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Speaker 1: If I'm going to find Alan's missing forty nine million dollars,

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Speaker 1: I need to understand more about the man himself. Had

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Speaker 1: he done something like his safe World scheme before? Who

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Speaker 1: was he, what was he like and how did he

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Speaker 1: get his start? Looking into someone's past is a tricky undertaking,

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Speaker 1: as I'm about to learn, and I had no idea

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Speaker 1: what I was in for and how far back. Unraveling

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Speaker 1: the mystery of Alan Metcalf goes.

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Speaker 2: Inn.

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Speaker 3: He killed me A nine sixty nine and a car accent.

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Speaker 1: This is Gary Avis. Gary might be eighty years old now,

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Speaker 1: but he remembers it all vividly, the dirt road where

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Speaker 1: he and his then colleague Alan Metcalf should have died.

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Speaker 1: We're speaking over the phone, so it's not a great recording.

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Speaker 3: We told him at least four times to stop the

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Speaker 3: car or we're going to get out of the car,

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Speaker 3: and that's when he rolled up. I mean, it's a

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Speaker 3: lot of fun rolling a car in the middle central

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Speaker 3: Australia with nobody around in two hundred CA's from the

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Speaker 3: nearest down.

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Speaker 1: Did you think you were going to die in that moment?

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Speaker 3: Didn't that time to think a bloody thing? Roll five times?

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Speaker 3: Had ended up on its roof.

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Speaker 1: Alan and Gary were working together as life insurance salesman

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Speaker 1: at amp in Mount Isa in Queensland's northwest Outback, a

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Speaker 1: tiny Australian town even tinier back then. The cause of

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Speaker 1: the accident was simple. Alan was in his early twenties

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Speaker 1: and he was starting to make some serious money. Recently,

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Speaker 1: he'd bought a new car. His little Volkswagen Beetle was

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Speaker 1: upgraded to a VIP Valiant.

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Speaker 3: Also doing Alan, This car's too powerful for the speed

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Speaker 3: you were doing. You've never had a big car like this.

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Speaker 1: Alan was newly married to Mary. The young husband was

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Speaker 1: in a rush because he'd promised his wife he'd be

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Speaker 1: home in time for dinner. We should have died, but

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Speaker 1: they didn't. In fact, Alan Metcalf was just getting started.

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Speaker 1: He was about to launch his earliest recorded scale, but

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be his last. I'm Alex Turner Cohen, a

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Speaker 1: finance and investigative reporter from newstock com do AU, and

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Speaker 1: you're listening to The Missing forty nine Million. This is

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Speaker 1: episode two genesis. Alan and Gary were down that lonely

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Speaker 1: road visiting a client. The papers in their work briefcase

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Speaker 1: went flying everywhere. After the crash, glass shattered all over them.

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Speaker 1: They tried to set the car on fire, the only

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Speaker 1: way they could think to draw attention as the desert

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Speaker 1: darkened around them. But Gary said it was the hardest

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Speaker 1: thing he'd ever attempted to do, and eventually he and

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Speaker 1: Alan just gave up. It took three hours for another

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Speaker 1: car to find them, and the police drove them home

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Speaker 1: to Mount Isa. They kept working at amp, but it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be the last time Gary crosspaths with Alan metcalf

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Speaker 1: or her his name around town for all the wrong reasons.

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Speaker 3: Mount Oz is a raw town, a rough town. Most

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Speaker 3: of the pubs had a bearfisted fighting champion. It was

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Speaker 3: an exciting town to be in as a young black,

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Speaker 3: and people were making a lot of money, serious money.

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Speaker 3: I mean five hundred and eighty bucks a week in

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six is a lot of money. Allan was

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Speaker 3: caught up in that sort of hype.

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Speaker 1: Gary's right, it was a lot of money like making

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Speaker 1: nine thousand dollars a week in today's world. In Allan's

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Speaker 1: own words from a video uploaded to vimeo discussing his past, he.

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Speaker 4: Said Mount Isaza was an interesting place because there was

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Speaker 4: great job opportunities.

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Speaker 5: That's what attracted people, and there was good money to

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Speaker 5: be made in Mount Isa.

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Speaker 1: Alan grew up in Cannes, in Queensland's tropical north, but

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Speaker 1: he moved to Mount Isa for a mining job and

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Speaker 1: married Mary in nineteen sixty five. He was around nineteen

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Speaker 1: years old and she was about seventy. He became a

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Speaker 1: salesman at AMP shortly after, which is how Gary Avis

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Speaker 1: met him. Years later he'd be peddling the safe Worth product,

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Speaker 1: but then he was selling life insurance and he was

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Speaker 1: really good at his job, too good. In a eulogy,

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Speaker 1: Mary had this to say.

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Speaker 6: Just before he turned twenty one, he was approached by

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Speaker 6: the AMP Society and he became Australasia's top salesman. Three

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Speaker 6: years in a row. He broke all sales records, which

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Speaker 6: he held for over a decade or even longer. Keep

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Speaker 6: in mind that mat iSER had a population of twenty

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Speaker 6: five thousand people, and yet he still beat all these records,

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Speaker 6: writing in excess of seven and a half million dollars

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Speaker 6: in whole of life policies.

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Speaker 1: But Gary doesn't see how he never impressed me.

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Speaker 3: He was nowhere near the top sales in Australia got

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Speaker 3: nowhere near he wouldn't be in the top fifty. I

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Speaker 3: think I know what he did. He probably signed up

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Speaker 3: what they call temstans, these people that don't exist.

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Speaker 1: So essentially he was selling insurance to dead people and

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Speaker 1: he was pocketing a hefty commission in the process.

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Speaker 3: So like he probably got to check out to Highlight,

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Speaker 3: or he may not.

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Speaker 1: Someone else who knew Alan, who preferred to remain anonymous,

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Speaker 1: explain to me how it works. We're using a voice actor,

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Speaker 1: but these are his words.

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Speaker 2: You would go to a local cemetery, a Nudge cemetery

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Speaker 2: or pick a cemetery, and you'd literally write the person's

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Speaker 2: name down. And back in those days, the insurance companies

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Speaker 2: would pay like two or three years commission to the

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Speaker 2: insurance agent for having signed someone on an insurance policy.

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Speaker 2: So using your own money, you could give a thousand

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Speaker 2: dollars to the insurance company and they would give you

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Speaker 2: three thousand back. So a lot of dead people were

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Speaker 2: for udulently registered as owners of insurance policies.

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Speaker 1: AMP did not respond to requests for comment. While trying

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Speaker 1: to find out more about Alan and his involvement in

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Speaker 1: tombstone scams, I come across an expert who can help.

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Speaker 7: My name's Clinton Free, and I'm a professor here at

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Speaker 7: the University of Sydney Business School.

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Speaker 1: Professor Free has researched con artists and fraud for a

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Speaker 1: long time and he's noticed some common and disturbing traits

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Speaker 1: among offenders. We talk in his office and swap stories

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Speaker 1: about some of the interesting characters we've come across through

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Speaker 1: our work.

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Speaker 7: I think some really interesting research in this space refers

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Speaker 7: to something called the dark triad of personality traits, and

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Speaker 7: those things are narcissism, machiavelianism, and psychopathy. And there's research

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Speaker 7: which shows that con artists or scammers tend to have

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Speaker 7: a much more elevated sense of the dark triad personality traits.

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Speaker 7: And narcissism refers to grandiosity, selfishness, importance of their self image.

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Speaker 7: Machiavelianism is that capacity to manipulate and convince others gain

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Speaker 7: other people's confidence for your own benefits. And psychopathy is

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Speaker 7: just a lack of empathy, so not being alert or

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Speaker 7: attendant to other people's plights and being very self oriented

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Speaker 7: in the way that one thinks. And I think where

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Speaker 7: we see those sort of personality traits come together, we

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Speaker 7: see a very effective scammer, a very effective con artist.

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Speaker 7: But I think there's a category of white collar offenders

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Speaker 7: who where there's a lack of empathy for victims, where

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Speaker 7: there's grandiosity, and when there's a sort of exceptional ability

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Speaker 7: to manipulate others and gain their confidence and trust, that

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Speaker 7: is incredibly potent and dangerous in our society.

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Speaker 1: So you've obviously been doing a lot of work in

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Speaker 1: white collar crime for many, many years, and you actually

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Speaker 1: mentioned that you'd heard the name Alan metcalf before through

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Speaker 1: your work. So could you tell me a bit about that,

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Speaker 1: because that kind of came as a shock to me,

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Speaker 1: But I thought, maybe it's a really small world, or

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Speaker 1: maybe he's been on some kind of radar for a while.

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Speaker 8: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: So, as part of a research project that I was

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Speaker 7: working on with a colleague, we had some research assistants

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Speaker 7: review internet sources for the names of people who had

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Speaker 7: received either custodical sentences or who'd been the subject of

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Speaker 7: inquiries or court cases going back several decades, because we

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Speaker 7: were trying to identify people who we might be able

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Speaker 7: to speak to. And one of the things we did

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Speaker 7: come across was Allen's name in Hansart where he'd been

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Speaker 7: identified as perpetrating a variety of scams, so he was

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Speaker 7: named publicly. So we had this sort of list which

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Speaker 7: we whittled down, and what we tried to do was

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Speaker 7: move from that to talk to people inside prisons. And

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Speaker 7: obviously Alan wasn't in the latter category, so we never

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Speaker 7: went forward there. But he certainly was someone who has

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Speaker 7: been known and cited in Parliament as being associated with whitechrime.

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Speaker 1: Hansard is the official parliamentary record. Following Clinton's lead, I

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Speaker 1: discovered that Allan's time as a salesman was indeed mentioned

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Speaker 1: there nearly twenty years later by Queensland MP Jeff Smith,

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Speaker 1: part of Labour's Townsville branch. He said Allan was recognized

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Speaker 1: as amp's top salesman by routing the system, but that

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Speaker 1: the insurer woke up to it after customers didn't pay

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Speaker 1: their fees when they fell due.

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Speaker 9: The AMP undoubtedly had grounds for civil and perhaps other action,

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Speaker 9: but because of its embarrassment and the potential loss of

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Speaker 9: goodwill due to the inevitable unfavorable publicity, the AMP simply

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Speaker 9: cut its losses and its ties with mister metcalf.

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Speaker 1: That transcript from nineteen eighty five, which a colleague of

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Speaker 1: mine has read out, is still accessible today. Jeff's scathing

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Speaker 1: speech to Parliament has helped me piece together what Alan

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Speaker 1: did next. He didn't leave Mount ol straight away, even

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Speaker 1: after the Tombstone scandal.

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Speaker 9: With the advantage of some inside knowledge, he managed to

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Speaker 9: discover certain license and permit expiry dates, and as Minus

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Speaker 9: tend to be casual about such matters, he was able

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Speaker 9: to move in and register certain holdings in his own name.

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Speaker 9: The original and rightful owners would then be obliged to

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Speaker 9: negotiate a financial sediment with him to regain possession.

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Speaker 1: Jeff liken this to a modern day version of claim jumping,

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Speaker 1: something where people would take plots of land during the

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Speaker 1: gold Rush. It would be in today's terms like stealing

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Speaker 1: a domain name off the Internet as it expires and

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Speaker 1: then holding it to ransom. But that wasn't all.

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Speaker 8: He was coorforded and then a strong self promoter, and

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Speaker 8: he told himself very.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's Murray Byrd, an expert on the history of AFL.

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Speaker 1: When he was writing a book on it a decade ago,

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Speaker 1: he met Alan to find out more about the early

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Speaker 1: days of the sport in regional Queensland, Alan had become

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Speaker 1: involved in the mining town's emerging afi else In his

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Speaker 1: spare time, his sales skills were put to good use

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Speaker 1: trying against sponsors for the team. Years later, Allan would

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Speaker 1: set up a website describing his own pass in Mount iSER.

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Speaker 1: He claimed he was the founder and secretary of the

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Speaker 1: mount Is Australian Football League and the North Australian Football Championships.

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Speaker 1: That's simply not true, according to Murray.

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Speaker 7: Definitely wasn't the faner of the mount Is completely he didn't. No,

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Speaker 7: he wasn't the fan of the Northern Stroane Football League which.

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Speaker 8: Was just a really a one off carnival, as he.

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Speaker 7: Played a part in the promotion of that and the

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Speaker 7: genesis of the idea of it. But yeah, I could

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Speaker 7: be so for sure about being the founder. I think

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Speaker 7: he's stretching in a bit to say he's the founder

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Speaker 7: of that as well.

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Speaker 1: Alan worked as a sports journalist. Jeff Smith said that

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Speaker 1: Alan went on to launch his own paper in Mount

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Speaker 1: Isa called The Advertiser.

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Speaker 9: It is sufficient to say that the paper closed and

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Speaker 9: Metcalf left town with the investors in the Advertiser looking

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Speaker 9: for their money. He then moved on to Townsville.

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Speaker 1: Their shift to coastal Queensland happened in nineteen seventy eight.

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Speaker 1: By then Alan and Mary had their young son, Clayton.

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Speaker 9: In tow Metcalf went into a publishing business that produced

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Speaker 9: magazines entitled Rugby League North and Townsville Woman. Both the

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Speaker 9: ventures eventually folded, with a number of supplies and printing

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Speaker 9: firms still being owed substantial sums of money. Metcalf's projects

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Speaker 9: are widely different, and they bear little relationship to each other.

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Speaker 9: I am sure that the whole thing is suspect.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Smith, who launched this stinging attack on Allen's business

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Speaker 1: activities in Parliament, is still alive. He's ninety years old.

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Speaker 1: I knew it was a massive long shot, but I

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Speaker 1: really wanted to talk to him. I contacted Labor headquarters

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Speaker 1: to see if they had any way of getting in touch,

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Speaker 1: and I even managed to track down a home phone

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Speaker 1: number for him.

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Speaker 3: The number you have called is not connected.

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Speaker 4: Please check the number.

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Speaker 5: This be calling again.

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Speaker 2: Not connected.

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Speaker 10: To check the number before calling again.

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Speaker 1: Looking for another lead to help me understand who Alan was.

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Speaker 1: Something caught my eye in his speech. Jeff said that

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Speaker 1: another politician had mentioned Alan metcalf in Parliament before him.

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Speaker 1: So I went to the library and dug through the

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Speaker 1: archives and what I found next honestly gobsmacked me. It

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Speaker 1: was blinking at me in black and white from the screen.

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Speaker 11: Quite frankly, mister Metcalfe is one of the greatest convent

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Speaker 11: to have resided in North Queensland.

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Speaker 1: That was a voice actor reading out the nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: four handsard transcript of Kenneth Mechlagott, another labor politician from

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Speaker 1: Townsville who went on to become the Queensland Health Minister.

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Speaker 11: I'm very concerned about mister Metcalf's record in business, very

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Speaker 11: concerned about this is one of the greatest conments.

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Speaker 1: As well as Alan's track record of scamming at AMP

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Speaker 1: and his failures in the publishing world. Kenneth also plugged

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Speaker 1: another hole for me about Alan's early years. Alan had

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Speaker 1: attempted a political career with the Nationals, an Australian political

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Speaker 1: party known to represent farmers and other regional voters. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Kenneth Mcalligott, but unfortunately he passed

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Speaker 1: away in twenty twenty one. There was one thing I

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Speaker 1: could easily fact check to see who was lying, Kenneth

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Speaker 1: or Allen. Kenneth claims that.

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Speaker 11: Allan stood for election in the seat of Townsville South

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Speaker 11: in nineteen eighty and made no impression on the vote

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Speaker 11: of the sitting member, mister Alex Wilson, But.

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Speaker 1: On Allan's own profile, he claims he was narrowly beaten

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Speaker 1: in this election. I find the election results. Now it's

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Speaker 1: time to bring in an.

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Speaker 12: Expert testing one two three.

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Speaker 13: My name is Jessica Wang and I work at NCA Newswire, so.

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Speaker 12: We used to work together. Jess is a good friend

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Speaker 12: of mine. She's a great journo. And can you tell

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Speaker 12: me a bit about what you do at NCI newswiy

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Speaker 12: So what do you specialize in there?

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Speaker 13: I cover state politics for New South Wales. I'm sort

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Speaker 13: of a cross You're across the other states as well,

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Speaker 13: just as part of the job.

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Speaker 12: That we're looking into. So Alan Metcalf, he's this colorful

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Speaker 12: character from Queensland. I'd be looking to him for about

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Speaker 12: a year now, and he was actually running in an

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Speaker 12: election campaign in the seat of Townsville in nineteen eighty.

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Speaker 12: So he says on his profile that he lost by

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Speaker 12: a tiny margin in the seat of Townsville. You know,

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Speaker 12: it was like a hare's length that he lost by.

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Speaker 12: But another politician who spoke in parliament about it said

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Speaker 12: that Alan lost by landslide. He lost by a country mile.

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Speaker 12: So I don't want to put any pressure on you, jests,

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Speaker 12: but in some ways the whole podcast could hinge on you,

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Speaker 12: because this is the moment where I can realize if

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Speaker 12: Allan is a bit of a truth teller or not

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Speaker 12: so much. So I might just show you the results

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Speaker 12: of the election, and I just want you to tell

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Speaker 12: me straight away what your first thoughts are. Analyze it

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Speaker 12: as a political journalist. So you're looking at the document

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Speaker 12: right now.

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Speaker 1: Did Alan Metcalf lose by a huge amount or by

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Speaker 1: a tiny as he claims.

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Speaker 13: Well, looking at what I have here, he only got

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Speaker 13: twenty five point five percent of the votes, whereas the

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Speaker 13: winning candidate, Alex Wilson from Labor, he got forty eight

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Speaker 13: point nine percent with the votes, so you can tell

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Speaker 13: that he wasn't even close to winning from a numbers

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Speaker 13: point of view. So the candidate who won got six

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Speaker 13: six hundred and sixty seven votes, whereas Ala Metcalf got

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Speaker 13: three four hundred and eighty one. If you'd look at

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Speaker 13: the two party preferred vote, Ala Metcalf was on forty

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Speaker 13: two point four percent and Alex Wilson got fifty seven

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Speaker 13: point six percent, you couldn't even say that he turned

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Speaker 13: the seat. He sort of helped the National sort of

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Speaker 13: clawback more ground in the seat because Labor won with

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Speaker 13: the swing of six point six percent. That means that

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Speaker 13: Labor essentially got six point six percent more of the

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Speaker 13: votes so than before in that essentially increased their ground

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Speaker 13: by six point six percent in the area. But yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 13: he wasn't anywhere close to winning.

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Speaker 1: Speaking in Parliament, Kenneth also added this as a final

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Speaker 1: comment on Allan's political career.

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Speaker 11: I am aware of a strong rumor that circulated in

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Speaker 11: Townsville to the effect that mister Metcalf owed the National

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Speaker 11: Party seventeen thousand dollars as a result of that campaign.

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Speaker 11: I place credence on the veracity of that rumor, because,

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Speaker 11: as honorable members will recall, that campaign was a very

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Speaker 11: expensive one to be candid. Allan Metcalf could not have

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Speaker 11: paid for it.

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Speaker 1: The National Party wouldn't give me a comment on any

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Speaker 1: of this. The political chapter of his life behind him,

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Speaker 1: Alan moved on. By now, it was well into the eighties.

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Speaker 1: Australia's film scene was thriving and would forge some of

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Speaker 1: the all time greats in its crucible like Puberty Blues

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Speaker 1: and Crocodile. Dundee and Alan wanted in on the action.

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Speaker 8: I awak and recollect Metcalfe was going to turn Towns

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Speaker 8: Fall into the new Hollywood of Australia. He intended to

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Speaker 8: make it the film capital of the world.

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Speaker 1: This is Bob Bleasdale, an editor who worked with Alan

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Speaker 1: on a TV series set in northern Queensland called Big

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Speaker 1: Fish down Under.

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Speaker 9: Like I had just slowly.

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Speaker 7: Fish, This line is fifteen feet long and weighs more than.

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Speaker 12: A metrical time.

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Speaker 2: Back.

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Speaker 7: Is a big game fishing a contested fact with the

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Speaker 7: biggest game.

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Speaker 9: Fishing, White Shop.

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Speaker 1: Alan was the executive producer, so it fell to him

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Speaker 1: to pull the funding together.

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Speaker 8: It was the first, the very first fishing videos that

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Speaker 8: produced out of Australia for their time, the old very

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Speaker 8: big budget, so it was a amount of money he raised.

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Speaker 8: I don't know how much it was. I know farmers

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Speaker 8: were definitely is the main source of revenue on the

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Speaker 8: Big Fish down Under. Definitely came. Farmers were worthy investors

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Speaker 8: because they would occasionally throw into one of every now

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Speaker 8: and then were dropping to the edits week to have

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Speaker 8: a chat and see that his money was still being

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Speaker 8: put to good news.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty the government introduced something known as the

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Speaker 1: TENBA tax offset. It meant if you invested any money

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Speaker 1: in the Australian film industry you got a one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty percent tax deduction on all of it. You

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Speaker 1: also got a fifty percent tax holiday on any profits made.

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Speaker 1: This might sound boring, but what it meant was money,

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Speaker 1: lots of it.

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Speaker 8: It really said film industry going bananas. There was money

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Speaker 8: coming from every where.

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Speaker 1: Bob is right. Between nineteen eighty and eighty eight, nearly

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Speaker 1: a billion dollars was invested in Australia's film industry. Peter

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Speaker 1: will is a designer who worked with Alan in Townsville

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Speaker 1: and he saw how Alan convinced people to invest the

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Speaker 1: film bombs.

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Speaker 4: But you know you've written off the attacks for the year.

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Speaker 12: Yeah, so you still are. It's still ahead.

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Speaker 4: To the product. Gay look as a matter where the

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Speaker 4: film goes well not. It just saved yourself fifty thousand

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Speaker 4: dollars in tax.

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Speaker 1: This isn't a great recording, but what Peter's saying is

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Speaker 1: that Alan's pitch to investors was simple. No matter how

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Speaker 1: the film performed, they would get a massive tax right off,

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Speaker 1: so they'd be silly not to give him their money.

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Speaker 4: I think he took a lot of leeway out of

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Speaker 4: the generous film brand scheme that was going on at

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Speaker 4: the time. I think he profited handsomely.

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Speaker 1: Peter spotted Alan around town driving me a gold plated

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six Fordlando, which he was surprised about because

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Speaker 1: he knew Alan was a family man. I start looking

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Speaker 1: into the tax benefit scheme that Alan used to encourage

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Speaker 1: investors into the movie business. Our newspaper article in the

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Speaker 1: Australian Financial Review had a withering view on the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: It's a sad but inevitable observation that some of the

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Speaker 1: greatest acts of creativity associated with the local film industry

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Speaker 1: involved no actors, no directors, and certainly no cameras. These

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Speaker 1: creations came from men in plush city officers whipping up

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Speaker 1: film projects out of thin air, eagerly adding up their

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Speaker 1: fees and dreaming up ever more tenuous methods of using

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Speaker 1: films to raise money. The article also referred to it

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Speaker 1: as a time on a tax dodge. Peter says he

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Speaker 1: couldn't agree more and.

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Speaker 4: There was abused, would abuse people making shit movies and

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Speaker 4: they were never released or just bomb.

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Speaker 1: Alan went on to try to make thirteen more films,

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Speaker 1: The Kalkadoons and The Crocodile Man feature among them, but

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Speaker 1: it's unclear if they ever got off the ground. Looking back,

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Speaker 1: Peter has some choice words about Alan.

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Speaker 4: He was a shyster so used cars Hausman but the

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Speaker 4: swagger of one. But he was organizing investors, but I

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Speaker 4: think a lot of money disappeared.

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Speaker 1: Another person I spoke to worked with Alan on the

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Speaker 1: Big Fish Down Under series but wanted to remain anonymous,

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Speaker 1: so we'll call him Liam.

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Speaker 10: He was a mix of Trump, God and Musk, an

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Speaker 10: incredible networker.

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Speaker 1: Liam says Alan had a big falling out with a

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Speaker 1: key financial backer because he was spending too much money

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Speaker 1: on marketing. They never financed one of Allen's films.

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Speaker 10: Again, I have heard that a Queensland film editor person

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Speaker 10: still talks about unpaid times.

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Speaker 1: One well known filmmaker, Malcolm Florence, was named as someone

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Speaker 1: Allan owed money to but Malcolm has passed away and

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Speaker 1: his wife didn't want to be involved in this podcast.

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Speaker 7: I think we ordinarily associate the eighties, especially in Queensland,

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Speaker 7: with a more lax regulatory regime.

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Speaker 1: That's Professor Clinton Free again the White Collar Crime Expert,

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Speaker 1: to give you a bit of an insight into the

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Speaker 1: jungle Alan was playing in at the time.

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Speaker 7: I think for anyone who is alive through that period,

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Speaker 7: the Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland in the late nineteen eighties

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Speaker 7: is really a strong marker in the regulatory consciousness of

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Speaker 7: this country. Revealed huge corruption of police politicians at the

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Speaker 7: at the highest level, and I think that is the

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Speaker 7: reality that our regulators have been strengthened considerably.

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Speaker 1: Peter remembers it very well firsthand.

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Speaker 4: Queensland was corrupt. They were seriously twenty times.

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Speaker 1: And he says Alan made the most of.

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Speaker 4: It, being founded by the corruption and corrupt Ellen was

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Speaker 4: like a piganlad.

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Speaker 1: This was the era when Queensland was under the control

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Speaker 1: of Joe Bielki Peterson. He was at the center of

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Speaker 1: the corruption scandal and Alan knew him personally. Here's Mary

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Speaker 1: talking about it at Allan's funeral.

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Speaker 6: He went on to National Party Management Committee with Joe

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Speaker 6: Bijokie Peterson for ten years.

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Speaker 1: Bilk Peterson resigned as the state's premiere in the wake

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Speaker 1: of the corruption inquiry, which ended the National Party's thirty

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Speaker 1: two years stranglehold in Queensland. Three former ministers and the

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Speaker 1: police commissioner were also jailed. So what did Alan do

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Speaker 1: once that house of cards collapsed? Fast forward to the nineties.

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Speaker 1: When I started this investigation, the first thing I did

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Speaker 1: was a litigation search on Alan, which is where I

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Speaker 1: checked to see if he's ever been taken to court.

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Speaker 1: Nothing came up. He was squeaky clean, pure, it seemed.

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Speaker 1: Months later, though, I had another thought. Alan had been

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Speaker 1: operating long before the Internet, so maybe his case hadn't

441
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 1: been digitized. Through a series of clunky search engines on

442
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 1: the court's website and a lot of back and forth

443
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: emails with the court registry, I hit the jackpot. I

444
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: found three civil court cases against him, two from the

445
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: same individual and one from the Bank of New Zealand.

446
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: The company's name had actually been misspelled, so it read

447
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:44,640
Speaker 1: as the Bank of nez Zealand. But then I hit

448
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: another roadblock. I got this email from the Queensland Supreme Court.

449
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: The file you were seeking has unfortunately been destroyed. In

450
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,120
Speaker 1: line with the Public Records Act two thousand and two

451
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 1: and general retention and destruction schedules, the files are destroyed

452
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: twelve years after the last action on the file. It

453
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: had been a lot longer than twelve years, but I

454
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: was desperate this would fill the missing years in Alan's life.

455
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,719
Speaker 1: So I found an email address for someone named as

456
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: the person who suit Alan and fired something off. Within

457
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 1: an hour, he called me back, Hi.

458
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 2: Alex, this is calling you. Sent me an email today

459
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 2: at eleven fifty six am in relation to Alan. Metcalf I,

460
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 2: am who took Alan to court in nineteen ninety three

461
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 2: and happy to discuss the issues with you.

462
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 1: He didn't want me to use his real name or voice,

463
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 1: so we'll call him Brody and this is a voice

464
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: actor relaying his words.

465
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 2: Alan was promoting his business. It was called the Harp Exchange.

466
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 2: You've got to realize that at the time there was

467
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 2: no Internet. The web browser that we see today didn't exist.

468
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 2: So the Heart Brokerage Exchange was basically a business. It's

469
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of computers linked together around the world,

470
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 2: and if you were to buy or sell any businesses

471
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 2: anywhere in the world, you'd express your interest on the

472
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 2: HARP Exchange. So if you wanted to buy a business,

473
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 2: you can go my name's Alex and I'm a mechanic

474
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 2: in Indonesia and put it there and you could buy

475
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 2: and sell businesses. But to do this you had to

476
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 2: be a HARP member.

477
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: Sound eerily familiar to Safe Worlds. Brody thought so too.

478
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 2: When you sent me this email out of the blue.

479
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 2: It's like a bolt of lightning, because I never had

480
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 2: to think about Clayton or Alan or Mary for many years.

481
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 2: So I searched you in news Corp. And lo and behold,

482
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 2: you've written the whole article one Alan, I read the

483
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,719
Speaker 2: article and this and you know what, if you replace

484
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: that company name with HARP, it's literally just a repeat.

485
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: There was another similarity with Safe Worlds that he also

486
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 1: realized while reading my article.

487
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 2: No one bought equity into the business. No one lent

488
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,679
Speaker 2: money to the business in any form of debt. So

489
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 2: no equity was issued and no debt was issued. But

490
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 2: the selling point of the business was you became a

491
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 2: member of the exchange. So when you pay the twenty

492
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 2: thousand or the twenty five thousand dollars. You're not getting

493
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 2: a bond or security, and you're not getting equity or

494
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 2: a share certificate. You're getting a certificate that says you're

495
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 2: a member of this exchange. But it's not debt and

496
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 2: it's not equity. So that's how Alan was able to

497
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 2: circumvent operation law. For lack of a better word, that's

498
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 2: how he was able to operate in the gray area.

499
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 2: Because if someone said, Allan knows me money, then the

500
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 2: question is where's the loan, where's the loan document? Well,

501
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 2: there was no loan document. My jaw dropped when I

502
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 2: read this article because I didn't know that this happened.

503
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 2: I'm literally reading it line by line what you wrote,

504
00:27:54,840 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 2: and it's kind of like, this is exactly hot, different names,

505
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 2: different investors. Instead of being a member of HARP, they've

506
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 2: issued this worthless equity that's not registered. If I just

507
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 2: summarize him, i'd call him a sophisticated swindler.

508
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: Alan approached Brody when he was looking for investors in

509
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: his HARP business.

510
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 2: One day, Alan came to me and said, look, they

511
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 2: need I think it was either twenty thousand or twenty

512
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 2: five thousand. It doesn't seem like a lot of money today,

513
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 2: but twenty five thousand dollars was the equivalent of probably

514
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 2: a quarter of an apartment or some sort of house.

515
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 2: Alan said, I just need this money to help with

516
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 2: the business, and you know, pay it back. And what

517
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 2: I can do is you can be a member of HARP.

518
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 2: I think I waited two years and no repayment was forthcoming.

519
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 2: Then I made the decision that I need to seek

520
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 2: legal advice. Maybe I was the lucky one back in

521
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three when I actually had correspondence where he

522
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: said he would repay the money.

523
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: Brody took Alan to court and won the case, with

524
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: the judge ordering Allan to pay back the twenty five

525
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Brody had to sue Allan a second time

526
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: when the repayments briefly stopped, but in the end he

527
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: managed to recover it. All I also reached out to

528
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: the Bank of New Zealand, who also sued Alan, but

529
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: they declined to comment, citing privacy reasons. Brody and I

530
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: keep talking, and he remembers something else he'd forgotten about Alan.

531
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 2: He would spend time traveling between Brisbane and the United States,

532
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 2: so he did travel a lot.

533
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: Alan, Mary and their son were also living in a

534
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: penthouse overlooking the Brisbane River in the prestigious inner city

535
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: suburb of South Bank.

536
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 2: I think that penthouse. I'm going to get the numbers wrong,

537
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 2: but I think he paid something like a million dollars

538
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty five eighty six. So one million

539
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 2: dollars today only gets you a three bedroom apartment, but

540
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 2: like in those days, you got the entire penthouse.

541
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: Later I checked this out and he wasn't far off.

542
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: Property records show that Alan and Mary bought the four

543
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: bedroom penthouse in nineteen eighty seven for eight hundred and

544
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars. They sold it six years later for

545
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: one point one five million, not a bad return on

546
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: their investment. The year of the apartment sale, nineteen ninety

547
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: three was a busy time for Allan. Not only was

548
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: he dealing with his court case and selling the plush

549
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: family home, but he was also trying to rebuild Russia

550
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: after death of the Soviet Union. Allan claimed on his

551
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: profile that humanitarian aid workers and the mayor of Moscow

552
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: asked him to inspect the Russian privatization program and proposed

553
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: some advice. Because of his e commerce background. Liam, his

554
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: ex colleague from the movie industry, stays sporadically in touch

555
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: with Alan.

556
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 10: He says in the nineties he broke it to deal

557
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 10: with Russia.

558
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: In fact, that's the reason Liam wanted to stay anonymous,

559
00:30:57,840 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: meaning we've got a voice actor to read his word.

560
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 10: The last thing I need is one hundred and fifty

561
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 10: kilo Russian knocking down my door.

562
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: Alan claimed he worked extensively in Russia and that his

563
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: business idea could be a digital Marshall plan that would

564
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,239
Speaker 1: kickstart the Russian economy. Unfortunately, there's not much more I

565
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: was able to find out about Alan's time in Russia.

566
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen nineties, Alan launched another company, and

567
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: this was called Safeworld's Australia.

568
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 12: And New Zealand.

569
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: The company actually went public and was on the Australian

570
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange which was called the NSX back then being

571
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: publicly listed when Alan was able to raise new money

572
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: from selling shares. But it also came with a load

573
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: of regulatory issues, including the need to file public accounts

574
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: and communicate with shareholders. But Alan was unable to deliver

575
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: the product or give shareholders proper updates. In the end,

576
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: he had to resign as director. Safeworlds merged with another

577
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: company and it was renamed E Business Systems. This company

578
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: of officially went into liquidation in twenty twelve. A small

579
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: amount of money was repaid to its investors. One person

580
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: involved in the project told me, I would have preferred

581
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: not to have met Alan Metcalf, and so there you

582
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: have it. Alan's genesis, the life story of a man

583
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: who rolled from fraudstar to tax dodger, to con artists,

584
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: to liar and then failed business executive. But as far

585
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: from over, Alan wasn't done with Safe Worlds yet. He

586
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: was about to launch his latest iteration that would kickstart

587
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: my year long investigation. I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen,

588
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million next time.

589
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 5: He was like a medieval monk who had claimed to

590
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 5: have discovered angelic script, the language of angels, as if

591
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 5: it was something new, so that.

592
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 10: One, this is just crazy.

593
00:32:57,400 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 8: I can't do it.

594
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:02,719
Speaker 5: He was comparing himself to people like Edison and Ironsky,

595
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 5: you know, and people that are discovered penicillin, and you know,

596
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 5: like he was making a comparison with he had just

597
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 5: as a normalman had discovered this lure of thought.

598
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. A new episode is coming out weekly

599
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, Make sure you subscribe so

600
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: you don't miss an episode. Head to news dot com

601
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: dot Au to read more of my reporting on this story.

602
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: Do you know more? Get in touch through our dedicated

603
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: tip inbox Missing Millions at news dot com dot Au

604
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: or contact me directly on Alex dot Turner, Dash Cohen

605
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: at news dot com dot Au or look me up

606
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: on Twitter to get my details. I'm your host, Alex

607
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: Turner Cohen. Nina Young is the executive producer, sound design

608
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: and editing by Tiffany Dimack. Our editorial director is Dan Box.

609
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: Grant McAvaney is our legal advisor, and Kerrie Warren is

610
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 1: the editor of news dot com. Special Thanks to our

611
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: voice actors Andrew Bucklow, Andy Bellez, Rick Wilson and David

612
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: tan