Nugan Hand Bank - Scandal and Collapse

Scandal and Collapse

Concerns over the bank's questionable accounting processes began to circulate by the late 1970s as investors attending annual general meetings were prevented from asking questions by the bank. These concerns turned into panic for bank investors in the early hours of 27 January 1980 when Nugan (who was facing charges of stock fraud) was found shot dead by a .30-calibre rifle in his Mercedes-Benz outside Lithgow, New South Wales. It is said that a hand-written list was found on his body with a list of substantial loans Nugan Hand had extended to various notables, such as William Colby and Bob Wilson. The following police investigation returned a verdict of suicide. Suspicions of the bank's activities grew in subsequent days as details emerged of the contents of Nugan's car (including the business card of William Colby) and news that Nugan's house and office had been ransacked by Hand and Yates and important company files destroyed or stolen.

The official inquest into Nugan's death in June 1980 made front-page news amid testimony from Hand that Nugan Hand was insolvent, owing at least A$50 million (and as much as hundreds of millions), including $20,000 rent on their Sydney headquarters.

Hand shredded many of Nugan Hand's remaining records from both the office and the home of Nugan. He then fled Australia under a false identity, that of a Sydney butcher named Alan Glenn Winter, on a flight to Fiji in late June 1981. Hand wore a false beard and mustache to look like Winter and obtained a passport after getting Winter's birth certificate and having two photos taken. After a week in Fiji he made his way to Vancouver, British Columbia, and then on to New York City.

Hand has not been seen since. It is possible that, as a CIA operative, after he re-entered the United States he was given a new identity.

In April 1983 a Perth businessman, Murray Quartermaine, testified to the Stewart Royal Commission on drugs that Hand was living in Pretoria, South Africa under the name of "Hahn". Quartermaine's former business partner Christo Moll had been linked to the bank, and Quartermaine had won a A$400,000 judgment against Moll. Quartermaine also told The Age that he had evidence that questioned that Nugan's death was a suicide.

A subsequent royal commission inquiring into the activities of the Nugan Hand Group revealed money-laundering, arms shipments, drug dealing, theft (including US$5 million from US military personnel in Saudi Arabia) and large-scale tax avoidance by Nugan Hand throughout its brief but eventful existence. One witness, a former Nugan Hand director, stated that Hand threatened bank executives: "If we didn't do what we were told, and things weren't handled properly, our wives would be cut into pieces and put in boxes and sent back to us".

An Australian investigation, the 'Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking', compiled a report on the Nugan Hand bank in 1983. It determined that, above and beyond the revelations of the Royal Commission, Nugan Hand had acted as a CIA front to finance a war in Laos by laundering drug money. The Nugan Hand Chiang Mai branch participated in the covert sale of an electronic spy ship to Iran and weapons shipments to Angola.

The investigation linked former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos to the bank. Melbourne and Manila businessman Ludwig Petre Rocka had an account at the bank, as did his wife Elizabeth E. Marcos, sister of Ferdinand. Rocka had helped set up the Manila branch of Nugan Hand and had his Manila office (International Development & Planning Corporation) in the same office as the bank. Author Jonathan Kwitny states that the evidence implies that Ferdinand Marcos was removing money from the Philippines, some of which was in gold, through Nugan Hand, and that a portion of this money, a "commission", was then used to fund CIA activity, like that in Laos.

Authors Alfred W. McCoy and Sterling and Peggy Seagrave claim that Nugan Hand was totally CIA controlled (via Paul Helliwell), seeing it as part of a series of CIA-controlled banks, preceded by Castle Bank & Trust and succeeded by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). They further assert that the bank was just small stepping stone for the CIA in laundering capital that started during World War II and continues on.

It has long been a subject of speculation that Nugan Hand had some sort of part to play in Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam's dismissal.

Continued speculation that Nugan had faked his own death, including a report from a businessman who said he saw and talked with Nugan while on a trip to the U.S., and was in hiding led authorities to exhume Nugan's body in February 1981. Dental records and fingerprints were used to confirm that the body was Nugan's.

No one connected with Nugan Hand has ever been convicted of a crime. Admiral Yates and his fellow senior officers who were involved with Nugan Hand have not responded to Australian requests to testify about the bank.