WEBVTT - Russian roulette with robbers, and a 53-hour hostage negotiation: Glen Potter Pt.2 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:04.880 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.039 Detective sy aside of life the average person is never 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.080 exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.040 For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.200 That's what I did for a living. I was a 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.560 homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.120 I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.400 The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.760 from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.440 and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.640 of the content and language might be confronting. That's because 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.640 no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.400 Join me now as I take you into this world. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.480 Well we're back for part two of my chat. We've 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.520 retired Detective Senior Sergeant Glenn Potter from WA Police. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.080 If you listen to part. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.440 One, you would have heard Glenn give us a fascinating 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.400 insight into the investigation and capture of Australia's ma wanted 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:05.120 escapee Brendan Abbot. In part two, we spoke about the 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.240 investigation into the suspected murder of Wayne Drewitt, who's involved 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.480 in an international diamond scam which took unbelievable twists and turns. 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.200 He also told us about a lunatic arm robber who'd 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.640 liked to play Russian Roulette with himself in a loaded 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.520 firearm after he robbed Banks, and Glenn's involvement as a 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.760 negotiater in Australia's longest running hostage situation. This is what 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.400 I love about talking to real cops. They've got stories 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:34.560 that you just can't make up. Glenn Potter, Welcome back 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.880 to part two of Eye Catch Killers. 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.280 Only, Part two only, Part two. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.319 Well, we got lost in the Brendan abb Abbot story. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:46.720 One thing I just want to jump straight into because 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.360 you were telling me the other day when we're having 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.920 a chat a armed robber that had a propensity for 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.920 playing Russian Roulette and how that story ended. Can you 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.200 just tell the listener what that was about and what happened. 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.960 Well, it actually came out of your state, out of 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:05.480 your stack. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:06.360 Blame you South. 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:09.360 So I got a phone call. I just picked up 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.359 the phone. I think it was one afternoon midweek, and 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:16.720 there's a detective said, look, we've got a we've got 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.040 a fellow here who's wanted. We suspect strongly has committed 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.240 a murder of a fella and place the body in 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.880 a barrel bod. He's been located, but we believe he's 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.480 moved to w a and living under a false name, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.360 and gave us the false name. Details shouted like a 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.720 great story. Let's get onto it, they said. They told 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:39.920 me that he was a what we call a stick 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.240 up merchant. He'd like to do armored cars. He would 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.600 he would confront the cross pavement when they would bring 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.120 the money into the bank. He'd stand there wearing a 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.600 you know, hanging around in a singlet and shorts, bongs, 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.840 carrying a plastic bag. In the plastic bag a shopping 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:58.680 bag would be a gun. So he'd go up to him, 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.200 say pull the gun out, give us your guns, give 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.280 us your your money, and off he go, you know, 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.960 like John SPITERI flip blopping down the road out of 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:10.080 getting square. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.280 Yeah. Love that. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.640 Love that why I viewed the guy. I thought, oh 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.280 this is interesting. So within I reckon a couple of hours, 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.600 we identified where he was staying. We just rang every 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.120 real estate agent we could think of, and one of 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.000 them came out, yeah, we've got him as a client 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.760 living within in a complex that I used to live in. 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.480 And yeah, so there was a place called tram Beyond 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:40.000 swe in Maylands, which is just a very close area 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.119 of Perth and actually very close to where our then 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.640 police academy was. So so we started to get the 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.600 job together. We found out that he purchased a vehicle 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.920 and so we set up surveillance and we ran surveillance 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.520 for about oh god, I would have been three weeks 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.480 on the sky and I never seen anyone so systematic 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:09.360 and methodical about during reconnaissance on targets doing counter surveillance. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.920 It made out surveillance guys' jobs extremely hard. We had 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.240 both surveillance vehicles, surveillance on foot, surveillance in the air. 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.520 It was regarded as a high risk job. We'd also 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.479 managed to put a tracker on the car and so 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.560 this was going on every day for hours upon hours 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:36.960 upon ours. They've just counter surveillance reconnaissance and we'd identified 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.360 a number of targets he'd paid them. He'd even put 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.320 a wig on it on stage and a hat and 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:43.880 gone and sussed out a bank. So we'd identified a 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.599 number of targets he'd moved it'd gone every day every 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.520 day for three weeks. Then one day didn't appear. I thought, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.960 I he's having a rest day, So we just kept surveillance. 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.960 On next day, still no appearance, and all of a sudden, 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.800 the police vehicle turns up. Mark police vehicle, They go inside, 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.279 they come out. Obviously more vehicles turn up. We thought, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.120 oh god, what's happened here, And then we saw major 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.360 crime had turned up. So we presented ourselves and said, look, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.920 this is what we're working on. And when we went 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.000 into the flat, there he is. He's sitting in front 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.320 of a TV. The TV is just running on static. 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.760 Now he's sitting there, his hands, he's got a gun 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.520 in this hand, that hands on top like that on 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.040 a lap, and there's a great big hole in his head. 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:34.279 And everybody thought this was a murder made to look 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.000 like a suicide because one hand was like that and 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.120 the gun was underneath. But the pathologist told us very 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.080 quickly that, you know, a traumatic injury like that, hands 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:44.800 are going to go up like that and then they're 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.120 going to come down. And there was nothing else to 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.320 indicate that. You know, we had some arms in the place, 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.920 so no one had got in there. The only suspects, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.240 apparently were us. It was guarded as a death in custody. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.840 Yeah, I could imagine that would. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.120 Play so so yeah, so and then we are digging 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:07.720 around and well, so one of the aforments said that, 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:09.719 you know, before he did a job, he played Russian 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.120 Roulette and there was only one round in the chamber, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.880 so you know, yeah, he was definitely playing Russian Roulette. 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.000 For those that don't understand what we're talking about. With 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.279 Russian roulette, I think it's pretty pretty well known. But yeah, 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.640 content warning, don't try this at home. But putting a 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.600 one round in the revolver and spinning the revolver and 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.919 putting the putting the gun to your head and so 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.360 it sounds like he was a risk taker or whatever 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:39.040 was going on. 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.680 Yeah, obviously there's something going on there. This is either 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.120 meant to happen or not. Am I going to be 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:50.080 lucky on the job? He wasn't lucky, But it was 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.520 definitely Russian Rolette. It was only one round in the chamber. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.159 These are the type of bizarre things you come across 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.000 in the place. Isn't it like it's dangerous to make 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.480 assumptions because there's so many times you see it, and 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:06.040 factually it plays out that things take twists and turns. 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.960 Well, in a half hour we spoke, and a couple 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.160 of times we spoke before, just job after job just 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.120 reappears in my memory. I mean that's thirty years ago, 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.040 you know. And so these are happening all the time, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:28.560 These these weird, crazy type of jobs where people would 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.360 think only would happen on TV. They happened to us 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.880 every day, and we put them in the memory bank. 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.760 We file them away and never think about them until 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:38.800 something sparks and things, you know. And so I mean, 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:40.680 just talking to you, I can just think of a 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.800 job after job, and I'm sure you can do the same. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.200 We should do a podcast with you. 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.760 Well, you talk about interpreting the crime soon. I remember 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:52.280 it was a Friday afternoon, called to Woollongong for what 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.680 had been called the murder izing on call homicide team 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.360 go down there, go into the house as a naked man, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.720 blood splattered all around the walls, finger marks, drags, and 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:05.800 he's got a cord wrapped around his neck that was 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:10.400 an old plugging landline. He's still had a landline at 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.480 his place for all intents and purposes. This is a 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.280 murder investigation, and so we set it up as a 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.720 murder investigation, crime scene and canvassing and everything that you 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.720 need to do. And as that investigation played out following 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.640 the post, more than he had a ruptured aorta and 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.320 the blood was him. He was trying to phone Triple 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.880 O to get urgent help. He was in that much pain. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.000 He was wrapping the cord around his neck, twisting around, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.880 just rolling around in pain. And the pattern blood marks 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.560 of hands being dragged along the wall was him coughing 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.880 up blood on his hands and falling down the wall. 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.480 Now you look at that scene and it was a 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.400 horror scene. First, sure that there's been a struggle here, 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.000 there's a murder happened, and then when it's all dissected, 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.200 when you look at it clinically on the facts that 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.680 are presented, you see that it's not so. Yeah, I 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.600 think every cop carries these type of these type of stories. 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.880 Another investigation that you were heavily involved in. And I 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.280 had a bit of a look at the there's a 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:17.640 couple of art or quite a bit written on it, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.240 the disappearance and suspected murder of Wayne Drew, and I 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.680 was having a look at the coroner's findings that you 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.480 sent down or sent over to me. Do you want 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.640 to explain that investigation, your involvement and what happened, because 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.560 again that was something that was slightly unusual, but quite 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:34.439 an interesting case. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.920 This is a murder mystery. Yeah, even midsummer murders couldn't 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.680 couldn't repeat this one. So I was running the East 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:48.239 Metropolitan District Detectives, which is Midland and the eastern suburbs 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.440 of w A. It was a big area. I had 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:56.319 about seventy staff, not just detectives, but you know family violence, intelligence, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.120 forensic and so on. And I gone in one morning 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.520 and the uniform guys came up from downstairs and said, look, Boss, 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.600 we've been given this missing person has come over from 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.920 mirror booker. Do you want to have a look at it. 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.680 So I had a look at it. And the initial 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.559 information was that this fella called Wayne Drewett, who was 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:26.520 an ext serviceman, had vanished to two weeks before and 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.200 there it's been a delay in reporting him because he 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:35.080 was undertaking some diamond deal with an unknown person called 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.080 the facilitator, and that now they wanted to report him. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.680 And there was all these people who had invested large 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.559 amount of money and now we're looking like losing it 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.160 and the alarm bells are ringing straight away, just you know. 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:55.040 So we went to the first place we went to 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.720 was actually one of the main investors and got talking 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.400 to them and found out the essence of that They 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:03.880 were willing to tell us about the deal, and a 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.240 summary of the deal would be that Wayne Drewitt was 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.600 a bit of an entrepreneur, a bit of a Walter Mitty. 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.960 Nice guy, but always you know, I've got this going on, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.360 got this going on, and so on. He was in 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.880 his late fifties, he'd retired from the army. He was 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.360 a retired warrant officer. He was a clerical guy at 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.000 the SAS and was well liked by a lot of people. 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.520 So he approached all these investors with this deal, deal 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.720 of a lifetime where diamonds would be imported into the 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.400 country and there would be a five to six times 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:46.320 profit on people's investment. He had to raise Ultimately, the 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.480 figure kept going up, but ultimately had to raise a 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.079 million dollars cash. Now, in the nineties, I sorry, the 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.000 early two thousands, a million dollars was a lot of money. 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.800 Yeah and so, and it was being done through a 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.920 guy who was called the Facilitator. No one knew his identity. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.800 He wanted to keep his identity secret for whatever reasons, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.960 and that these diamonds would be brought in, they would 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.559 be resold. He would take the million dollars and everybody 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.400 would get, you know, five to six times their cash 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.400 me out an offer too good to be true, and 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:26.880 yet it was probably too good to be true, people 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.439 still go for it. Well, look, there were about fifteen investors. 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.520 Some had put in like one hundred and fifty thousand, 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.120 ten thousand, forty thousand, and each of them was an 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.160 individual character who had if you were doing a murder mystery, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.520 mystery an Agatha Christie would sit him around the lounge 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.440 room and eventually one would cough to the murder. So 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.640 we did a lot of digging, and what we found 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.120 we had. The only contact we had with the facilitator 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.559 was a mobile phone. So there were two mobile phones. 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.280 They were Burner phones. One was in the name of 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.439 Jay Love and the other one was in the name 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:06.400 of Conti Drew. It had one and the facilitator of 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.720 the other. And this is how the deal was supposed 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:14.520 to be done and backtracking a bit, so Wayne and 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.360 his wife. His wife was kept in the dark about it, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.160 and I think like most wives, when husbands had this 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.480 great idea, they just roll their eyes and go, okay, well, 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.520 you know, just don't lose the house over it. So 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.200 he'd been booking into hotels at the time this deal 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.319 was happening, and he'd got his wife from the hotel, 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.839 and essentially that was to keep her away from the deal. 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.439 So they were booked in the Rendezvous hotel and then 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.960 he went back to his own house to do the deal. 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.880 And then he said it would take a couple of days. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.680 He might be gone for twenty four hours, but don't 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.120 worry everything, it'd be fine. And this is the same 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.400 thing he had told the investors. So after forty eight 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.800 hours he hadn't appeared. The wife had returned home and 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.280 found that the house that way office was still locked, 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.320 that there were dishes left on the sink, and Wayne 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:10.360 was apparently very fastidious and would put everything away. That 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.240 the turntable that he'd loved was still running, which was 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.320 unusual and the only and he was known to just 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.680 wear pajamas around home, that's all he wore, and that's 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.200 the only items of clothing were missing, and his car 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.720 was missing. And that went on for two weeks and 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.640 no one cheap, and all the investors kept going back 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.120 to and saying she wanted to go to the police. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.600 You're ruined the diamond deal. Don't go back to the police. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.440 Don't the deal's going to happen. They've got a vested interests, 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.760 they've got all this money they foolishly tied up in it. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.120 They didn't want anything to happen. So the day we 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.440 were told about this, we put it out on the 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.000 media and we put out that his car was missing. 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:56.560 The car was found that night just outside the surveillance 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.000 area of the Perth Airport, parked on the side of 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:03.240 the road. He made to look like he's gone, he's 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.000 gone with the money, He's got his briefcase in his 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.640 pajamas and off he's gone. We didn't obviously buy that, 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.440 so we kept digging around. Once we got the report, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.080 we started interviewing people. We found out about these two phones. 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:20.040 We still didn't know the identity of the facilitator. We 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.040 did know from one of them that there was a 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:27.920 large safe deposit box at the Banquest Tower in Perth 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.200 in their under around area, which was when his last 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.880 scene was stacked with money. Obviously, we went to have 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.800 a look at that. There was no money in it. 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:40.680 We also found that the person who shows that one 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.000 had a key to it, so he's suddenly becoming prime suspect. 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.520 He denied any involved in it, and we'd also found 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.320 out that he'd also taken out another safe deposit box 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.600 near it, understandably, so yeah, we were seriously looking at him. 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.600 We were going through the phone records, and the phone 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.680 records were just between the two mobile phones except for 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:08.880 one nineteen second phone call to a house and I 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.680 meant the larm bells ringing, someone's cocked up here, someone's 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.400 broken the procedure and run the house by the accident, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.600 regretted it hung up, So we did a check on 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:21.640 the house and we came up with a guide by 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.800 the name of Nicholas Stewart who lived there. So we 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:31.120 got warrants and we raided the house, and we came 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.040 across a woman who claimed to be the wife of 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.480 Nicholas Stewart. She was a Romanian national as he was. 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:43.880 His real name was Nikolai Stowin, a Stoian, so we 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.080 kept searching the house and I remember looking on the 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.840 concrete the garad's floor. I thought, this doesn't look right. 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.600 This looks freshly laid. There was no trap door or anything, 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.960 but this looked freshly laid. So we got ground penetrating 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.080 radar in their thinking, we're going to find a body 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.760 under here, and sure enough there was a cavity under 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.520 that or so out come the jack hammers, jacking away, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.640 think we're going to find a body. We break through 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.960 and we find an underground bunker. And in this bunker 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:16.520 were a stash of guns, silences, pistols, garrots, books on 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.119 how to dispose of bodies, books on how to carry 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.439 out hijackings of aircraft, all sorts of stuff. It was 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:24.160 a treasure track. 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:28.879 And was that just sealed in the sealed in if 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.760 I needed it, that's where no one's going to find it. Yeah, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:33.480 well that was a good, good pickup. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:38.080 And the wife had told us that Nick had recently 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:42.199 flown to Romania because his mother was sick. HM, so 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.359 obviously we're trying to get in contact with the remaining authorities. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.120 Remaining authorities that kind of yeah, yeah, do you really 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.200 want to know him? And so on, and didn't get anywhere, 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.480 And then we did a lot of media on it, 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.760 and we found a photograph of Nicholas Stewart in a 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:04.520 in a Chacuzi toasting him with a glass, looking very 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.960 happy and confident, and the media loved that. So we 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:09.879 told him what we knew at the time, which was 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.200 he was believed to be a Romanian national, that he'd 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.520 had experience in special forces, possibly a member of the 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.359 Foreign Legion, which we'd been told. So we juiced it 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.320 up a bit to get the interest. Snippets came back. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.040 Various people came forward and said, oh, we know him 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.800 through you know, he sold his car through a dealer. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.680 The car had been detailed twice. There was nothing in 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.200 that that. He sold all his tools from a brick 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.800 paving business. We learned more about next year, and he'd 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.119 been in prison for shooting a neighbor who was pissing 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.000 him off, so you know, he was a pretty bad guy. 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.680 Well, and what you found in the place is, yeah, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:49.800 I don't want to tell you how to do your job, Glenn, 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.200 but a bit of an indicator he might be onto 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:52.720 something there. 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:57.119 It is, yes, And of course, if you've ever dealt Romanians, 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.639 especially who operate in the criminal world. They are hard, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.200 you know. And it'd been a body card at something 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.639 like some stage to the former ruler of Romania at Chichescu, 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.960 so you know, and those people had done things for 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:17.360 chi qestew that you wouldn't want to talk about. So 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:22.280 then we get contact from the remaining authorities saying we 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:27.240 want mister Stewart because he's done. Oh by the way, 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:29.800 before we got to that, we'd also found that they 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.159 bought of tickets to fly to Romania with the return 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:37.760 ticket not long after the disappearance. And he'd also been 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.440 trying to take large amounts of money out of the 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.320 country and actually tried to fix send some money out 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.119 of the country which got picked up like sixty thousand 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.239 dollars in a cardboard box, so we had to go 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.560 back and pick it up. So we knew the cash 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.560 was flying around. So I get this call from the 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.199 remaining authorities and they say we want him because about 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.080 four years earlier, maybe five years early, he's a prime 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.160 suspect for the murder of a guy who was getting 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:10.840 cash together for a diamond deal. Oh that what a gift. 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.680 But we're not going to extradite him because we don't extradite, 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.439 but you can come here and try him for his 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.800 crimes DPP. We're going to have that. They're not going 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.080 to go to an Eastern European country. At the time 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:28.159 that was trying to get entry into the EU to 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:35.040 try him over there on their things, Extradition was becoming 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.680 a problem. At the same time with all this going on, 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.600 Major Crime was still telling us he's just a missing 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.040 person who's taken off with the money. Because they had 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.200 competing things. It was still that was still a possibility 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.960 they were in cohoots. But you need more than a 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:54.600 million dollars even then to not have cut all contact 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.160 with your family, not use your credit cards. By the way, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.200 Wayne had a heart condition that he needed daily medicine. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.600 We went back in some stage we'd gotten into his 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.280 office and we'd found that Wayne's office and we found 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:09.919 the hard driver being ripped from his computer and all 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.119 his medications were there. So that was another indicator. So 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.040 we were kind of stumped, what are we going to 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.000 do now we'd interview all the witnesses. We pretty well 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.000 ruled out other people because we'd found out that Stuart 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:28.160 had opened it safe deposit box immediately below the one 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:32.160 that had the cash and had accessed it the day 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.400 that drew it disappeared, so obviously cash had been put 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.640 into the other one, then into a bag, and off 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:45.760 he goes. So we're stymy and at a guess. 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:50.560 I would imagine from above levels above yourself in the force, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:52.479 there wouldn't be a great deal of interest in it. 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:53.280 This. 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.120 These guys had stopped following up this case. We don't 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.040 need it, we don't. 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.320 Well, I here's a funny story. I then went. I 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.439 was told I had to go and do a PowerPoint 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.359 eight PowerPoint, but a PowerPoint presentation to the Deputy commissioner 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.200 because all this, you know, this controversy and money being 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.960 spent and so on. I realized I was on a 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.440 no winner when he fell asleep halfway through the PowerPoint 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:23.879 and just kept asking questions, well, why, why, why are 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:25.960 you doing that? Why are we chasing this? I just 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:30.080 thought I'm going a loser here. Give up while you can, Glenn. 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.800 You say I might trigger stuff You've just triggered. 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:37.080 I think so many times I've done those PowerPoint presentations. 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.919 Please explain why we're doing this, and just yeah, you 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.879 just get these negative questions the whole time. 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:44.040 So it was awful. 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.399 Yeah, I know what, I know what you're talking about. 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:49.400 I think most working police have been in that situation, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.000 trying to keep a job running that you know, needs 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:53.160