John Friedrich (fraudster) - Move To Australia

Move To Australia

On 20 January 1975, Hohenberger arrived in Melbourne, Australia on a flight from Auckland, New Zealand. According to Department of Immigration records, Hohenberger left Australia on a flight to Singapore on 22 January. It is believed he tricked Australian Customs into believing he had boarded a plane but remained in Australia.

Using the name John Friedrich and fake qualifications, he obtained a contract with construction company Codelfa Cogefar, working on part of the Melbourne underground rail loop. He subsequently worked for the Board of Ecumenical Missions and Relations (BOEMAR), a Uniting Church in Australia organisation responsible for the Church's Aboriginal missions. He was offered the position of community adviser at Ernabella in South Australia, where he was to assist the Aboriginal community with its development and to supervise civil works.

While working in Ernabella, Friedrich became ill with a serious infection and was treated by nurse Shirley Manning. Friedrich and Manning became engaged in October 1975 and married on 10 February 1976 in Sydney. They moved to the BOEMAR mission on Mornington Island where Shirley Friedrich was to work as a nursing sister and John as the manager. During his time on Mornington, Friedrich was responsible to the Australian Government as well as to the Church. While the Church was only concerned with the day-to-day running of the island, as an agent of the government he acted as a coastal watcher for the Royal Australian Navy, a fisheries officer, a licensee for the government-owned pub, an agent for a shipping company and the airline that serviced the island, a reporting officer for the Department of Civil Aviation. Friedrich also began studying again while at Mornington, working on an external masters degree in engineering science with the University of Queensland. The Friedrichs resigned from BOEMAR in late 1976, but stayed to oversee relief opportunities until January 1977 after Cyclone Ted destroyed 90 per cent of all buildings on the island.