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Fugitive wanted by Australia found after 35 years

60 Minutes

60 Minutes

Three-and-a-half decades after escaping Australia wearing a fake beard, 73-year old Michael Hand has had plenty of time to grow a real one living under a fake identity in small-town America.

Uncovered by an enterprising author as based in Idaho Falls using the pseudonym Michael Jon Fuller, Hand’s current job in weapons development for US Special Forces hints at the eventful life in Australia he fled during the Nugan Hand scandal – leaving behind his dead billionaire business partner, a collapsed bank, and a vast international money-laundering and tax evasion scheme linked to drug trafficking and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

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A decorated American war hero in Vietnam – where he saved the lives of four compatriots by killing a number of Viet Cong with a combat knife in hand-to-hand combat – Hand went on to covertly train guerrilla forces for the US Government in other parts of the world, before moving to Australia where he co-founded the Nugan Hand Bank, which eventually collapsed and has since been implicated as – although never proven to be – a front for the CIA.

Michael Hand

An older photo of Michael Hand. Photo: 60 Minutes

As part of the investigation for his new book Merchants of Menace, Sydney writer Peter Butt managed what Australian and American authorities couldn’t – or wouldn’t – do and tracked down Hand’s current location.

Butt used a social security background check he says the US Government could easily have undertaken – an omission he believes is suspicious given the case had been investigated by ASIO, the FBI and the Commonwealth-New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking.

Australians who had their money tied up in Nugan Hand lost their life savings out of the affair, but Frank Nugan paid an even heavier price in 1980, when the 37-year-old merchant banker was found dead from a gunshot wound in his Mercedes Benz.

A .30-calibre rifle was discovered beside Nugan, and his death was ruled a suicide, an explanation that fitted given the recent implosion of his business and the accusations of fraud levelled at him.

In Nugan’s pocket was the business card of William Colby, director of the CIA in the mid-1970s and at the time acting as legal counsel for the bank, who would later be found dead after leaving on a solo canoe trip in 1996.

In his book Butt solves a number of the mysteries of the case – but he says plenty of unanswered questions remain.

Hand was unsurprisingly not willing to grant an interview to the author who found him, however Butt told The New Daily he knew exactly what he would ask if given the opportunity to pose a single question to the escaped fugitive.

michael hand

Mr Hand looks very different after 35 years hiding in plain sight.

“Hand arrived back in Australia two days after Nugan’s death and threatened his staff to cooperate otherwise he would cut up their wives and children and post their remains in the post,” Butt said.

“When the investigators turned up a few weeks later they were still shredding documents.

“Those documents held the key [to] Nugan Hand’s nefarious operations.”

It is those papers that Butt would like to ask about, and which he hopes the American and Australian authorities make enquiries in relation to.

“What was in the tens of thousands of documents you destroyed that caused you so much terror, and why did you destroy them?” he said.

“That would be my question – and he wouldn’t say anything.”

Butt intends to inform the Australian Federal Police and the NSW Police of what he knows about Hand’s current circumstances.

Based on Butt’s revelations, Channel 9’s 60 Minutes tracked down Hand and filmed him walking out of his local shopping mall – footage which aired last Sunday night.

Hand did not respond to questions from the 60 Minutes team, silently getting into his car and driving home to lock himself behind closed doors.

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