Narrator:

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March the 23rd, 1998. It's already early evening by the time an Australian lawyer-cum-businessman checks into the best hotel in town. By the next morning, he'd be dead. His face beaten with a bedside table, his head bashed in with a brick, then he was strangled to death with his own tie.

No one in the busy hotel says they saw the killers come or go. No one in the next rooms heard anything. And no one seems to know why he was even here. The brutal murder remains unsolved.

Fast forward to the here and now, or at least to neighbouring Laos, and another unsolved incident involving Australians where fact and fiction remain confused. Security firm owner Kerry Danes and his wife Kay, arrested on charges of stealing gems, pilfering from the storerooms of one of the world's richest deposits of sapphire.

On the surface, the 1998 murder in Phnom Penh and the arrests in Vientiane appear unrelated. Yet in one vital way, they remain inextricably linked. For the shadowy characters who surrounded Melbourne tax lawyer, Max Green, before his untimely death in Cambodia, are also the main players surrounding the Danes' jailing over the alleged gem theft in Laos.

Tonight one of those key characters emerges for the first time to shed new light on both mysterious events.

Ted Doyle:

And I was a moral coward and said, "Yeah, don't worry Max, I'll organise something. I'll get there." And I had no intention of going and ... So anyway, you can imagine how I feel about Max being used in that way. But as we get older, we learn to expect nearly anything from human beings.

Narrator:

In the far north of Laos, a mine at Ban Huay Sai, is one of the world richest deposits of sapphire. After years of plunder, it could still have $100 million US dollars worth of stone, a bonanza for the concession holder, a vast source of royalty revenue for the desperately poor Lao government.

Not surprisingly, the government keeps a close eye on the dig; some say, too close an eye. The mine is now shut down and under guard, the subject of a bitter battle for ownership by two competing foreign groups. But the mine is really just the final destination on an extraordinary trail of greed, dirty deals and double crosses, that had its beginnings not in Asia, but in one of corporate Australia's more respectable precincts, Melbourne's legal quarter.

Greg Stokes:

You're talking in the period of '93, '94, when the company was called Shugg and Green, solicitors. A small firm with a person as principle of name of Gary Shugg.

Narrator:

Gary Shugg was a crafty, ambitious lawyer, looking to go places fast. But to do that in conservative Melbourne, he needed money and connections. In came Max Green, through marriage plugged into Melbourne's wealthy establishment. Still, no one could have predicted how quickly their little firm would grow.

Greg Stokes:

It was just an expedential growth over a short period from their letterhead turning from one company based in Melbourne to wanting to be based in London, New York and Kiev.

Narrator:

Greg Stokes thought it was suspicious because it was his job. Now in private security, he was then with the Victoria Police and had been called in to investigate claims that Shugg was stealing other people's money that he held in trust. But he soon discovered even more serious allegations that these lawyers were implicated in arms dealing and money laundering.

Greg Stokes:

Employees turning around and saying, "Hang on, I've just picked up a fax on our company fax machine just telling me about howitzers coming from Kiev on the way to the Cambodian government through Australia. We're a legal company, why have we got these sorts of faxes coming through?"

Ted Doyle:

You know, I was brought a letter that said we wanted so many artillery shells and, what are you doing? Guys, guys, you know, back into the real world, you know. I mean, you'll either get shot by the Russians, not paid by the Cambodians, you know, or assassinated by the Chinese bankers, who you then can't pay, you know, I mean, this is dangerous stuff.

Narrator:

Ted Doyle was a permanent consultant, virtually a third partner to Shugg and Green. A former soldier and intelligence operative, with heavy connections in Southeast Asia. Police viewed Doyle as an enforcer, a stand-over man.

Ted Doyle:

I'm a shadowy figure, you know? It's ridiculous.

Greg Stokes:

Ted's not someone that you would muck around with. It's someone that has had a previous military background. It's someone that's been up in Asia for a long period of time, that had connections in the Asia region, and he could transfer those connections down to Australia whenever he chose to do.

And they're the sorts of things that people were scared of.

Narrator:

Soon the Victoria Police had put enough together to bring a series of theft charges against firm principle, Gary Shugg. But before they could swoop, Shugg fled the country. As they continued to look for hard evidence against Green, he went about his business, travelling to and from Asia, and staying in touch with his old mate, Ted Doyle, by now settled full time in Southeast Asia.

Ted Doyle:

Look, I'm just a knock about, I learned a lot. I'm a quick study and I learned a lot about the gem trade over 20 years of fascination with the things ... And decided to do it full time.

Narrator:

With his new found knowledge and connections, Ted Doyle became a player in the Asian gem trade. Here, Doyle and his partner launched their effort to sell Australian opals to rich Thai buyers, an early opening gambit for their gem company. But to buy the stones, pay for occasions like this and build a business, they needed cash and Ted Doyle's business would get it from none other than Max Green.

Just as big money had flowed in with Green's arrival at the tiny Melbourne law firm, so too when he fronted Ted Doyle's gem shop front in Bangkok.

Speaker 4:

When they need you, they just need you in front of them to signature, that's all.

Narrator:

Through her meticulous diaries, one of Ted Doyle's former office workers, recalls how heavily the business relied on Max Green money.

Speaker 4:

Ted tell me ... Every time we look at the stone [inaudible], and he got no money with him and he'd say, "We have to wait for Max to send us." Then, every time we have to wait til money come from Max. Then it will come like exactly time, like, some time, got no money left and then everything have to stop, and to wait until next lot come in.

Narrator:

Max Green was sending money here to an account at the swank headquarters of the Bangkok bank, an account held in the name of Doyle's gem business partner and it was a lot of money. Bank documents obtained by a foreign correspondent reveal that between July 1996 and October 1997, Max Green moved almost $20 million dollars from his account held at the branch of the National Australian Bank in Carlton to Doyle's business in Bangkok.

Doyle insists it was all aboveboard. Green was sending the money to buy gems that he later then collect and resell.

Ted Doyle:

If somebody walked in the door that looked like they just robbed the bank, you know, smoking gun in their hand and Bangkok bank money bags in their hand, I'd probably forced to sort of assume that they got it nefariously and call the police. But if a prominent Jewish lawyer in an Armani suit, with his brief case walks in the door and says, "Now, look, what I want to do is transfer, not cash, transfer the funds from my company in Australia to your account in Bangkok, and then I want to arrive here and pick up certain goods that I'll specify." Yeah? Problem? Would you have a problem with that, Evan?

Narrator:

But there was a problem. Max Green's money wasn't his money at all. Victoria's major fraud squad has now established that Green was lifting the money from lawyer trust accounts under his control. He was fleecing Melbourne's richest business people with an elaborate scam; a complicated tax deferral scheme that didn't even exist. In fact, Max Green wasn't interested in Asian gems at all. He was simply using them to launder his stolen millions.

Ted Doyle:

I said, "Maxie, is this kosher?", "Well, what do you mean by, kosher?". And I immediately thought that he'd meant some weird tax evasion or tax avoidance scheme, which really didn't impact on us because we don't live in Australia ,and if he'd done something down there that was questionable under the tax act and we didn't know about it, well, so what, right? Silly boy, naughty boy, you go to jail, but not our problem.

But I had no idea he was stealing it.

Evan:

And did he then tell you that this is actually, I'm laundering the money?

Ted Doyle:

No, no we just decided ... I mean, I don't need to ask more questions than I need to ask. I just said, look, that's ... [inaudible] that's it. Wait til Max comes back with a better way of doing this, whatever it is he's doing.

Narrator:

What it was, was an awesome scam. A staggering 42 million dollars, maybe more. It seems Green may have been trying to borrow the trust fund money, make profits on various schemes, and put it back before anyone noticed.

Ted Doyle:

Maxie sort of envied people who were clever, people who were sort of clients of his, who skimmed the system and got away with it and scarpered of to his realm, lived a good life. Leaving the Keystone Cops, jumping up and down on the spot in Australia, you know.

Narrator:

As Ted Doyle took his commissions and scoured the Southeast Asian landscape for gem mining opportunities, Max Green took another path, to Cambodia, a place mentioned in gun running dispatches years back when Green was working with Shugg in Melbourne. With payments due on his bogus tax scheme and the police getting close, the pressure on Green was growing. He needed a deal to get him out of the mess he created, and in Cambodia he'd thought he found it.

Ted Doyle:

What he was up to, I wouldn't have a clue, Evan. But I'll tell you this, it would have been mad fantasy and cloud crooked land, like everything else he did that got him killed, and that's almost the real core of the tragedy.

Narrator:

The tragedy Ted Doyle is referring to is the brutal slaying of Max Green at his hotel in Cambodia. From police reports and staff interviews we know that Green dined alone the only night he stayed there. Then he had a visitor. There were no signs of forced entry, so perhaps he knew the one, possibly two people who came knocking.

What is clear is that once inside, they struck quickly and brutally.

Police Officer:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

Taken from the TV cabinet, this is the only lead the killer left behind.

Police Officer:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

For the under resourced Cambodian Police, it's not much to go on. Anyway given Green's bulk, they believe it wasn't a diminutive local, rather a foreigner leading the attack.

It wasn't a simple robbery either. Green's gold Cartier watch was left on the floor and a few thousand dollars left in the safe. But most importantly, what was taken by the killer was a laptop computer, and discs containing all the records of his financial transfers, a road map of the stolen millions.

Evan:

The thing smashed the head, like this.

Narrator:

But the investigation stalled; the evidence gathers dust. But they do have one conclusion.

Police Officer:

[foreign language]

Ted Doyle:

Max would never believe people would do you over like that. He'd think he could talk his way out of anything. Well, there is people here that will kill you in a blink.

Greg Stokes:

Max Green was a timid fellow. He'd be the type of person you would put in your accounting area as your second line or third line.

Narrator:

The same can't be said for Ted Doyle and Green's former Melbourne legal partner Garry Shugg.

After his disappearance from Australia, Shugg was about to re-emerge, join up with Ted Doyle for a financial play that would dwarf anything that he'd have done before.

After searching, Ted Doyle had finally found his El Dorado. This huge sapphire mine in the North of Laos, a place from which he could secure his own supply of gems.

Much of the four million dollar profit he made off the trade with Max, Ted Doyle now sank into this mine, Gem Mining Laos.

Bernie Jeppesen:

He wakes up [crosstalk] people.

Narrator:

It was owned by this man Ernie Jeppesen and his partner Julie Brunes. They had the concession for 13 years.

Julie Brunes:

[crosstalk]

Narrator:

Under concession rules they paid royalties to the local and national governments, it was doing all right, but the injection of Doyle's money would help them increase their production dramatically.

Bernie Jeppesen:

They brought up Doyle, Ted Doyle. We were actually talking about them selling many of the sales of all sapphires for us, and we worked out a percentage and they said, "Oh that's was how it all started."

Narrator:

But Doyle supplied more than just cash, he came with a visionary, Gary Shugg. The man wanted for plundering trust accounts in Melbourne, had arrived back on the scene and was thinking big. Shugg proposed a public float of the mine, taking it to the global marketplace through a listing in Canada.

Bernie Jeppesen:

It all sounded good. We were to haul 53%, they were going to have 47. And it all looked very promising.

Evan:

But the conflict had already began.

Narrator:

But according to Jeppesen, it was to be no ordinary float. It was to be accompanied by some non-too-subtle spin, what over ambitious and non-scrupulous corporate types call "ramping".

Bernie Jeppesen:

And the first thing when Shugg came along he and Doyle sat me down in their office and said, "The way we can really make some big money, like hundreds of millions of dollars, is by ramping this year's", I knew the terms very well of course, and I said, "No".

Evan:

Just tell me what that means, for people, "ramping".

Bernie Jeppesen:

Ramping the shares means, if the shares are worth say really worth four dollars or so, they ramp them by putting in a big team of workers, write up wrong reports, sort of like Bre-X, I guess, you know. The shares go up to 8, 10, 12 dollars or so. They were talking about going to 18 dollars most days. That's what they wanted.

Evan:

From a two dollar value?

Bernie Jeppesen:

Yeah, basically.

Narrator:

The Doyle-Shugg camp reject the ramping claims as rubbish. In any event, the big public listing of the sapphire mine, registered and ready to go, half a world away in Vancouver, Canada, was sunk, even before it floated. The deal fell apart when Jeppesen and Brunes feared they were about to be short-changed in the allocation of shares.

Julie Brunes:

When our lawyer checked into it, the shares were not in our name. Shugg still had his hand in it.

Ted Doyle:

They went in willingly and wholeheartedly until that public company arrangement. I think frankly, that they decided that they could take the investor's money, milk the public company for all that it was worth, and end up still owning the mine.

Narrator:

As the bitter tug-of-war over the mine through up claim and counter-claim, officials begin to take closer look at the dig.

Speaker 10:

Did you see the family [inaudible].

Speaker 11:

No.

Kay Danes:

I love my children.

Narrator:

The probe revealed a swag of missing gems and with concessionaries Jeppesen and Brunes out of the country, the police moved on the man guarding the treasure, former SAS soldier turned security officer, Kerry Danes. He and his wife Kay were arrested and accused of stealing gems.

Evan:

Obviously you hope this will help the Danes.

Bernie Jeppesen:

We certainly hope they'll let them go once this...

Narrator:

In a bid to prove the Danes of stolen nothing, Julie and Bernie for the first time show that they in fact have at least some of the jewels that that Lao government accuses Kerry Danes of stealing. They had the New Zealand embassy sign a statutory declaration witnessing their possession of finished jewels, they say are rightfully theirs, with all duties already paid to the Lao government.

Bernie Jeppesen:

Well this is in order to prove to the Lao government the jewellery is in our possession down here, in Julie's possession, it's not taken by Kerry or Kay Danes, and they have nothing at all to do with it.

Narrator:

Even the enemy concedes the Danes are probably innocent.

Ted Doyle:

But for the Danes it would have been rich cake. Wow these guys have got this country wide and I'm starting to start a business and I can really go places with this, you know? So I don't think the Danes sort of actually pinched anything.

Narrator:

None of this is likely to sway the authorities in Laos, where an absentee trial has already been played out. Without putting their case, Ernie Jeppesen and Julie Brunes have been found guilty on unspecified charges regarding the removal of gems and falsifying documents and have been sentenced to twenty years in jail and more than 55 million dollars in fines.

And yet, despite the outcome of the court case, the Danes are still in custody, simply for their association with the mining company.

For the man who first investigated the antics of Shugg, Green and Doyle back in Melbourne in the early '90s there are no surprises that the trio resurfaced in the relatively unregulated backwaters of southeast Asia. Along with their dubious deals, all ending up over their head, one paying the ultimate price.

Greg Stokes:

I would hope that it would be solved, not as though you didn't have a body, you didn't have a scene, and you didn't have the police actually looking at it. But it seems to be that Max Green's death is continuing to be a link to a sapphire mine where previous associates now are involved with it.

Evan:

So this is the actual company is it?

Narrator:

So what of close associate Ted Doyle? His business was a syphon for more than 20 million dollars of Max Green's stolen money. But he laughs off claims that something went very wrong and business got bloody. Murder, that he says, is beyond him.

Ted Doyle:

[crosstalk] if we can follow that mine up there, we'll do it again.

Evan:

People will often report that you had him killed because then you wouldn't have to pay the money back.

Ted Doyle:

Yeah, right. My standard response to that sort of allegation is "I always kill people who are giving me money, it's a standard operating procedure of mine, and that's why I'm broke." I'm not going to rise to that, that's silly.

Evan:

That absolves you, that's where it keeps getting lift, that's why we keep looking for something else that might have been there, did he ever get [crosstalk]-

Ted Doyle:

Let's me put this to you. There's a great list of people who have mixed histories that Max took money off, stole money off. Now, why wouldn't one of them be asking for his money back? I mean, you know, lets, lets-

Evan:

These are the people [inaudible]

Ted Doyle:

Yeah, let's use our brains a bit.

Narrator:

Whatever the motive of his assailant, it was really greed that killed Max Green. Today it's again greed that's led to the double deals over control of a gem mine that's left two Australians in a Lao jail. But it should not be forgotten, that much of the money that greased the wheels of both events, slipped through leading institutions in Australia, whose checks and balances either failed or never existed.