A Family Business of Crime

Keith George Faure was born in June 1951 in the Australian town of Norlane, Victoria. For him and his family, a life of crime was practically written in their DNA. His grandfather, Norman Bruhn, was a notorious gangster in Sydney during the 1920s who was ultimately shot and killed in a 1927 underworld hit. This dark legacy was passed down to his grandchildren. Keith’s younger brother, Noel, went to prison for manslaughter, and his other brother, Leslie, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for murdering his girlfriend during a deadly game of Russian roulette. Growing up surrounded by this level of violence, Keith quickly dove headfirst into a career of armed robberies, break-ins, and brutal attacks.

The Hero Cop and the Bank Robbery

Keith’s violent streak caught the entire nation's attention on the morning of June 4, 1976. Keith and two accomplices decided to rob an ANZ Bank branch in the suburb of Clifton Hill. They thought it would be an easy score, but they didn't count on a 21-year-old off-duty police officer named Michael Pratt. Pratt was driving by when he spotted the three men putting on masks and pulling out handguns. Without hesitating, the brave young cop turned on his hazard lights, swerved across the road, and literally crashed his car into the bank’s front doors to trap the robbers inside.

When the robbers tried to escape, Pratt physically grabbed one of the armed men. Seeing his friend trapped, Keith Faure raised his gun and ruthlessly shot the unarmed police officer directly in the back. Miraculously, Officer Pratt survived the terrible wound and was awarded the George Cross, which is the highest medal a civilian can get for extreme bravery. Sadly, his injuries were so severe that he had to retire from the police force. Keith was sentenced to four years in prison for the robbery and the shooting.

The Great Prison Sausage War

During his incarceration, the walls of Melbourne's Pentridge Prison became Keith's new playground for chaos. Inside, he formed his own gang of followers. Because of his name, they jokingly called themselves the "KGB" (short for Keith George’s Boys), while Keith himself went by the nickname "The Frenchman".

While in prison in 1975, Keith got into a massive, bloody five-year war with another famous Australian criminal, Mark "Chopper" Read, over some sausages. The prison inmates were looking forward to a special Christmas meal of thick pork sausages. When the food arrived, all 60 sausages were missing, and Chopper Read was accused of eating the entire batch himself. Keith took the side of the angry inmates, and the "Great Christmas Sausage Scandal" kicked off years of violent prison brawls.

Then, in 1976, he cornered a fellow prisoner named Alan Sopulak and murdered him by stabbing him nine times in the back using a sharpened butter knife. He was convicted of manslaughter and his sentence was extended further.

A Movie Star's Anger

Because of his crazy prison rivalry with Chopper Read, Keith actually became a part of pop culture. When a famous movie called Chopper was produced in the year 2000, filmmakers included a character based on Keith named "Keithy George". In the very first scene of the movie, the character gets stabbed to death. The real-life Keith Faure was absolutely furious about how actor David Field portrayed him on screen. In a suprising twist, Keith later got pulled over by the police for a minor traffic ticket. Instead of just paying the fine, he tried to use his intense anger over the Chopper movie as his official legal defense in court for his bad driving.

The Ultimate Hitman

By the early 2000s, Keith was out of prison, but he hadn't changed his ways. At the time, the city of Melbourne was in the middle of a terrifying gangland war. Rival crime families were fighting for control, and bodies were dropping all over the city. Keith didn't care about loyalty; he became a "gun for hire"—a hitman willing to kill anyone if the price was right.

On May 8, 2004, Keith and an accomplice murdered a criminal named Lewis Caine, shooting him in the head and unceremoniously dumping his body in a dark residential street in the suburb of Brunswick. But his most infamous crime happened earlier that same year. On March 31, 2004, a powerful crime boss named Tony Mokbel paid Keith $150,000 to assassinate a rival gang leader named Lewis Moran.

Moran was having a quiet drink at the Brunswick Club Hotel when Keith and another gunman burst through the doors wearing balaclavas to hide their faces. Panicking, Moran tried to run for his life. He leaped over a poker machine and smashed right through a glass window trying to escape. But the hitmen were too fast. They caught up to him and shot him twice, with the final, fatal bullet hitting the back of his head from just a few centimeters away.

The Fall of the Enforcer

Keith Faure thought he could get away with the ultimate crimes, but the law finally caught up to him. On May 19, 2004, heavily armed members of the Victoria Police Special Operations Group ambushed and arrested Faure and his accomplice, Evangelos Goussis, while the pair were walking alongside the Bay City Plaza shopping centre in Geelong. Later, security footage from the Brunswick Club shooting helped seal his fate when police noticed that one of the masked gunmen had a tattoo identical to one of the accused men. He was officially charged with both gangland murders.

During his court hearing on December 5, 2005, the stress of his crimes finally caught up to his body. While standing in the dock facing the judge, Keith suddenly fainted. Paramedics had to rush in, discovering that the tough hitman had suffered a suspected stroke right in the middle of the courtroom.

Realizing he was beaten, Keith decided to break the ultimate criminal code: he snitched. In exchange for a slightly lighter sentence, he pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against his own partners in crime. In 2006, he was sentenced to 24 years for the murder of Lewis Caine, and life in prison with a minimum of 19 years for the murder of Lewis Moran.

Keith never tasted freedom again. After spending the vast majority of his life behind bars, the career criminal died in prison in July 2025 at the age of 74.