DRUGS, GANGS & CELEBRITIES

After opening his first nightclub as a teen, the entrepreneur became infamous in Sydney society

- Maisy Rae.

Sydney's Kings Cross has always been a hotbed of corrupt cops, gangsters, strippers, drugs and muscled doormen.

While the seedy strip has been home to many colourful characters who've made and lost fortunes over the years, John Ibrahim is perhaps one of its most notorious and fascinating characters - and the subject of new ThreeNow series Last King Of The Cross, starring Home And Away's Lincoln Younes as the man himself.

"I can't sing. I can't dance. What else am I going to do?" the kebab store owner-turned entrepreneur told a journalist in 1995, when asked why he thought he was destined to own a Kings Cross nightclub.

But the '90s were a murky time and as a witness during a Royal Commission into police corruption, John was singled out as one of the main players in the suburb's drug trade.

He has always strongly denied any involvement in illegal activities. "I've never sold drugs - I don't believe in drugs," John said at the time. "I have always stayed away from the drugs, the gambling and prostitution. I am a Muslim."

IBRAHIM MYTH

But it's not surprising that people have asked questions about John's possible involvement in organised crime.