The Black Hand: Sydney's Italian Mafia Walking Tour

The Italian Mafia in Sydney!

Walk the backstreets of Kings Cross & Woolloomooloo, circa 1920-1940, and uncover the hidden locations once ruled by Sydney’s early gangster kingpins and operatives of Australia’s notorious Italian crime syndicates, The Black Hand and the Camorra. This tour offers a rare glimpse into migrant life in lower Woolloomooloo, along the docks and wharves where Sydney’s first fish market stood and where newly arrived communities forged lives in the shadows of the waterfront.

Explore the boarding houses, laneways, and bordellos that formed part of a vast underworld network linking Sydney to North Queensland’s sugar belt. Here, sex workers were trafficked, debts were enforced, and loyalties were tested. These streets whispered the threats of murder, extortion, and revenge, under the suffocating code of silence that protected those who lived by the rules of The Black Hand.

About the Guide

The tour will be guided by Adam Grossetti, writer and co-producer of the ABC television documentary The Black Hand, starring Anthony LaPaglia. Adam is a guest speaker at the University of London’s Association for the Study of Modern Italy Conference, Mafia and the Italian State, and the producer and writer of numerous radio documentaries, including ABC Radio National’s two-part Earshot podcast, The Black Hand. His work spans television, radio, and stage, and he is the recipient of the Queensland Premier’s Award for Drama.