CHOGM Pt. 05

Following the suicide (murder?) of Frank Nugan in 1980, Nugan Hand collapsed with stated debts of $50,000,000. There was a mad scramble to destroy any paper work that Nugan had left behind before police could investigate. Shortly before an inquest into the bank, Michael Hand disappeared by slipping out of the country, in disguise and using a false passport, to Fiji. From Fiji he went on to Canada and from there to the US where it has been alleged he lived with a new identity.

The tie in with this story is all about drugs. In 1969 in Sydney some hashish hit the streets that had been laced with heroin. The source of that hash was allegedly the 'Texas Tavern' and involved the use of US servicemen on R&R leave from Vietnam as drug mules.

Michael Hand has been linked with drug activities even before the formation of the bank. He was a CIA operative in South East Asia and his job was as a liaison between the US military and the hill tribes in Laos, supplying weapons in return for raw opium. This opium was processed into heroin and transported to the US via staging points, such as Sydney, by US service personnel on R&R leave from Vietnam. The bags of these personnel were not searched by Customs on arrival in Sydney, merely counted. Personnel then went to the Texas Tavern in Kings Cross where, because of restrictions to the repatriation of cash from Australia, the packages of heroin were exchanged for title deeds to a property development in North Queensland.

Those personnel who survived the war and returned to the US discovered when they went to access title to the property that it no longer existed.

Frank Nugan's connection with drugs was through a family company (the Nugan Group), a fruit packaging company based in Griffith in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in NSW. This company was linked to the cultivation and distribution of vast quantities of marijuana by what was known as the 'Calabrian Mafia', a group of Italian immigrant farmers that included Robert Trimboli and the Sergi brothers. This group was reported to have transported in one year, marijuana to the value of $1,000,000,000 in today's money to the US. The mansions in which they lived were known in the local area as 'Grass Castles'.

It has also been alleged that, following an auditor's refusal to certify the accounts of the Nugan Fruit Packing and Distribution Co, an interest was taken in this by local businessman and anti drugs campaigner Donald MacKay. His murder in Griffith in 1977 could have been arranged by Nugan Hand and involved Robert Trimboli who, it was alleged, had arranged the 'hit'. Trimboli was said to have also been a part of the 'Mr Asia' syndicate, run by Terrence Clarke, that was involved in the importation of Heroin from South East Asia and channelling it through Sydney to the West Coast of the US.

This also involved what was known as the 'Corset Gang' a group of couriers operated by former and serving NSW police personnel and led by former policeman Murray Stewart Riley.

Trimboli had at one time owned the Texas Tavern in Sydney's Kings Cross, the same restaurant once also owned by Maurice Bernard (Bernie) Houghton, a key player in the Nugan Hand Bank, a former US military pilot in Vietnam, an associate of Michael Hand and a known CIA operative.

The reference to the CIA's involvement in the overthrow of the Whitlam government in 1975 is based on several investigations into the affair, one of which alleges that there was a World War 2 connection between the then Governor General, Sir John Kerr, and US military intelligence. This combined with the CIA's concerns over the government's plans to close Pine Gap, its top secret communications facility based near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Pine Gap was a strategic part of the CIA's global espionage network.

This overthrow was in two stages; the opposition Liberal Party had pounced on leaked information (by the CIA?) about what became known as the 'Khemlani Loans Affair'. This gave it the leverage that it needed to block supply in the Senate, where it held a majority, thus denying the government the funds it needed it to govern.

One report alleged that the CIA used its knowledge of the Westminster parliamentary system in Australia to advise Kerr that he had the power to dismiss the government, which he did, asking Malcolm Fraser to form a caretaker government. This action effectively restored the previously cordial relations between the US and Australian governments and allowed the CIA to once more operate freely in Australia.

While taken in isolation these events may not seem to be connected in any way to the events of the 13th of February 1978. But is it a coincidence that in 1977 the Desai government in India had tightened control over foreign owned companies and had expelled the Coca Cola Company and IBM from India? These actions would have been enough to warrant some sort of reprisal from the US. In the same year (15th September) the Ananda Marga had allegedly attacked the Military Attaché, Colonel Singh and his wife in Canberra thus setting the scene for them to be used as a scapegoat for the Hilton bombing.

Given the CIA's alleged history of drug production and distribution, and its alleged interference in the politics of other countries such as Chile, these actions seem entirely credible.

I have used this information as the basis for the actions taken by the CIA in this book. Whether or not it happened this way is immaterial, after all, this is a work of fiction.

Post script: On the 10th of August 2012 the ACT Supreme Court ordered an inquiry into the conviction of David Eastman for the murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester.

Winchester was involved in a sting (Operation Seville) that involved the controlled production of a crop of cannabis at Bungendore with the view to tracking its movements along the distribution chain in an effort to identify the major players. Of the many names that appeared in conjunction with this sting was Joe Verduci, the police informant that accused Robert Trimbole of arranging the death of Donald MacKay, Antonio Sergi, one of the farmers involved in cannabis production at Griffith, who was the brother-in-law of Luigi Puchi an alleged major player in the ACT drug scene. Also mentioned were members of the NSW police force.

There were rumours at the time of the Winchester killing that this was a mob hit but, this was not fully investigated at the time, and there have been suggestions that the collection of forensic evidence could have been deliberately contaminated.

It has been alleged that the police, having decided that David Eastman was the culprit, only investigated evidence that supported that decision.

The methods they used to link minute amounts of gun powder residue found in Eastman's car to the shooting have since been discredited, and a new, more accurate method is now used in forensic investigations.