WA man linked to missing $US15m

One minute it was there and the next it was gone. And it would take more than a year for anyone to notice it was missing.

It's difficult to understand how $US15.5 million could be stolen in such a way. But that is what happened at Commerzbank in Germany when expatriate English bankers Matthew Holmes and Donald Somers secretly transferred the funds to an ABN Amro Bank account in Amsterdam held by a company based in the British Virgin Islands.

That was on August 15, 2000, when most of the Western world had an eye on Sydney and its preparations for the Olympic Games. But on the other side of the country, well-known Perth businessman Roger Bryer was about to become involved in an international money laundering syndicate's attempts to clean the stolen funds.

Mr Bryer, now 69, was a big player on Perth's fringe second board business scene in the 1980s, most notably through investment group Sun Securities, forestry company TPS Group, financier Citizen Finance and mining house Base Resources.

He lunched with the likes of Peter Briggs and Alan Bond, battled for control of businesses with Peter Laurance and, at least once, rubbed shoulders with the underworld. Giving evidence at Northbridge identity Vince Italiano's wilful murder trial about a failed business deal he had discussed with the thug was one of the last things he did before falling off the news radar.

By 2000, when the money was stolen from Commerzbank, Mr Bryer had enough money and shares to keep him out of the limelight. He had invested in property and was also running a collectables shop in Fremantle called Millennium Exposition of Wonders. He didn't need to make any more deals. But, like any good businessman, he was always looking for an opportunity.

In May that year, he caught up with American businessman Tony Silano in London. Mr Silano was also a property developer, but on a slightly bigger scale. He once secured gold bond certificates backed by then-Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos to help him fund his plan to build a casino in Las Vegas. When the Marcos regime was toppled and he could no longer get access to the Swiss bank account that held the certificates, he travelled to Zurich and hacked his way in.

It was at the meeting with Mr Silano in London that Mr Bryer was introduced to Raymond Jewitt. Later that year, he would also meet Herbert Austin.

And that was when his trouble started. Two weeks after the money was transferred from Commerzbank to the ABN Amro account, the money was on the move again. A businessman named Friedrichs transferred $US4.4 million to various accounts in Switzerland, Bahamas, Indonesia and Austria. Another $10.1 million arrived in the National Australia Bank account of Newshore Nominees, which was controlled by Roger Maurice Bryer and his wife, Yulia.

From the Newshore Nominees account, some was transferred into accounts held by two other Bryer Australian-based companies, Warm Exports and Redbay Investments. Some was also transferred to American bank accounts held by Mr Bryer's Gibraltar-based companies Propvest and Vista Blue. Some found its way to disbarred US lawyer Donald G. Coffman Jr.

Through several deals, countries, bank accounts and businessmen, the money was moved. And, according to England's Serious Organised Crime Agency, it was not until 2006 that investigators discovered that a big proportion of the Commerzbank funds had arrived in Britain.

SOCA launched Operation Torrens and, last month, Austin and Jewitt were tried, convicted and jailed for eight years and three years respectively.

"The organised crime group believed it would be able to avoid law enforcement attention by spreading a tangled web of financial transactions across the globe, meaning that no one authority would have overall responsibility for investigating the crime, nor the resources to unpick the worldwide mechanics of the group," SOCA said.

"SOCA investigators proved to the men that their assumptions were wrong. Austin and Jewitt had created an international system to receive and wash the stolen money which exploited offshore companies controlled via trusted associates and faceless administrative nominees."

But SOCA's statement did not reveal the Australian connection. In 2006, Mr Bryer was arrested by Australian Federal Police and interviewed about his involvement in the laundering operation. Federal prosecutors secured Supreme Court orders to freeze a $3.2 million apartment in Mount Street's "thermos" building, which was owned by Mr Bryer's Redbay Investments, because they suspected it had been bought using the stolen funds.

US court documents, filed by SOCA as part of its investigation into the movement of money out of Mr Bryer's companies, revealed the funds eventually flowed to English businessman Anthony Heald, already the target of fraud investigators in Britain and the US.

"Bryer denies knowledge of the funds being fraudulent," SOCA said in its request for assistance, which was lodged with the US District Court application. "His explanation (is) that Jewitt had placed the funds with him for investment in Australia. He states that all transfers undertaken by him with regard to these funds were at the behest of Jewitt."

It has now been five years since Mr Bryer was arrested. He has not been charged, but almost everyone involved in the scam is in jail or has served their time. A few are listed as "whereabouts unknown".

Mr Bryer did not return calls from _The West Australian _last week and he refused to detail the police investigation when the property was frozen in 2006. Back then, lawyer Martin Bennett said authorities were not alleging that money invested in Redbay came directly from "persons of interest" in Germany.

"It went via other parties unrelated to that, " Mr Bennett said. "All we say is that we're a bona fide third party without notice of any impropriety in relation to the funds that are invested." Mr Bennett no longer acts for Mr Bryer.

While the method employed by the money laundering syndicate has finally been revealed after five years in which investigators refused repeated media requests for information, it is unclear whether Mr Bryer will be allowed to sail off into the sunset. As of Friday, his apartment was still frozen and SOCA was looking worldwide for other assets to seize from those involved in the scam.