As mourners gathered to remember an underworld kingpin, the coffin stood empty

2 months ago 4

The burial of underworld figure Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim was always going to be a circus, but nobody – not even those involved – could have foreseen just how bizarre things would end up going that day in late January 2025.

The former bikie had long cut a huge figure on Melbourne’s gangland scene. But in the last two years of his life, he was relentlessly hunted by a coterie of some of the most powerful players in the underworld.

A gold coffin for slain underworld strongman Sam Abdulrahim at Fawkner Cemetery.

On January 28, they caught up with him, gunning down the 32-year-old in a car parking garage just days before he was about to slip out of the country.

The photograph, taken by Jason South and chosen by The Age as one of the defining images of the year, was taken days later, at Abdulrahim’s funeral.

Seemingly innocuous at first, the longer you look at the image, the stranger it becomes. Mourners are facing away from the ostentatious gold coffin, not looking on, as you might expect.

Despite seemingly holding a boxing champion, the coffin is being carried with ease by just three people. Look closer again, and you can see that the cap is slightly ajar.

Such a flash send-off for The Punisher almost didn’t happen, though.

Sam Abdulrahim was gunned down by a hit team.

Just hours before this photo was taken, Abdulrahim’s body had arrived at the Alawi Islamic Association Centre in Epping in a plain wooden coffin.

His family had not expected the press pack to gather so early, and a frantic discussion ensued about how it didn’t look right to bury the flamboyant Middle Eastern organised crime figure in something so basic.

So a switch was organised, and the hearse returned, this time loaded with a golden coffin.

The media were none the wiser about what had transpired, and thought this was Abdulrahim’s body actually arriving.

An honour guard assembled to carry the second casket as though The Punisher was actually in there. Once inside, his body was switched from the plain wood vessel to the golden one.

And it was all for temporary show, anyway, as Muslims traditionally bury their dead in a shroud and forgo coffins.

The rest of the memorial went off without a hitch. The man who survived some 17 bashings, shootings and firebombing attacks was laid to rest after the 18th attempt was successful in ending his life.

The scene where Sam Abdulrahim was shot dead.

No one outside Abdulrahim’s inner circle knew about what had happened that day, and it took the media nearly six months to untangle the tale of the switcheroo, which quickly became underworld lore.

But it’s also the case that all that glitters is not gold.

As it happens, the ostentatious casket was actually standard metal with a gold polish finish that would set you back about $5000 if purchased (instead of temporarily borrowed).

But as one funeral industry source later told The Age: ”It is nothing like the $55,000 Promethean casket in which (gangland boss) Carl Williams was buried.”

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