Roger Rogerson is transferred to prison hospital after learning he will die in prison for the murder of drug dealer Jamie Gao

Australia’s most notorious cop, Roger Rogerson, has been hospitalized with a debilitating mystery illness after being told he would die in prison.

The 82-year-old was transferred from the elderly and frail ward at Long Bay Prison in Sydney to the prison complex’s maximum security hospital in late June.

Sources said Rogerson’s health had deteriorated rapidly and he now had limited use of his arms, but doctors weren’t quite sure what was wrong with him.

While his body reportedly failed him, the same sources said Rogerson — who has had back problems for years and recently fell — was still mentally sharp.

Rogerson is in the same hospital where his former partner in crime, mobster Neddy Smith, died two years ago at the age of 76 while serving a life sentence for murder.

Rogerson lost his last bid for freedom in March when the Supreme Court refused to appeal his conviction and life sentence for murder.

He and fellow ex-detective Glen McNamara were jailed in 2016 for the 2014 murder of 20-year-old college student and wannabe drug dealer Jamie Gao.

Gao’s body was found, wrapped in a tarpaulin, floating off Cronulla in southern Sydney after he was shot dead in a failed $3 million drug deal.

The Court of Criminal Appeal upheld Rogerson’s conviction in 2021 and Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel said there was no reason to doubt that decision.

Rogerson received multiple awards for bravery during his 28-year police career, but had been the subject of serious corruption charges since the 1980s.

He shot dead armed robber Phillip Western in Avoca on the Central Coast in 1976 and a year later he did the same to robber Lawrence ‘Butchy’ Byrne in Kingsford in eastern Sydney.

Those shootings earned Rogerson nothing but professional praise, but his reputation changed in 1981 when he shot and killed heroin dealer Warren Lanfranchi in downtown Chippendale.

Rogerson’s exploits were featured in the TV drama series Blue Murder. From left to right are Gary Sweet as hit man Chris Flannery, Peter Phelps as Graham ‘Abo’ Henry, Richard Roxburgh as Rogerson, and Tony Martin as Neddy Smith

Lanfranchi had been driven to that meeting by Neddy Smith, who would later claim that his criminal associate was unarmed and was trying to bribe Rogerson.

A coronial inquest found that Rogerson had attempted to arrest Lanfranchi, but the jury declined to declare that he had acted in self-defense, as the police officer claimed.

Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, Lanfranchi’s sex worker girlfriend, publicly accused Rogerson of killing him and stealing $10,000 he was carrying.

In 1986, Huckstepp’s body was found in a Centennial Park pond. Smith was charged with murder in 1996 and acquitted after a trial in 1999.

Smith and Rogerson are said to be business partners in the heroin trade and split the proceeds of armed robbery. That relationship was the focus of the 1995 television series Blue Murder, in which Rogerson was played by Richard Roxburgh and Smith by Tony Martin.

In 1984, Rogerson was charged with conspiracy to murder Detective Michael Drury, who was shot through his kitchen window in Chatswood on Sydney’s north coast, but survived.

Rogerson, hit man Chris Flannery and Melbourne heroin dealer Alan Williams are said to have colluded over the attempt on Drury’s life.

The detective was suspended from the NSW Police Service but cleared of conspiracy to kill Drury, whom he allegedly attempted to bribe on Williams’ behalf.

Rogerson was discharged from the police force in 1986 and served two prison terms – in 1990 for perverting the course of justice and in 2005 for lying under oath to the Police Integrity Commission.

Rogerson embarked on a late career on stage, telling stories of his life alongside football player Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson (left) and earless standover man Mark ‘Chopper’ Read (right)

He worked in the construction industry supplying scaffolding and took the stage in a traveling show called The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with ex-AFL stars Warwick Capper and Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson.

Jackson and Rogerson also teamed up with earless standover man and author Mark “Chopper” Read for a comedy theater act titled Wild Colonial Psychos.

Rogerson’s final downfall came with the murder of Gao during a methamphetamine rip-off in a storage unit in Padstow in southwest Sydney.

CCTV footage showed Glen McNamara leading Gao into the unit, followed shortly by Rogerson.

Gao was shot twice in the chest and minutes later McNamara emerged dragging a silver surfboard cover that contained his body.

Rogerson and McNamara were found guilty in a 2016 trial and sentenced to life in prison by Judge Geoffrey Bellew, who said each perpetrator was party to a crime “elaborate in its planning, ruthless in its execution, and ruthless in its aftermath.”

Rogerson, handcuffed and limping, is taken from his Padstow Heights home seven days after Gao’s murder and one day after the aspiring drug dealer’s body was dumped into the sea.