Speaker 1: The day Dan was arrested was the hardest day I
Speaker 1: thought in my lifetime. Eva First, I was off to
Speaker 1: work and Dan was dropping the kids at school. Dan
Speaker 1: had a cake in his hand, was giving it to
Speaker 1: the kids, and off he dropped them to school. He
Speaker 1: went to wool worst because he was going to cook
Speaker 1: dinner in the evening, grabbed a few things and that's
Speaker 1: when he was arrested.
Speaker 2: In October twenty twenty two, officers from the Australian Federal
Speaker 2: Police arrested Daniel Duggan in Orange in Regional New South Wales.
Speaker 2: His wife Safareen was waiting to meet him for coffee.
Speaker 1: Well, the irony is that Dan is always on time.
Speaker 1: His family comes first. So I'd waited.
Speaker 3: Ten minutes for him to call me, and I'd sent.
Speaker 1: Numerous messages on his phone. Then it got into maybe
Speaker 1: half an hour. I was so concerned. I was just
Speaker 1: about to call the police to say I'm really worried
Speaker 1: about my husband.
Speaker 3: Something might have happened to him.
Speaker 4: And then he called me. I said, what are you
Speaker 4: talking about? I don't understand what do you mean.
Speaker 3: You've been arrested, like for what what could you possibly
Speaker 3: have been arrested?
Speaker 5: For you know, this is a man.
Speaker 3: That's never had never had a parking fine. I've had
Speaker 3: more parking fines than he has.
Speaker 2: To American prosecutors. Dugan is a former US Marine pilot
Speaker 2: accused of breaking arms trafficking laws by helping train Chinese
Speaker 2: military pilots in South Africa more than a decade ago,
Speaker 2: something he denies to Safreene. This is her husband and
Speaker 2: the man she built a family with.
Speaker 3: A friend introduced me to him, and I thought as
Speaker 3: soon as I turned around and met him, my heart
Speaker 3: skipped a beat and I was just interested in talking
Speaker 3: to this beautiful, happy, smiley, friendly, honest man.
Speaker 4: It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: It was a couple in love and starting a life together,
Speaker 1: and we did all the beautiful romance things together.
Speaker 4: We had children. We knew.
Speaker 1: I knew instantly when I met Dan that this was
Speaker 1: something that I wanted to continue because there was a
Speaker 1: connection there that we still have, we still hold on
Speaker 1: tight to that. We then made a family on and
Speaker 1: that's the most heartbreaking thing for me is that all
Speaker 1: of this it's ripped our family apart, and we're a strong,
Speaker 1: loving family, and it's depth stating.
Speaker 2: I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today
Speaker 2: Saffring Duggan on her husband's fight for freedom from jail,
Speaker 2: and journalist and member of the Free Dan Duggan campaign
Speaker 2: Michael sainsbrief on how an Australian pilot who worked in
Speaker 2: China has become the target of US prosecution. It's Monday,
Speaker 2: April twenty seven and this is part one of a
Speaker 2: two part episode. Michael, could you start off by telling
Speaker 2: us who is Daniel Duggan and how did he end
Speaker 2: up in Tasmania.
Speaker 6: Dan is born in Boston. He is the youngest of
Speaker 6: nine kids. His old man was a pilot. He wanted
Speaker 6: to become a pilot. He ended up in the US Marines.
Speaker 6: He actually served in the First off War, although you
Speaker 6: didn't see combat, is training people and had an.
Speaker 4: Honorable discharge from the Marines. He moved to Australia.
Speaker 6: In two thousand and five and set up a business
Speaker 6: in Tasmania called Top nine Australia, which offered joy flights
Speaker 6: in military style aircraft.
Speaker 5: This is Dan Duggett, chief pilot and Managing director of
Speaker 5: Top Gone Australia.
Speaker 6: I'm a former US Marine Harrier jumpjet pilot and weapons
Speaker 6: and tactics instructor. Eventually he became an Australian citizen as
Speaker 6: Australia Day in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: So from there, how did he end up in a
Speaker 2: flying school in South Africa?
Speaker 6: ILike everybody who has been in the services, you have
Speaker 6: to have a career after that. And in the early
Speaker 6: early twenty tens, an old aviation context reached out from
Speaker 6: South Africa and said there was work at a quite
Speaker 6: prestigious test pilot school in South Africa called Tapasa.
Speaker 4: So Dan started.
Speaker 6: Talking to them and ended up going to do some
Speaker 6: work for them in twenty eleven and twenty twelve. That
Speaker 6: school is kind of sits at the crossroads of elite
Speaker 6: pilot training, and it was at the time of China's
Speaker 6: aviation burn. Fact was that the commercial airlines there were
Speaker 6: just doubling, tripling, quadriveling flights. There's three b airlines and
Speaker 6: they were really struggling to get enough people to fly
Speaker 6: the plane, so they were sending people all around the
Speaker 6: world to get trained. Dan did through short since there
Speaker 6: as just as a contractor, you know, he wasn't in management.
Speaker 6: There were a lot of other very senior foreign military
Speaker 6: people who were both running the school and working there
Speaker 6: as sort of lead pilots. Too Fasta told him that
Speaker 6: he was training civilian test pilots.
Speaker 2: So what is it the US prosecutors and now saying
Speaker 2: happened in South Africa? What was he doing?
Speaker 6: They say that that true, Too Faster Dan was part
Speaker 6: of a conspiracy to provide defense services to China without
Speaker 6: US authorization. Now, what the training school says they were
Speaker 6: doing is that they were just training Savilian pilots, and
Speaker 6: they're saying that they were military.
Speaker 4: Dan's denying it and defining seals Den.
Speaker 6: It's worth noting that none of these other people have
Speaker 6: ever been charged with him.
Speaker 4: Just in terms of what they said he was doing.
Speaker 6: They alleged that he the training was connected to aircraft
Speaker 6: carrier take offs and landings at the time when China
Speaker 6: was just starting to develop aircraft carriers. The indictment also
Speaker 6: alleges that Dan evaluated Chinese pilot trainees and was involved
Speaker 6: in broader work that was designed to improve China's naval
Speaker 6: aviation capability. All of this stuff standardized, and the training
Speaker 6: that he was.
Speaker 4: Providing really wasn't really military training. It was just very
Speaker 4: typical training that you were training any pilot for.
Speaker 2: Despite all of that, though, Michael, even by Dan's own account,
Speaker 2: he is a former marine being asked to teach Chinese pilots.
Speaker 2: So is there any reason that Dan perhaps should have
Speaker 2: had some concerns or alarm bells ringing? Or does it
Speaker 2: sound completely reasonable to you?
Speaker 6: Sounds simpletely reasonable to me, particularly when you look at
Speaker 6: the people he employed him. I mean Teeth Hartley, who
Speaker 6: was running this thing, was a senior, very senior RAF officers.
Speaker 6: There were other senior Australian and British former military people.
Speaker 6: They're people who are much more senior than Dan. So
Speaker 6: for some reason he's been picked out. And possibly the
Speaker 6: reason he's been picked out is because he changed his
Speaker 6: citizenship and he was an easy.
Speaker 2: Target after the break the move to China and who
Speaker 2: has sue beIN the businessman who stole US military secrets
Speaker 2: Michael Daniel Duggan. He left South Africa in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: He was there less than a year. What happened next?
Speaker 6: At that point he moved to move to China and
Speaker 6: set up a consulting business for the aviation sector.
Speaker 4: When he was planning to move to China, Dan.
Speaker 6: Says that he was contacted by Azeo, and he eventually
Speaker 6: met with Azo and also representatives from NCIS, part of
Speaker 6: the US military, who knew that he was planning to move.
Speaker 4: They knew what had happened in South Africa.
Speaker 6: They had no stage during those conversations did they tell
Speaker 6: him that the work he'd been doing was unlawful.
Speaker 4: At no stage did they tell him not to go
Speaker 4: to China.
Speaker 6: As I said, the civil aviation market in China was booming.
Speaker 6: Those lots of opportunities, there are a lot of There
Speaker 6: are a lot of Australians and Westerners in China at
Speaker 6: that stage still are, but particularly at that point, it
Speaker 6: was you know, it was just posed to impis. Everything
Speaker 6: was less restrictive than it has become.
Speaker 7: The Chinese economic miracle has grabbed global attention for a
Speaker 7: while now. The country is in its growth targets for
Speaker 7: fourteen out of the last fifteen years, and the one
Speaker 7: time they missed it it was fit point one.
Speaker 4: And he was working in aviation consulting.
Speaker 6: He also ended up helping run the Flying Kangarooba in Beijing,
Speaker 6: and his wife was working in the fashion business insieth
Speaker 6: also photographers, so it was it was a good time
Speaker 6: to be in China to be honest, and there was
Speaker 6: lots of work around and it was pretty non controversial.
Speaker 2: And Michael then enters this Chinese aviation businessman, soon being
Speaker 2: how does he fit into all of this?
Speaker 6: So Sue Bin was a guy who his business was
Speaker 6: finding Westerners to help in the aviation business in China.
Speaker 6: He had been involved with connecting Dan with the South
Speaker 6: African Flying School. As Dan had said, you know, his
Speaker 6: western name was Stephen, said, everyone knew Steven. Stephen was
Speaker 6: kind of who you went to, who knew where all
Speaker 6: work was. He was somebody that was very well known
Speaker 6: to everybody and was just you know, he was just
Speaker 6: an agent to help people get work.
Speaker 8: In July twenty fourteen, Sue was arrested in Canada and
Speaker 8: was later extradated to the US in twenty sixteen, where
Speaker 8: fifty one year old Sue finally there.
Speaker 6: He was arrested in Canada and pladed guilty to subsyber
Speaker 6: related charges.
Speaker 8: He admitted that from October of two thousand and eight
Speaker 8: to March of twenty fourteen, he conspired with two hackers
Speaker 8: to gain unauthorized access to protected computer networks in the
Speaker 8: United States, including the ones belonging to the showing company
Speaker 8: California to obtain sensitive military information.
Speaker 6: None of this has got anything to do with Dan.
Speaker 6: It's been put in the indictment. Dan hasn't been charged
Speaker 6: with anything that he did in China. He's been charged
Speaker 6: with training military pilots, which he didn't think he was,
Speaker 6: and with transpiring to lawns of money, which is just
Speaker 6: the money he was paid for doing that training. There's
Speaker 6: a whole lot of other stuff in the indictment which
Speaker 6: is pages and pages long, that relates to China and
Speaker 6: things he was doing in China and somebody else in
Speaker 6: China who has since gone to jail. None of the
Speaker 6: stuff he did in China he's been charged with. So
Speaker 6: all of that stuff is great white noise. It's irrelevant
Speaker 6: to what Dan's been charged with. And he denies, absolutely denies,
Speaker 6: all the allegations he has been charged with.
Speaker 2: So Dougan is secretly indicted in twenty sixteen via a
Speaker 2: grand jury. By his account, he has no idea that
Speaker 2: this sealed US indictment was waiting for him when he
Speaker 2: returned to Australia. Is that all right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So Dan has been told by Azio that he'll be
Speaker 6: fine to get his pilot Sizense back when he comes back,
Speaker 6: So he comes back. He's kind of cooling his heels
Speaker 6: in Orange, where his wife was staying with her father
Speaker 6: and their kids. Is basically house husbanding a bit, waiting
Speaker 6: for his pilot Slizes to come through and gets picked
Speaker 6: up in the car park at Woolley's after dropping the
Speaker 6: Kiosko SCW one day.
Speaker 1: The fifty four year old father of six was arrested
Speaker 1: at his home near Orange in October and now faces
Speaker 1: extradition an indictment.
Speaker 5: The request of the United States, and has since been
Speaker 5: detained in a maximum security prison. US authorities alleged he
Speaker 5: was paid about one hundred thousand dollars to train Chinese
Speaker 5: military pilots. Mister Dugan denies the allegations against him, which
Speaker 5: also in word conspiracy and money laundry suffering.
Speaker 2: Could you tell us more about what this battle has
Speaker 2: done to you personally and to the family.
Speaker 1: This is incredibly hard for our family. Our children have
Speaker 1: always been at the heart of everything we do, and
Speaker 1: to watch them suffer is to watch any child suffer
Speaker 1: as a parent, but they're the ones I feel that
Speaker 1: really suffer the most.
Speaker 3: The amount of birthdays.
Speaker 1: Starting new schools, winning awards, watching your children grow up
Speaker 1: in a timeline you never get back again.
Speaker 3: I get so worked up.
Speaker 4: I feel ill. I can't breathe.
Speaker 1: My head feels like it's in a vice, and I
Speaker 1: have to recenter. Now, normally, when I think you say that,
Speaker 1: you sort of recenter, it's one of one of a
Speaker 1: couple of things. I have to recenter, like continually. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm on repeat and.
Speaker 4: Enough is enough. I'm exhausted.
Speaker 2: And what about Dan? How's he doing?
Speaker 1: He holds it together for his family. I see him
Speaker 1: hold it together with the kids. But I get to
Speaker 1: talk to my husband and he sometimes he's really not together.
Speaker 4: He's very worried.
Speaker 1: He's deeply sad, and the unknown is still there. There's
Speaker 1: only so much, you know, anyone can take.
Speaker 7: And I'm very, very, very worried about him.
Speaker 2: Do you still have hope or is it starting to fade.
Speaker 1: We've faced years now of hardship and we will keep going.
Speaker 3: Of course, you have hope because when you.
Speaker 1: Love someone, and we still believe in Dan's innocence that
Speaker 1: you have to have hope.
Speaker 3: You hang on to hope.
Speaker 4: It's what drives you through.
Speaker 2: This was part one of a two part episode. In
Speaker 2: the next episode, we look at how Dan Duggan's case
Speaker 2: became an extradition battle, what he could face in the
Speaker 2: United States, why his supporters believe he's been caught in
Speaker 2: the geopolitical contest between Washington and Beijing.
Speaker 6: If this en happened to Dan, it can happen to
Speaker 6: a lot of other Australians. If we put Australians in
Speaker 6: jeopardy and are prepared to hand them across to a
Speaker 6: foreign legals system for things that they.
Speaker 4: Did a long time ago that weren't crimes.
Speaker 6: Here, you know, it opens a floodgate for foreign governments
Speaker 6: to be able to reach into our legal system and
Speaker 6: interfere with it.
Speaker 2: That's in your feed now,