The time Andrew Denton tried to hire a bounty hunter

Speaker 1 ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis, the host of Politics Now, the ABC's podcast unpacking the latest political news when it happens.

Speaker 2 Every weekday, you'll hear me and the sharpest political minds at the ABC: me, Jacob Greber, me, Brett Worthington, me, David Spears, and me, Frank Kelly, for the party room every Thursday.

Speaker 2 So, join me for Politics Now, download and follow on the ABC Listen app.

Speaker 1 This podcast was produced on the lands of the Owabakal and Gadigal people.

Speaker 1 G'day, Matt Bevan here. This is If You're Listening.
We love bringing you interesting stories from around the ABC and this one today is very fun.

Speaker 1 It's about Australia's most loathed fugitive of the early 90s, a man called Christopher Scace.

Speaker 1 Scace had everything an 80s tycoon could want. Money, power, fame, and a wife with very big hair.
But it was all a mirage. Mirage was also the very apt name of his chain of luxury resorts.

Speaker 1 After robbing Australian investors of $2 billion,

Speaker 1 Christopher Scace fled to the Spanish island of Mallorca.

Speaker 1 Mark Humphreys is here to tell us about what happened after that and about some of the bizarre attempts to bring Scace back to Australia, including one involving a bounty hunter and TV personality Andrew Denton.

Speaker 1 Mark is the host of the new season of the ABC's Rewind podcast titled Scase, Fall of a Tycoon.

Speaker 1 G'day, Mark. Hello, Matt.
Thank you. And thank you for getting the title right.
There's another Radio National podcast that I won't name that's managed to mangle back. But you nailed it, so thank you.

Speaker 1 Look, it's about a 50-50 when I go on some other show, whether they're going to call my show if you're listening or are you listening. And we've been on for eight years.

Speaker 1 So we make sure that we do it right, just in the hopes that it will rub off on us. Totally.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think 7.30 has been called 7.30 for about 15 years, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who calls it 7.30. It's a 7.30 report.

Speaker 1 That's what no effect. That's right.
Yeah, yeah. It's a 7.30 report.
And, you know, I used to work at 702, or as everyone called it, 2BL.

Speaker 1 Hasn't been called that since the 90s, but, you know, whatever. Oh, well, I do a lot of TV on Channel 2, Matt.
Yes, that's right. Channel 2.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's one of the things that means I can tell where people are from in Australia is if they call the ABC Channel 2, because that's a very capital city thing. Here in Newcastle, it was 5A.
Oh.

Speaker 1 I don't even know why there was a 5A. Why wasn't it just 6?

Speaker 1 That's very confusing. Growing up, SBS for me was on Channel 28.
I don't know if anyone had a channel 28, but that's where I was.

Speaker 1 When you can get it, you know, you'd have to fiddle around with your aerial a bit in order to try and get SBS if you really wanted to watch something on SBS.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, if you wanted to fiddle with something else.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. I mean, I was thinking of soccer coverage, but sure.
Oh, right, sure. Sorry.
Yes. I was thinking of some tasteful films such as Vampiros Lesbos.
Nude for Satan.

Speaker 1 These are the films that come to mind.

Speaker 1 World Cup coverage. That is what I was thinking of.
World Cup coverage. Oh, right.
Forgive me.

Speaker 1 Look, speaking of the 90s and the way that TVs worked back then, I grew up seeing Christopher Scace's name, hearing his name in the news coverage, seeing sort of video of him being wheeled in and out of courtrooms looking very frail and confused.

Speaker 1 For those of us who don't really remember Christopher Scace, what was Christopher Scace's deal? Where did he come from? And how did he end up at Mallorca?

Speaker 1 Well, that was my memory of him as well growing up. But thanks to this wonderful podcast, Skace Fall of a Tycoon, available on all listening platforms scace full of a tycoon

Speaker 1 essentially in terms of 80s businessmen it was really quite remarkable just how many pies he had his fingers in when you think about media moguls and you know murdox or what have you they're sort of largely focused yes in that media space but with scace yeah he's someone who owned channel seven but then also owned a football club the brisbane bears but also owned these resorts you know in port douglas and the gold coast he had big, big dreams.

Speaker 1 And ultimately, his really big dream was part of his undoing, which was when he tried to make a $2 billion bid for MGM United Artists using money that he didn't have.

Speaker 1 It reminds me a bit of Clive Palmer, someone who might build a Titanic or a dinosaur-themed park, something like that. Yeah, but something more coherent than Clive.

Speaker 1 Maybe looked a little bit better in a suit. But I mean, that's the other thing.

Speaker 1 So Scace and his wife, Pixie, they were this sort of it couple, this sort of glamour couple, and she had the big hair, and they were living this extravagant lifestyle.

Speaker 1 And it was one of those things where I think you can see how people were sort of drawn into it or sucked into it, thinking, wow, this is the real deal.

Speaker 1 But I think what made me laugh about this story is how many sort of red flags were sort of hiding in plain sight. The fact that the resorts are called Mirage, I think, was a big one.

Speaker 1 The slogan, the actual theme song for the ads for the Mirage was called Too Good to be True. Amazing.

Speaker 1 I just, I feel like he was trying to tell us something. And he even, he even funded a film starring Raquel Welsh and Jack Thompson.
The film was called Trouble in Paradise.

Speaker 1 I always enjoyed that there were a couple of guys that got wrapped up in Donald Trump's orbit and his first impeachment to sort of criminal adjacent fellows and their company was called Fraud Guarantee.

Speaker 1 Just love it. Amazing.
I mean, you know, just don't even hide what you're up to. Okay, so, you know, he lived this big life.

Speaker 1 he was this larger-than-life very well-known tycoon owning all these companies that made it very much seem like he might be a fraud of some kind based on their names alone and then his company collapses and he flees the country and goes to spain never to return he was too unwell apparently to leave he said he couldn't travel because of severe emphysema and come home and face justice for his financial crimes.

Speaker 1 But you've come across a number of instances of people attempting to chuck a bag over his head and bring him home.

Speaker 1 Let's start with an attempt by, am I right in saying that Andrew Denton attempted to do this? Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 Anyone who's met Andrew Denton, it's hard to imagine him trying to throw a bag over someone's head. But he wasn't going to do it himself.
But he did have this idea.

Speaker 1 Denton was hosting a show called Denton on Channel 7 of All Places, so the network that Skace himself had owned only a few years earlier.

Speaker 4 We We don't mind a bit of an outlaw, don't mind Ned Kelly, but Skace hasn't even had the decency to be a decent outlaw.

Speaker 4 He's not only ripped us off, not only lied to us, but now he has the gall to go overseas and whinge to us about how we're treating him.

Speaker 1 And there was such hatred in the Australian community for Scace that it seemed entirely appropriate for Denton to come up with this idea to kidnap Christopher Skace with the assistance of a bounty hunter.

Speaker 1 Okay. So they launched a essentially a crowdfunding campaign so that, you know, everyday folks could chip into this enterprise.
And yeah, they managed to raise $250,000 in 1995 money.

Speaker 1 So like, you know, it'd be over half a million today. Crikey.
Yeah. And which is, you know, a heck of a lot just out of spite.
Yeah. And

Speaker 1 spite is a very powerful motivating factor. That's it.
I mean, I think there's something that charities could learn. If they chase the spike dollar a bit more, there might be something in it.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, spite is what inspires hundreds of thousands of Australians to vote below the line in the Senate. Oh, yeah.
It's a very satisfying feeling.

Speaker 1 You will put in the work to fill out 89 boxes just so that you can put your least favorite person last. That's it.
So, how did he go about turning this into content?

Speaker 1 So, yes, so he finds this bounty hunter who's right, exactly. He's going to team up with IG88.
Oh, God, I'd really

Speaker 1 show my nerd colours there. And so, yes, there's this American bounty hunter who I think his name was Bob Burton, who apparently was the best in the business.

Speaker 1 He was described as the United States' premier bounty hunter. So they're all set to go until someone goes, hang on,

Speaker 1 bounty hunting is legal in America, but it is not legal in Australia. And Andrew, you really could get...
in quite a bit of trouble with this. So sadly, that plan had to be jettisoned.

Speaker 1 But I think it is just so indicative of the loathing in the community for Scase that that amount of money could be raised for the purposes of bringing him home.

Speaker 1 Denton's show, you know, a show that was based on Denton's usual piercing satire vibe, did he manage to spin it out into some decent content?

Speaker 1 You know, he had the Attorney General Michael LaBash on the program.

Speaker 5 Okay, Michael, where would you like Christopher delivered? We can have him bound and gagged on the steps of Parliament House, at your front doorstep, you name it.

Speaker 5 I'd like him to come back to Australia, and certainly that's always been the attitude of the government. That remains our attitude.
We can bring him back, Michael. We have

Speaker 5 the technology.

Speaker 1 Lavash was a good sport and played along for a while and then eventually got quite serious and said, no, please don't do that. It's funny, though.
Denson is such a comedic genius.

Speaker 1 And this is a period where Channel 7 thought, oh, let's have someone sort of funny and satirical on the network. And I'm speaking from personal experience, it just doesn't work.

Speaker 1 They say they want satire, don't they? They say that's what they want. They say that's what they want, and then you give it to them.

Speaker 1 And then when they find out, when they remember what satire actually is, they're not as into it. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 So I'm very happy to compare myself to Andrew Denton in this circumstance, but I never went as far as proposing employing a bounty hunter.

Speaker 1 What about Scase was obviously not a particularly trustworthy person? He lied to his shareholders. He said he couldn't travel because of severe emphysema.
He couldn't go on a plane.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't know if he's heard of boats. I would just like to add one other little anecdote in terms of not being able to get onto planes.

Speaker 1 There was even an instance where, back when he was in Australia, of course, he had a private jet, and the SCASIS were so obsessed with marble. They wanted marble throughout the private jet.

Speaker 1 And so an engineer came along and said, Yeah, you realize this thing needs to be able to take off, right? Man, I can't believe that Donald Trump hasn't attempted to get a marble Air Force One.

Speaker 1 I mean, think about it.

Speaker 1 You know, Air Force One needs to be super strong to avoid being shot out of the sky if it was fully solid marble that would be very robust and air force one can be refueled from the sky they just i mean they basically have to be refueling it constantly but i think it's possible i think you're onto something here absolutely so yes that was the first of many instances of skace not being able to get on a plane uh he also uh complained that people were trying to kidnap him but that part may have been at least partially true though yes there were other attempts to bring skace back and so there were some other vigilantes some ex-military guys who are based on the gold coast of course you should have just asked me where do you think these ex-military vigilantes are based and i would have got that in one do they have a name their group oh the name was the white knights of justice oh okay yes there's a a flavoring to it that irks me but yeah so they approached the australian federal police They basically offered, they said, look, we'll fly to Majorca to kidnap Scace and bring him back.

Speaker 1 We'll even take a lung specialist to travel on the plane. Oh, right.
Just to look after him. Yeah, sure.
And once again, here, the AFP having to say, thank you, but please, I mean, you can't do it.

Speaker 1 It's illegal. But there was David Moore from the Pedro Police said, don't do it.
But if you happen to do it, if you could just let me know. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1 I mean, if that's not a, you know, who will rid me of this troublesome priest sort of a statement, did you manage to find anybody involved in this?

Speaker 1 Sadly, I think my understanding is that most of, if not all of the White Knights of Justice are no longer with us.

Speaker 1 I think they later later went on to scam some people out of money years after the SCACE thing. So maybe they weren't the most reliable characters themselves.
No.

Speaker 1 They're all either dead or discredited, I'm afraid to say. Okay, were there any other vigilantes offering their services? Well, I mean, there was one where it sort of happened by accident.

Speaker 1 So this extraordinary story, it happened in Switzerland where the Skases were, and there happened to be some other European businessman that was wanted.

Speaker 1 And so some undercover police officers somehow mistook Christopher for this other dodgy character.

Speaker 1 And so spear tackle the skases, put them in separate cars, drive them off, strip them down, they're put in cells, they're roughed up.

Speaker 1 Pixie even is capsicum sprayed and actually loses, I think, about 80% of vision in one eye. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 So the people that sort of got the closest to really exacting revenge on a skase did it entirely by mistake. I mean, imagine.
Imagine if that had been how they ended up getting him. That's right.

Speaker 1 Mistaken identity. Yeah.
And they just let him go. They had to let him go.
And so then the Scases sued the Swiss police and got a settlement.

Speaker 1 Not a huge amount, but they lived off it for a year from what I've read. But also, a woman claiming to be an ex-CIA agent offered her services.
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 1 So there was this proposal that came up to buy a resort in the Caribbean and Saint-Martin was the place. Beautiful pronunciation.
Oh, Merci, Merci.

Speaker 1 She comes along, and she's basically acting as the real estate agent for this you know five-star golf and casino resort so yeah she comes in and that deal ultimately falls through on the side she'd been trying to negotiate with the australian crime commission to deliver scace to a country that australia had an extradition treaty with okay so she's then sort of trying to extort the crime commission as part of this process so that's a whole mess there but the sort of side element to that san martin deal is that Scace decides, despite the fact that obviously he can't fly, he will fly to Saint-Martin for this deal.

Speaker 1 And the AFP manages to catch wind of this. So he's going to have to fly through Florida in order to do this.
So the AFP contacts the FBI and arranges for the FBI to pick Scase up in Florida.

Speaker 1 Somehow, I think a Channel 7 journalist finds out about what's going to happen. And the AFP is saying, please, please, don't be at the airport.
Don't, just don't screw this up for us.

Speaker 1 We think we've finally got this. Anyway, there's going to be journalists in Saint-Martin if somehow Skace manages to make it all the way there.

Speaker 1 But anyway, Skace arrives at the airport in Majorca to fly out.

Speaker 1 And for some reason, there is some other journalist, I think a photographer who Skace recognizes some other journalist has found out about it. They've gone to the airport at Majorca.

Speaker 1 So when Scace sees this journalist, he freaks out, jumps back in the car, goes back home.

Speaker 1 You know, obviously, we love the Fourth Estate and the way that journalism speaks truth to power, but sometimes they should just step back for a second.

Speaker 1 What you've got there is a situation where law enforcement got in the way of the media catching him in the instance with Denton, and then the media got in the way of law enforcement catching him in this instance.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's just classic us tripping over ourselves.

Speaker 1 Earlier this year, we talked a lot about the story of the Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence agency, kidnapping Mordecai Venunu, the guy who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear weapons development program.

Speaker 1 And they did it by honeypotting him and getting him to go with a beautiful woman to Rome. And then they were waiting for him in the hotel room.

Speaker 1 I just, I'm slightly disappointed that we didn't attempt that. Well, it sounds like Christopher was very loyal to Pixie.
Yeah. By all accounts, he was a wonderful stepfather to her four daughters.

Speaker 1 And so no, you couldn't get Skace that way.

Speaker 1 If you want to get scace you need to mistake him for some other con man and then strip him naked in switzerland yes just randomly happen to accidentally arrest him when you mistake him for somebody else i mean maybe the photographer at mallorga was there to take a photo of the guy that the swiss police were trying to capture could be so disappointing they didn't quite manage to grab him yeah the closest we got is that amanda van stone who's on the podcast she managed to get scace's passport and she thinks that she may still have that in her garage so we never got Skase, but we got Skace's passport.

Speaker 1 What a story. So that'll have to do.
Do we know whether he actually was deeply unwell and unable to travel or was that all, are we able to reveal that it was all a big ruse?

Speaker 1 Look, he had his medical experts, I think there were about six or seven in Spain who we managed to get to say that, yes, he had this lung condition.

Speaker 1 Then Australia, we sent over our own medical expert to take a look and our expert felt that there was no issue the sense we get is that if he did have anything he was certainly bunging it on a bit because he was certainly seen out and about in majorca seemingly quite healthy but well the climate must have agreed with him beautiful majorca it's not for me to call christopher's case a liar no wouldn't dream of it but i think that's the crazy thing is that ultimately obviously he did die not of emphysema it was cancer i think that was the sort of startling thing is that after years of you know what you could argue as you know crying wolf eventually yes he suddenly sort of quite shocking when he suddenly did die it's like all oh, right, okay, gosh, all righty.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The wolf finally showed up.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Well, look, if you are that lung specialist who was planning to be part of the kidnap team, if you're listening at ABC.net.au and we'll put you in touch with Mark.

Speaker 1 I'm sure Mark would love to have a chat with you. Very much so.
You know, looking at kidnapping and how that fits in with the Hippocratic Oath and such. I think it'll be a fascinating conversation.

Speaker 1 I should add, I think with those experts in Spain, I think of the, I might be getting the numbers slightly wrong, but I think of the seven that had back Scase up, I think ultimately six of them

Speaker 1 changed their testimony.

Speaker 1 Ah, yes. Make of that what you will.
Excellent story. Thank you very much, Mark.

Speaker 1 The full podcast is called Scase Fall of a Tycoon. And Mark Humphreys is the host of it.
It's from ABC's program, Rewind. It's available.

Speaker 1 Is it everywhere you get a podcast? Is that where it is, Mark? Everywhere, absolutely. If you can find a podcast app that doesn't have it, then I will...

Speaker 1 I was going to offer a reward. I won't do that.
Send the White Knights. Exactly.
There we go. So, yes.
Should be everywhere. Fantastic.
Mark, thanks so much. Thanks, Pat.

Speaker 1 Next on, if you're listening, there's been a lot of speculation about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Some say as soon as 2027.

Speaker 1 But there's another way this conflict could play out. Could China take Taiwan without a fight? That's what we're exploring in Thursday's episode.

Speaker 1 And I think we might have mentioned the name of Mark's podcast a few times in this episode, but just to be sure, here's a little taste of Skace Fall of a Tycoon from ABC Rewind.

Speaker 6 This is the story of one of Australia's most successful businessmen. It's also the story of one of Australia's most loathed fugitives.

Speaker 7 This is the story of Christopher Scace.

Speaker 1 Christopher Skace was charming, audacious, powerfully charismatic, a hustler and a huckster.

Speaker 6 Christopher Skace was the man of corporate Australia in the 1980s. Skace had an awe of success.

Speaker 2 He came with that cowboy energy.

Speaker 6 He built a vast business empire.

Speaker 3 I used to call Christopher God. He was very clever at motivating people to do do things that he wanted done.

Speaker 6 And with his wife Pixie by his side, he charmed the country.

Speaker 8 They were the story of Australia. The billionaires, the extravagance, the lifestyle.

Speaker 6 The Skasers had it all.

Speaker 7 It's almost as if it was too good to be true. Too good to be true.
Too good to be true.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 6 it was.

Speaker 3 The largest corporate collapse in Australian history.

Speaker 6 Where did it all go so wrong?

Speaker 1 Everything he built up, he lost. The whole empire was built on debt.
Built on debt.

Speaker 6 And how did the man of the moment become a national pariah?

Speaker 1 Skace had done a runner and he wasn't coming back. This guy was a rat bag.
People just wanted blood.

Speaker 6 This is a story about big money, big hair, and a massive corporate scandal.

Speaker 7 Skace used the company as his personal bank account.

Speaker 6 And if something seems too good to be true, it quite possibly is.

Speaker 1 Too good to be true in a mirage, and both of those were prophetic statements.

Speaker 6 I'm Mark Humphreys, and from ABC Rewind, this is SCAC, Fall of a Tycoon. The first episode drops September 19.

Speaker 6 Search for ABC Rewind and look for Scase Fall of a Tycoon on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.