission heard evidence that Saffron used these pubs to obtain legitimately purchased alcohol, diverting it to the various nightclubs and other businesses that he operated and selling at black market prices, realising vast profits.

By the 1960s Saffron owned or controlled a string of nightclubs, strip joints and sex shops in Kings Cross, including the Sydney club Les Girls, home of the famous transvestite revue.

[9] One of the most contentious incidents in Saffron's career was his rumoured involvement in the disappearance and presumed murder of newspaper publisher and anti-development campaigner Juanita Nielsen in July 1975.

In the 1980s investigative journalist David Hickie published his landmark book The Prince and The Premier, which included a substantial section detailing Saffron's alleged involvement in many aspects of organised crime in Sydney.

Using only material that was already in the public domain, obtained from evidence tendered to royal commissions and allegations made by politicians under parliamentary privilege, Hickie devoted an entire section of his book to Saffron's business activities.

In the second edition of The Politics of Heroin by Alfred W. McCoy, in a chapter summarising the Nugan Hand Bank it is mentioned that Askin and Saffron regularly had dinner together at the Bourbon & Beefsteak, owned by American expatriate Bernie Houghton.

In March 2021 ABC Television broadcast a three-part investigative documentary series, Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, which directly implicated Saffron in an arson plot at Luna Park Sydney in 1979, resulting in the deaths of seven people, six of them children.

The allegations state that Saffron and associate Jack Rooklyn, a poker-machine promoter, wanted to gain control of and redevelop the Luna Park site.

The docuseries' investigative journalists named NSW premiers Robert Askin and Neville Wran as corrupt close associates of Saffron, along with the police commissioner Norman "Bill" Allan, the High Court justice Lionel Murphy and lawyer Morgan Ryan, among others.

Saffron's cousins Hal and Col Goldstein and his nephew Sam Cowper ran the company that won control of Luna Park after the fire.

Saffron claimed he could name people "much bigger" than former NSW premier Robert Askin and former police commissioner Norman Allan, with whom his father corruptly dealt to protect his gambling, nightclub and prostitution businesses.

[19] A follow-up article published the next day carried Alan Saffron's assertion that his father controlled the vice trade, including illegal gambling and prostitution, in every state except Tasmania and the Northern Territory, and that he bribed "a host of politicians and policemen" to ensure he was protected from prosecution.

The book lends further weight to the long-standing allegations of corruption against former NSW Premier Robert Askin and Police Commissioner Norman Allan.