Following on from the ABC’s recent revelation of deep KGB infiltration of Australian politics during the cold war, I thought I might offer up my own, previously untold spy story. It involved a thrilling run-in with ASIO with a cast of characters including Malcolm Turnbull, academic cum journalist, Peter van Onselen, and former Australian Ambassador to the UN and weapons inspector extraordinaire, Richard Butler.
It was late 2001, I think, and I was working with either Goldman Sachs or the RBA in Sydney. One day I got a call from a pal of mine--we shall call him Drobonov--who happened to be an academic at a leading university. He told me that a legitimate Turkish mate of his, who was a Muslim, had a very wealthy and politically powerful Eastern European friend--we shall call him Mr Sergei--who was in Australia and had a lazy “few billion dollars” that he wanted to invest. My academic pal thought I might be the perfect guy to render a bit of advice. So I thought, Why not? What could I possibly lose? Just my life, I was to find out.
Drobonov informed me that Mr Sergei had previously been a senior minister in a small Eastern European government. (I don’t wish to name either for fear of any future flow-back from this article.) Even more importantly, Mr Sergei’s uncle had been president of that same nation. As you do, I thought I would carry out a modicum of due diligence and google the guy. What I discovered shocked me to the core. It turned out that Sergei's family had strong ties to arms dealing, narcotics trading, and, in the early 1990s, the CIA. They had been accused of embezzling billions of dollars worth of pension savings while his uncle served as president. The largest Muslim army in Europe, which I will not name, was also headquartered on one of the family’s estates. To make matters worse, his uncle, the former president, had, according to that trusty tome, The Economist, held in-person talks with none other than Osama bin Laden in the 1990s about the possibility of bin Laden securing residency status in this nation given the latter’s growing persona non grata status.
Now remember, this is in late 2001. Everyone is freaking out about terrorism. To say that I started getting a little uneasy is a massive understatement. A further wrinkle here was that the “billions of dollars” that Mr Sergei wanted to invest was not yet in the country. With the alarm bells ringing loudly I immediately contacted the authorities. I was shortly thereafter called by a guy named "Matt" from ASIO, who asked for a data dump. I nervously obliged and asked what I should do. Just prior to the call from Matt, a dinner date with Mr Sergei had been tentatively organised at the salubrious eastern suburbs establishment, Catalina. Matt strongly suggested I keep the meeting with Sergei and "treat it like any other business function." But this guy's family has ties to terrorists, I exclaimed with some vigour. It will be fine, Matt implored. You will be serving the nation. Will you be watching, I asked. I cannot comment on that, Matt responded. And for some reason I nevertheless drew succour from the casual and composed voice at the end of the line.
Matt also asked me for everyone's mobile numbers and email addresses. For a week or three thereafter I noticed that whenever I was speaking to Drobonov on his cell, I would invariably here a very soft single "beep" in the background during the course of the conversation. Drobonov heard it too. For some time he had no idea that the nation’s chief counter-intelligence agency was involved. But I knew we were not the only ones on the call.
Now I consider myself a very confident guy. On this occasion, however, I was extremely anxious, to say the least. In the hour or two before dinner, I rehearsed a range of innocuous lines of dialogue that would keep the conversation rolling along. I also prepared a couple of pages of notes. As I arrived at Catalina I decided to do a lap of the car park. I literally thought I might check-out whether there were any Hollywood-style surveillance vans. Sure enough, as I approached the furthest end of the car park I saw a shiny white van with blacked-out windows (there was another white van halfway down the lot, but it was dingy with see-through windows). As I drove right past, a guy was getting out of the van with thick glasses, overalls, and a mobile phone plastered to his ear. He looked exactly like the NSA techie off the movie, Enemy of the State. And I couldn't help but notice how he carefully kept an eye on me as I cruised by. While I was not 100 per cent sure he was ASIO, he certainly fitted the bill. I then parked my car back up the other end of the lot and started pouring over my notes for the evening.
Things started to heat up when a short while later I heard a vehicle coming around behind me and I glanced up into my rearview mirror. To my surprise the guy in the white van that I had been inspecting earlier had jumped back into his car and was now craning his neck against the driver-side window checking me out just as I looked up. Shit! This is really happening, I thought to myself.
As it turns out, the owner of the restaurant, who I have known for many years, subsequently told me that ASIO had contacted him prior to the dinner and said they would be putting the place under surveillance.
I eventually walked into Catalina, which was buzzing with people, to meet my mate Drobonov on the balcony for a quick drink before dinner. As I moved through the restaurant I coincidentally saw Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull having a bite to eat with their young daughter. Frankly speaking, I was really on edge and thought I might try and at least reach out to the big fella for a bit of moral support (and if anything happened to me at least somebody outside of ASIO would know what was going on).
Some readers might remember that Malcolm ran the successful spycatcher trial in the 1980s and was, therefore, a bit of an intelligence boffin. After saying hullo to the Turnbulls, I made a pit-stop at the bar before heading out on to the open balcony. Leaning against the marble bar I scribbled the following short message for Malcolm on the back of a yellow post-it note: "MBT: in a bind, ASIO involved." That will get him thinking hard, I thought. I then asked a waiter to discreetly deliver the folded message to him.
Drobonov was waiting for me on the balcony with his Turkish mate and a South Korean colleague of dubious professional extraction. (I don’t normally frequent such circles, to be clear.) The Turk, who I will call Zamat, said he had kindly sung my praises to Mr Sergei, who was very keen to meet with me. Great! He then told us that Mr Sergei was waiting for us to arrive, and called him to transmit the news that we were all there.
Around 15 minutes later two extraordinary looking characters walked through Catalina’s glass doors in full view of the entire room. It was quite a sight. Mr Sergei looked liked he was an evil Russian oligarch straight out of a James Bond film. He was tall and alabaster pale, with a thin grey stubble, and had adorned a very dated 1980s grey suit, which was complemented by a garish gold watch.
Mr Sergei also had a curious companion, who he ambitiously claimed was an aspiring "artist". The problem is that the artist, who did in fact wear a black beret coupled with a Miami Vice-style jacket underpinned by a t-shirt, had shoulders as wide as his body and was the most sinister figure I had ever seen in my life. He also uttered no more than ten words during the entire night. It was clear to all that this guy was Mr Sergei's bodyguard.
As they made there way toward us every head in the restaurant was transfixed. Who on earth are these people rudely bursting our couth eastern suburbs bubble? A supremely assured Mr Sergei greeted me like a long lost friend, and said the Turk had spoken highly of me. I was purportedly a man of great talent. To make matters more nefarious, Mr Sergei managed to simultaneously reach into his inside pocket as he was delivering this greeting. In a thick eastern European accent, he said he was calling his lawyer, who was based in Croatia, and he would explain to me how the money could be transferred across to Australia from a bank in Cyprus. So within about 30 seconds of meeting Mr Sergei I was handed the mobile and found myself briefly engaged in conversation with some dodgy European lawyer. Feeling very uncomfortable, I said I could not understand the advisor and promptly passed the mobile to Drobonov, who just happened to be Croatian.
Just before we sat down I spied Malcolm and Lucy meandering through the restaurant towards us. They were evidently heading home and wanted to say their goodbyes. As Malcolm approached, I could see the yellow post-it note held delicately in his hand. Mother of god, what is he thinking? I started sweating bullets: surely he is not going to say anything in front of Mr Sergei! Thankfully Malcolm was absolutely on-message, and politely suggested I drop by his house after dinner.
The meal was long and drawn out. In my mind’s eye, every waiter was an ASIO agent. Had I seen that one here before? No. What about that couple sitting at the table next to us? Quite possibly. But aside from Mr Sergei regaling us with stories about how he had to beat up a few guys in Dubai who betrayed him in a business deal (he managed to slip in that an ambulance was required), there was not much to it…Around half of the conversation was spoken in foreign tongues, and I tried where possible to remain mute. I also successfully evaded making any formal commitments, and pushed the financial advice off to another more serious day. Tonight was about bonding with the Eastern European mafia. I did find out that Mr Sergei kept an "Australian wife" in an expensive penthouse in Bondi Junction. This meant that he came out to Australia a few times a year. For the avoidance of any doubt, Mr Sergei explained this was not his only wife!
The following morning I was called by Matt from ASIO for a detailed debrief. I poured out everything I could recall. At this point I should say that Matt was not exactly the most reassuring guy I have ever interacted with. He was great at extracting information, but not so helpful in comforting me that there would be no physical flow-back risk for yours truly. What happens if Mr Sergei finds out I am working with you guys, I asked? Matt deftly batted me away with a silky stroke that would have made Ricky Ponting proud.
I was keen to share my experiences with someone, and after speaking with ASIO I proceeded to drive over to Peter van Onselen's house (yes, the current contributing editor for The Australian newspaper). We were to organise a charity event, and I ended up spending at least four or five hours with him. Peter had worked for the NSW Crime Commission during his university days and was a bit of a guru on this stuff.
Just before I hit the sack that night I checked in with my voicemail. I had three urgent messages from Peter, who sounded scared. It turned out that after I had left his home, Peter and his wife had gone out for a meal. When they returned they realised that their home had been broken into. But nothing was stolen--just a few things slightly out of place (eg, the shutters looking down on to the street from their bedroom were clearly not in the same spot). Bad tradecraft, I know. Had this been ASIO checking out my bona fides? It would certainly have looked odd that the first thing I did following the morning's debrief was hole up in a house for the best part of five hours.
The next day I arranged for a private investigator to sweep the van Onselen's home for bugs. Nothing turned up. And given the passive nature of this technology--ie, it is only switched on when they actually want to listen--it is unlikely any devices would have been located even if they were there.
A few weeks later I heard from my pal Drobonov that Mr Sergei's penthouse apartment had been raided by the Australian Federal Police. By this time, I had informed Drobonov of my collusion with the authorities. I was very nervous about it getting back to Mr Sergei, who I could easily envision might seek mortal retribution.
At one point, I was so upset by this possibility that I consulted the former Australian ambassador to the UN, and Iraqi weapons inspector, Richard Butler. Richard had been a long-time friend and was awfully kind with his advice. But he wearily counseled that the intelligence services were, in his experience, mercenary misanthropes (his words were harsher) that would offer scant support unless there was some demonstrable need for them to do so.
Needless to say, I remain alive and kicking, and have thankfully not heard from Mr Sergei or his proxies again. While I had studied at the alma mater of some of Britain’s most famous double agents—Malborough College in Wiltshire, and Cambridge University—I never expected to find myself embroiled in controversies of a similar kind.
[Note: While all of the above is accurate as I remember it, any errors are my own. This is intended to be stimulating fare over and above the economics/finance content you ordinarily find here. Apologies in advance if you were expecting the latter.]
