John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld in Naked City, an exclusive newsletter for subscribers sent every Thursday. You’re reading an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.
Work in the fraud squad is often important but hardly likely to create a TV miniseries. But, for the sports-happy young detective, the case of the fake signatures would lead him to meet some of the greats − and none greater than the greatest cricketer of all time, Sir Don Bradman.
It began in 1999 when the manager of motorcycle champion Mick Doohan spotted some signed pictures of his client for sale online. The scrawl looked a little strange and when he showed Doohan, the champion said they were fakes.
This Mick Doohan autograph is definitely real, but others were questionable.Credit:
Turned out a photographer had taken snaps of Doohan during a race at Phillip Island and was wandering around trying to run into the motorbike rider to ask for them to be autographed.
An enterprising American, who claimed to have a friend in the Doohan team, said he could get them signed in exchange for a slab of beer. Best guess is he went around the corner, scrawled the fake signatures, then scored 24 cans of beer for the trickery.
The fakes were traced to a sports collectable shop. Soon, newly minted detective Paul Maher was part of a raiding party. Faced with signed sporting goods and photos, Maher’s boss made an on-the-spot decision − seize the lot, including boxing gloves allegedly signed by Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali.
There was another point that could lead a suspicious detective to believe all was not quite right with the store. There was a hydroponic cannabis crop growing upstairs.
So how could they work out what was real and what was fake? He was told to go to the source, which was slightly difficult in the case of Ali, Tyson, Tiger Woods and Formula One driver Ayrton Senna.
But he was able to track down the locals such as legendary race car driver Peter Brock, basketballer Andrew Gaze and larrikin AFL star Billy Brownless. But the biggest of them all was Bradman, living on his own in Adelaide at the age of 91, following the death of his wife, Lady Jessie.
Maher contacted the Bradman Foundation in Bowral and explained that he would like to speak to Sir Don on official business and, sure enough, he was provided with a phone number.
Sir Donald Bradman: Great with the bat and with the texta.Credit: Getty
The cop made the call and sure enough, the thin voice of The Don replied, and a meeting was set up. Maher and his offsider headed off, stopping at a Horsham sports store to buy a couple of cricket bats. They were not looking for batting tips from the former Australian captain but a couple of sneaky signatures.
On the assigned day, they turned up at the red brick double-storey house the Bradmans had built in 1935. “In the garage was a battered old Toyota Corolla,” says Maher.
They sat and chatted. The detective produced some signed memorabilia and Bradman said it could be his. This meant it would not be part of the prosecution, but it did not mean the trip would be wasted.
The cops asked him to sign two bats and two photos. Bradman agreed as long as they were not to be sold on the open market.
“In the room, there was only one photo of another sportsperson. It was a picture of Bradman with Pele, taken in front of Sir Don’s portrait.”
Even in his last few years, Bradman would go to his writing room and reply to any letters he received from fans around the world.
The owner of the sports store was acquitted of theft by deception charges and Maher still has the signed bat and the photo to prove his unlikely meeting with The Don.
How dodgy autographs forged a sports-mad cop’s unlikely meeting with The Don
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12.04.2024
John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld in Naked City, an exclusive newsletter for subscribers sent every Thursday. You’re reading an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.
Work in the fraud squad is often important but hardly likely to create a TV miniseries. But, for the sports-happy young detective, the case of the fake signatures would lead him to meet some of the greats − and none greater than the greatest cricketer of all time, Sir Don Bradman.
It began in 1999 when the manager of motorcycle champion Mick Doohan spotted some signed pictures of his client for sale online. The scrawl looked a little strange and when he showed Doohan, the champion said they were fakes.
This Mick Doohan autograph is definitely real, but others were questionable.Credit:
Turned out a photographer had taken snaps of Doohan during a race at........
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