Looking back at an old trip report for Phrae & a visit to the old Phrae governor’s house / museum, the history of the Shan rebellion came up.
The Free Thai / Seri Thai Museum - Phrae
In the earlier days there were many Shan people in North Thailand, imported from Burma, & working for the British logging companies.
The Shan first started moving into North Thailand & Laos in the 1880s when there was turmoil in the Shan states between rival groups.
They were a significant presence in Chiang Saen & Chiang Khong competing for power with the local rulers of the day, that often involved skirmishes & battles.
In 1890 one of the important places they moved to was Houei Xai & started the sapphire mining there. The Shan also worked in a gem mine near Phrae, where they also had issues & the Shan rebellion in North Thailand originated from a dispute here. The rebellion was eventually crushed & there is a memorial to a Danish Captain who led the Thai forces defeating the Shan in the final battle just south of Phayao.
The Capt Hans Jensen Memorial
Today the sapphire mines at Houei Xai are a multi-million dollar business, but on the way there has been considerable intrigue & a bit of skullduggery involved over the decades.
Here’s a story worth reading
Laos Sapphire Mines • A History
The land-locked country of Laos lies sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam. Largely mountainous, much of Laos remains untouched by the outside world. But this is quickly changing. The country once known as the Land of a Million Elephants is today a major producer of copper and gold… and now sapphires.
History of the mines
In 1890,[5] Shan diggers from Burma discovered nin (black spinel, an accessory mineral of corundum) at Chiang Khong, (Huay Xai), which lies just across the Mekong river from Thailand, in Laos. With typical patience they carefully prospected the area and eventually found sapphires.
While the occurrence at Huay Xai has been known since the 1890s, due to the small size of the gems recovered, the promise was never fully realized. Little serious mining occurred until the 1960s. Like many another sapphire mine, modern heat treatments make salable what was once too cloudy or dark. Thus the 1970s and 1980s saw a small-scale revival of sapphire mining at Huay Xai.
Since the 1960's, a variety of companies have rolled the dice, including Czechs, Koreans and Thais, with one French miner even diving into a sinkhole in the nearby Mekong River to recover gems. But most Lao sapphires were small, and with larger blue heated geuda sapphires from Ceylon flooding the market, little attention was paid to the Lao stone.
In 1994, Bjarne Jeppesen and his wife, Julie Bruns, founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong. They were granted a 15-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai. But this was to be a star-crossed venture, one that ended with Jeppesen and his wife fleeing the country amidst charges of embezzlement. His caretakers, Kerry and Kay Danes, were later arrested in a high-profile case that nearly caused a break in diplomatic relations between Laos and Australia (they were eventually released) (Hughes, 2002). In 2000, the Lao Government terminated GML’s mining concession and then nationalized GML’s sapphire mines.
Lao Sapphire • Max Green, Ted Doyle, Gary Shugg • Looted Millions • Love & Hate
From outside, the Madrid Bar looks no different than any other watering hole on Bangkok's Patpong Road. But step inside and one enters a dark world of societal misfits, heat-seeking mercenaries, out-and-out spooks and the merely semi-diaphanous. If you wanted to make an in-depth tour of the bars and bordellos of Thailand, any of the Madrid regulars would make a perfect guide.
The Madrid was that kind of place. You couldn't stay too long without losing a few brain cells. And if you did leave with halo intact, you had no business being there. But no matter how twisted, how crazy the night became, regulars knew the drill – never drop your guard. With feline or friend, never forget to feel for the Adam's apple.
In 1995, Ted Doyle was just one among many Madrid raconteurs. Each with a song about the Cong. But Teddy was different. He was a man with a mission – helping Melbourne lawyer Max Green launder millions from a looted trust fund account – and in the process, helping himself to a quid or two, too.
That night, Doyle took a seat at the Madrid bar, next to American gem dealer, Joseph Schall. The bearish Doyle naturally attracted attention, with "Love" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand and "Hate" on the other. And just to reinforce the image, a 25-ct. sapphire watched his back from a ring on one finger. It was that sparkle that caught Schall's eye. "Nice Ceylon," Schall remarked. Without a word, Doyle yanked the ring off and slid it down the bar. Over the course of a few drinks, Schall explained he had an office in one of Bangkok's biggest gem houses and the pair made a date to meet the next day.
And show he did – with plenty of dough. Over the next few months, Doyle was a regular, plucking out one fine gem after another, but always paying in cash installments of US$50–75,000 each.
Eventually, the odor of Doyle's money reached stench level. It wasn't as though Schall didn't want to sell to Doyle, but having been in the business for years, the situation reeked of money laundering. And so Schall stepped back, watching to see what would happen next.
A replacement was not long in coming. In November 1995, Doyle ran into Lee Wolf.
Understand. Doyle never lacked for lip. But over the course of the next five hours, he was reduced to nods and monosylabic grunts as Wolf waxed ecstatic on how he, with his fluent Thai, held the key to Bangkok's gem kingdom. Doyle swallowed it whole – hook, line, sinker – and angler's elbow.
Thus it happened. Amidst the Patpong banter of building bank accounts for distressed damsels, the ill-fated duo of Doyle and Wolf parried the Jesus of all gem deals. Within just two short years, US$20 million of Max Green's money would wash across their palms – some flowing up to Laos, all ebbing back out again – like a mekong whisky-nam-soda mix – pissed slowly out to sea. And as that water reached Phnom Penh, it blended with the blood of Max Green's lifeless body. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Max's millions
Just who was Max Green? Here was a man with the moxie to loot millions from a trust account, but so ordinary looking that he couldn't have attracted the attention of a good waiter in a good restaurant. Perhaps that was his secret. Nobody ever dreamed he could do what he did.
Green was born in 1952, growing up in Sydney, Australia. He graduated from law school and in 1976 moved to Melbourne, where he took a job as solicitor in a respected law firm. That same year, he married Louise Giselle Baron, daughter of a wealthy Melbourne property developer. 1981 saw him join the board at the fashion jewelry company, Emma Page. By 1984, he had left the bar and taken a full-time position at Emma Page. 1985–89 were spent in Austin, Texas, handling the company's US operations.
Upon returning to Melbourne, Green went back to practicing law. On 1 April, 1991, Max was brought in as a partner at the private law firm of Gary Vernon Shugg. In 1992, Shugg also hired Ted Doyle, whom he had met years earlier, to develop a computer system.
Doyle allegedly brought in another associate, Alex Hoffman. In 1994, Hoffman opened a Kiev office for Shugg & Green, but in November 1995, was arrested amidst allegations of money laundering, document fraud and arms smuggling, with some of the weapons heading for Cambodia. The workings of the Kiev office remain a mystery to this day. While Hoffman was later acquitted, one witness told police: "The idea was quite clear that [the office] was to attract clients for money-laundering purposes."
Shrug and Grin
The august firm of Shugg & Green was not long for this world. In July 1995, Shugg was found guilty of 17 counts of misuse of clients' funds and disbarred for five years. The company was placed into receivership with debts of A$2 million. Shugg later set up business in London. Max Green was never charged. Shugg later told an associate he had "gone patsy for Green."
The "beaut" project
Shortly after the demise of Shugg & Green, Max learned from his brother, Phillip, of a loophole in Australian tax law that allowed inexpensive equipment purchases to be entirely depreciated in the first year. And so he pitched a scheme whereby investors would buy such equipment and lease it to Melbourne's City Link tollway project. For every dollar invested, a further $4 would be borrowed from a Hong Kong finance company, allowing investors to claim 100% of the interest payments as a tax deduction. The suggested result was that investors would recoup in both profit and tax advantages well in excess of 15% of their original investment each year. This caused one to declare: "It looks like a beaut!" More than A$42 million was eventually sunk into the scheme.
Clients' money was placed into a trust fund. But Green secretly moved the dough into another account he controlled. From there, funds were transferred abroad to accounts in the Bahamas, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, etc., a veritable who's who of financial tomfoolery. To hide his tracks, Green paid interest into the trust fund, while producing forged documents that showed "purchase" of construction equipment.
Over $10 million headed straight into the Bangkok accounts of Lee Wolf. Some believe Doyle's name was not used on the transfers because his name was in police databases worldwide.
Mud from a stone
Doyle later claimed that Green spent US$20 million on gems, stones that Doyle said were later sold by Max in Israel. But no trace of either the money or Green's gem sales in Israel has ever been found.
The operation could have gone something like this: a few million in illegal cash is sent to Thailand for the purchase of gems. But since gems are not liquid assets, most likely the quid pro quo was for the newly purchased gems to be bought back after a decent interval, perhaps by a third-party cutout seemingly unconnected to the original seller, with a small percentage as the trade. Say $1,000,000 in gems is sold to the moneyman, and later sold back for $800,000, the difference being the "rental fee" for the period between their sale and the buyback. The seller is happy, with a nice percentage for the rental. The moneyman is also happy, since his money is now seemingly clean and can be moved abroad without fear.
Ted Doyle
Trevor John "Ted" Doyle was born in 1946 in Melbourne, Australia. At age 17, he joined the Australian Army, where he was reputedly a member of the elite Special Air Service (SAS). While in the army, he claimed his duties included spying on Vietnam War protesters. He also acquired a taste for heroin, which eventually led to his imprisonment and military discharge in 1966.
Ted Doyle continued to raise police attention. His photograph and fingerprints were first posted with Interpol in 1969. In 1974, Doyle left Perth for Bali, learning the local language and eventually marrying the daughter of a high-ranking Indonesian general, a connection that he later used in his attempts at gem dealing. By 1977 Doyle was back in Melbourne, and later reported destitute in Europe, where he contacted the Australian embassy for repatriation. He was also placed on a watch list because of his habit of losing his passport.
Back in Australia, he got into journalism, working on a variety of papers, including The Age, the Melbourne Times, and ABC radio. 1985–86 saw him working for smaller papers. At some point in the 1980's, he ran into lawyer Gary Shugg. Shugg led to Green, and after that, nothing was ever the same.
…and the Wolf Man
Lee Wolf
Lee Wolf was born in 1956 and grew up on a farm in Clifton, Texas. After graduating high school, he became a hard-hat diver, first in the Gulf of Mexico, then in Singapore and the Gulf of Thailand. His diving ceased following a severe case of the bends. By the early 1980's, he was in Bangkok, enrolled in a strict six-month Thai language course operated mostly for Christian missionaries. Although the Thai language training was to come in handy later on, Lee was never again known to associate with missionaries.
In the mid-1980's, Wolf's cousin asked him to be the Thai agent for his jewelry business. This led to the establishment of Pacific East Trading Co. in 1986. But the company did little until Max Green and Ted Doyle entered the picture.
Let the good times roll
When Max's millions hit Bangkok, Doyle and Wolf quaffed life from a Maxie-sized mug. The bell at the Madrid never stopped ringing. Not only did they buy rounds for the entire bar, but the pair thought nothing of spending US$10,000 a night to hire an entire Patpong nightspot in which to entertain friends. So easy was the money that one time, US$50,000 cash literally spilled out of a hole in Teddy Doyle's suit coat pocket as he hopped on the back of a motorbike.
Sources reported that once when a safe was opened at Pacific East Trading Co., it contained a bundle of US$100 bills the size of a small television. Doyle allegedly received parcels from Max Green containing travelers' checks from a Melbourne travel company. One contained $49,400 in 257 checks, wrapped in bundles of $5000. Each bundle had a different name on the checks. Doyle allegedly signed each check twice and then cashed them at a local bank. But giving money to Teddy Doyle was like asking a rabbit to deliver a carrot. There was bound to be a bit of nibbling along the way.
In April 1997, Doyle and Wolf set up Gem Houses of Asia to spend Green's cash. At a presentation at Bangkok's exclusive Oriental Hotel, they outlined plans to create a market niche for black and boulder opals. The project involved a cutting factory in Khao Yai. On one occasion, Australian police say, an Australian opal company brought opals worth millions for an exhibition to their Bangkok shop, staffed by bar girls as assistants. Along with so many other projects, funding for this dried up shortly after Max Green's death. The duo was also involved in high-profile charity events in Thailand.
Pandora's jewel box
Someone once described a mine as "a hole in the ground owned by a liar." That certainly applies to the Huay Xai mine in Laos, for these backwater sapphire diggings have had a troubled history indeed.
Lying along the Mekong River, the Lao mines were first discovered in 1890. Along with small dark blue gems, red garnets were also found. Taking them to be rubies, a Thai official went out and bought the best ruby he could find. This he sent to the Thai king, with a note saying it came from Huay Xai. Alas, the deception was eventually discovered; his fate is not recorded.
Flash forward a few decades. Since the 1960's, a variety of companies have rolled the dice at Huay Xai, including Czechs and Thais, with one French miner even diving into a sinkhole in the nearby Mekong River to recover gems. But most Lao sapphires were small, and with bright blue heated geuda sapphires from Ceylon flooding the market, little attention was paid to the Lao stone.mine definition
In 1994, Bjarne Jeppesen and his wife, New Zealand national, Julie Bruns, founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong. They were granted a 15-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai. Until then, Jeppesen, a Danish citizen, had had a career as a builder in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), along with stints hunting crocodiles and chartering ships. His experience with mining was limited to a brief go at gold mining in PNG, and poking for amethyst in southern Laos.
I first visited Huay Xai in 1996. Taking a small boat across the Mekong from Chiang Khong in Thailand, I hired a trishaw out to the mines, a few kilometers south of town. Along the way, my driver related that a farang (foreigner) was operating the mine. However, locals didn't like the situation much, since they had lived on the land for generations, but were now not permitted to work it.
My arrival at the mines was greeted by suspicion. Jeppesen was on site, and not the least bit happy I was taking pictures. But after a short chat, he accepted my academic credentials and agreed to show me around, explaining that they were just doing test diggings and would have a full processing plant up shortly. As I returned to town, I thought about Jeppesen's paranoia. This was certainly a curious sapphire mine.
Back in town, one answer was waiting. The manager of the small hotel where I was staying offered to sell me sapphire, and the next morning laid a few kilos of rough out on the table. This was obviously not GML's official sales arm. The material may have been poached by locals digging illegally on the concession property. More likely, it was stolen by someone working at the mine.
June 1997 saw me back for a further foray to the mines with my wife and daughter. First we visited GML's Huay Xai offices, where we asked about Jeppesen, but were told he was away in the Lao capital, Vientiane, and could not be contacted. When we asked about visiting the mines, the company official said it would be impossible. So I did what I always do when someone tells me I can't go somewhere. I go anyway. We piled into a nearby trishaw and again headed out to the mines.
This time, however, our arrival was expected. While I snapped a picture or two from a distance, a rifle-toting guard approached and made it clear that if I did not cease and desist, a bullet from his weapon would be shortly headed my way. Not wishing to destroy a perfectly good lens, I obeyed. As we drove back to town, an uneasy feeling again gnawed at me – this was one curious sapphire mine. And in the words of the immortals, it was to get "curiouser and curiouser."
All in the family
While all this was occurring, the Doyle/Wolf axis was busy with Max Green's money, as well as selling rubies and sapphires to Indonesia's military elite. According to Wolf: "…there was a lot of 'mad money' being spent by Indonesia's wealthy. They did not care what anything cost as long as the quality was top and the size or carat weight was larger than their peers."
Wolf and Doyle were also involved in the Lao sapphire mine. They had negotiated a royalty agreement with Bjarne Jeppesen's Gem Mining Lao (GML) whereby gems were sent from Laos to Wolf and Doyle's Pacific East Trading Co. for sale in Bangkok. But few sales took place.
At some point, Wolf and Doyle were reported to have loaned between US$2.7 million and US$3.5 million to GML. The investment was not necessarily "mad money." While the Huay Xai deposit never produced the big flash stones of Mogok or Sri Lanka, it was unmatched in the bread-and-butter jewelry sizes of half carat and below. Better yet, the paydirt layer was a relatively shallow six to eight meters. Mining at Huay Xai was like scooping up coffee beans, with sapphire everywhere in the drainages. The vast majority would cut 1–5 mm stones, with 20% requiring no heat treatment. Even with a large-scale mining operation, reserves were said to be sufficient for 25 years.
By 1998, through a series of transactions, GML was supposedly acquired by Asia Sapphires Ltd. (ASL), a company then listed on Canada's Vancouver Stock Exchange. Executive directors were Bjarne Jeppesen and his wife, Julie Bruns, but the public float was actually the creation of Gary Shugg, who lurked quietly beneath the surface. Shugg, who by now had purchased Belize citizenship for A$60,000, had become involved in the mine via his old mate Ted Doyle.
ASL was no mere shell. According to Australian geologist, Brian Senior, who did a detailed mapping of the sapphire reserves, many of the people involved were sincerely interested in developing what promised to be a world-class sapphire deposit. But Shugg, prevented from open participation due to his disbarment in Australia, really held the reins.
And all was not well in sapphire land. Brian Senior described to the author how an entire size sampling of sapphire rough went missing from a locked concrete building overnight during his initial geologic study and Jeppesen confirmed that theft was an ever-present problem.
In February 1999, ASL announced a US$1.99 million investment by Swarovski, a large Austrian gem company. But the whole project was already falling apart. When Jeppesen and Bruns did not receive their promised shareholding, they quit ASL, just about the same time that Gary Shugg's London-based "dissident" group attempted a board takeover. Each side traded charges, with Shugg and his proxy, Ian Webb, suggesting that Jeppesen was mismanaging the company. As evidence, Shugg cited the fact that one of Jeppesen's advisors, Harold Christensen, had earlier been sentenced to eight months' jail in Western Australia in 1995 for his role in a share-price support scam with a gold-mining company, Paragon Resources. He failed to mention his own tarnished past.
For their part, Jeppesen and Bruns claimed that they were being subject to a hostile takeover, with Shugg illegally diverting millions of shares to a Liechtenstein-based company. About this time, equipment at the mine turned up sabotaged. Sorting jigs were sliced up with cutting torches and the Lao sapphire project was in similar tatters.
The heat reached its peak on 28 May 2000, when Jeppesen and Bruns fled to Thailand amidst allegations of missing gems. Renting a house in Bangkok, the couple stayed eight months, then departed for Denmark.
The Lao government later convicted the couple in absentia for theft and misappropriations related to GML and sentenced them to 20 years. Perhaps two months after their departure, quantities of Huay Sai sapphire allegedly appeared in Chanthaburi's gem market.
When Jeppesen and Bruns fled Laos, they left behind unpaid bills, few friends and a letter appointing their security chief, Kerry Danes, to handle all GML's affairs. Danes agreed. He also cosigned a letter from Jeppesen accusing members of the Lao government of corruption. With our 20–20 hindsight, we can safely state something that even Danes would now agree to – this was not a good move.
Going Dane-ish
On December 23 2000, the husband-and-wife team of Kerry and Kay Danes was detained and accused of involvement in the theft of 130 kg of rough sapphire from the Vientiane office of GML.
Mr. Danes was general manager of Lao Securicor, a company that provided a security guard for GML's Vientiane office. Shortly after his detention, his wife Kay Danes was nabbed attempting to walk into Thailand with over US$50,000 in cash stashed in her bag, something she later described as the couple's life savings. Another US$98,000 was later frozen in local bank accounts. Despite the fact that Danes had declared the money (which was returned six months later) and was in the presence of an Australian Embassy official, she was arrested.
At the time of their arrest, Kerry Danes was reportedly on "leave without pay" from the Australian Army, where he had served many years, most with the elite SAS. The arrest of the Danes became a cause célèbre for many Australians, who demanded their country sever diplomatic relations unless the couple was immediately released. But the Lao government stood firm, and on 28 June, 2001 fined the couple and sentenced them to seven years in jail. The charges notably did not include gem smuggling or theft. By this time, Christensen, too, had seen the writing on the jailhouse wall, and had fled to Thailand.
Eventually, months of diplomatic pressure paid off. The Danes were released from jail on 5 October 2001. Still not permitted to leave the country, they decamped at the residence of Australian ambassador to Laos, Jonathan Thwaites. The Lao government issued a pardon on 6 November 2001 and they exited the same day.
As a condition of their release, the Danes agreed to pay A$1.1 million in fines and compensation, the payments to be made in four equal installments. Few, however, expected the Danes to pay. This was largely a face-saving exercise for the Lao government, who could then show to the world that they had not unjustly imprisoned the couple.
With the release of the Danes, the Huay Xai mine remains in limbo. French, South Korean (Buhae Industrial Corp.) and Lao companies are said to be operating concessions today (2002).
I know what you're thinking. Who axed Max? But in a question such as this, what is important is not who did the deed, but who bought the bullet. The $42 million-dollar question.
Certainly there were a number of people who had good reason to speed Max Green's departure to the next lifetime. From ex-partners to ex-investors to ex-lovers, those with a motive could fill a city phone book.
When asked, Lee Wolf suggested that "in the end [Max] had double crossed and taken money off the wrong people; Mafia types usually have only one answer for this type of behavior." Ted Doyle dismissed speculation that he was involved in Max Green's murder: "Yeah, I'm always in lao sapphire, lao sapphires, sapphires from Laos, Huay Xai sapphire, Max Green, Ted Doyle, Lee Wolf, Joe Schall, Gary Shugg, Bjarne Jeppeson, CIAfor killing people who give me money. Meanwhile there's a foolscap sheet of people Max took money off who nobody seems interested in. Some of them are not very nice people.
"I have been offered some flaky arrangements during my time but Max beat them all…. A very fine piece of monofilament was attaching Max Green to the planet. You are talking about a very sick soul who played with the wrong people…
"In the course of trade, Max got killed before he could pay his last bill. It makes it rather difficult for people to pay their bills. Not breathing affects your ability to write checks."
If you had to pick a kill zone, you could do no better than Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh. Thirty years of civil war had left a country teetering on the brink. This is the Wild Wild East. Guns as common as pencils, law enforcement MIA and lives bought and sold for little more than a pack of fags.
In March 1998, Max Green planned a visit to Singapore and Hong Kong. At the last minute, he added a stopover in Phnom Penh. We do not know why, but whoever played travel agent probably also acted as undertaker.
On 24 March, Max Green checked into Room 511 at the Sofitel Cambodiana. Between the hours of 3:57 and 5:57 PM, he made a number of calls. The first was to Ted Doyle's mobile phone in Thailand. Next he rang his business associate, Bill Lewski's home in Australia, but did not get through. He then tried Lewski's office, but again could not get through. At 4:53 PM he reached Lewski at his home. At 5:55 PM, Max again rang Doyle's mobile phone, but did not get through. He then called Doyle's office in Bangkok.
A hotel maid saw Green in his room at 6:10 PM. Two hours later he dined alone in the hotel's first-floor restaurant. The next morning at 7:30 AM, he passed the front reception desk and headed upstairs for a cup of coffee in the coffee lounge. This was the last the world saw of Max Green.
Between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM, someone entered Max Green's room. We do not know who because, although the hotel did have security cameras, either the tape went missing or the floor wasn't yet hooked up. His visitor was apparently expected.
The next day at 2:20 PM, a maid approached Room 511. It should have been empty, its occupant on an 11:00 AM flight to Hong Kong. But beneath the brass room number plate, the privacy light still glowed red. The cleaner rang the doorbell. There was no answer. Opening the door, she saw the key in the power box and heard the television. Gingerly, the maid entered, but stopped after seeing a man's feet on the bed. Assuming him to be asleep, she retreated.
At 3:00 PM she returned with her supervisor. They rang the bell again and entered. The lifeless body of Max Green lay face down on the bed, rouge staining the pillow with something that once was, but was no longer. The back of his head had been smashed against the floor, his face bashed against a stone table, so badly disfigured as to be unrecognizable. A necktie twisted around his throat delivered an apparent coup d'grace. On the floor was Max Green's gold Cartiér watch. Cash, credit cards and passport remained in the room safe. All that was missing was his laptop computer – that, and his life.
Outside the hotel, visible from Max's window, muddy water flowed down Mekong River. All the way from Laos, pissed slowly out to sea…
Maxie – poor, poor Maxie – you forgot the first rule – you let your guard down. You forgot to feel for the Adam's apple.
Postscript
Shortly after speaking to Max Green in Phnom Penh, Ted Doyle boarded a flight from Bangkok to London. In 2001, he was said to have suffered a serious motorcycle accident while on his way to Khao Yai with his son, Arta. One associate said: "Doyle was a terrible driver, and in Thailand, that ain't a good thing."
Gary and Veronique Shugg were said to be living in the West End of London.
Lee Wolf took the ups and downs in stride. As he told a friend, "You figure when you get a million or two, you'll be set for life. In reality, it don't take long to spend that." He told the author in late 2002 that he was trying to "put the wheels back on my wagon."
Following his death, Green's body was brought back to Melbourne for burial. Shortly after the funeral, his remains were exhumed under court order, just to make sure it really was Max buried in that grave. Yes, the body was that of Max Green. The location of Max's millions, and his laptop, remains a mystery.
Acknowlegements
A big tip of the hat to Joseph Schall for hours of conversations and background info. Also to Lee Wolf of Bangkok, who for the first time has spoken publicly about the Max Green affair. My buddies William Larson and Edward Boehm pulled yeoman editorial duty. Other private sources helped, but prefer to remain anonymous. And thanks to all those who continue to contact me with further clues to the Max Green mystery.
About the author
Richard W. Hughes is one of the world’s foremost experts on ruby and sapphire. The author of several books and over 170 articles, his writings and photographs have appeared in a diverse range of publications, and he has received numerous industry awards. Co-winner of the 2004 Edward J. Gübelin Most Valuable Article Award from Gems & Gemology magazine, the following year he was awarded a Richard T. Liddicoat Journalism Award from the American Gem Society. In 2010, he received the Antonio C. Bonanno Award for Excellence in Gemology from the Accredited Gemologists Association. The Association Française de Gemmologie (AFG) in 2013 named Richard as one of the fifty most important figures that have shaped the history of gems since antiquity. In 2016, Richard was awarded a visiting professorship at Shanghai's Tongji University. 2017 saw the publication of Richard's Ruby & Sapphire: A Gemologist's Guide, arguably the most complete book ever published on a single gem species and the culmination of nearly four decades of work in gemology.
Source: Ruby-Sapphire.com
See also: Ruby-Sapphire.com
The Free Thai / Seri Thai Museum - Phrae
In the earlier days there were many Shan people in North Thailand, imported from Burma, & working for the British logging companies.
The Shan first started moving into North Thailand & Laos in the 1880s when there was turmoil in the Shan states between rival groups.
They were a significant presence in Chiang Saen & Chiang Khong competing for power with the local rulers of the day, that often involved skirmishes & battles.
In 1890 one of the important places they moved to was Houei Xai & started the sapphire mining there. The Shan also worked in a gem mine near Phrae, where they also had issues & the Shan rebellion in North Thailand originated from a dispute here. The rebellion was eventually crushed & there is a memorial to a Danish Captain who led the Thai forces defeating the Shan in the final battle just south of Phayao.
The Capt Hans Jensen Memorial
Today the sapphire mines at Houei Xai are a multi-million dollar business, but on the way there has been considerable intrigue & a bit of skullduggery involved over the decades.
Here’s a story worth reading
Laos Sapphire Mines • A History
The land-locked country of Laos lies sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam. Largely mountainous, much of Laos remains untouched by the outside world. But this is quickly changing. The country once known as the Land of a Million Elephants is today a major producer of copper and gold… and now sapphires.
History of the mines
In 1890,[5] Shan diggers from Burma discovered nin (black spinel, an accessory mineral of corundum) at Chiang Khong, (Huay Xai), which lies just across the Mekong river from Thailand, in Laos. With typical patience they carefully prospected the area and eventually found sapphires.
The best account of the discovery of sapphire at Huay Xai is that of Herbert Warington Smyth (b. 1867; d. 1943). Then in the employ of the Siam Department of Mines, Smyth was sent by the Thai King to report on the newly discovered gem deposits at Chiang Khong, arriving at the mines in February 1893:
The gem-bearing gravel is not found until several basalt sheets are encountered below Nam Ngau, a largish tributary flowing in from the north. The hills on the left bank then become lower and more distant, and these, consisting of a dark crystalline rock, the exact mineralogical character of which has not yet been determined, seem to be the source of all the stone-bearing gravels which are found deposited in the streams flowing from them. The average thickness of the gravel is 5 to 20 inches, and consists of quartz and fragments of the crystalline rock above mentioned. The overburden is a reddish clay soil of an average depth of 10 feet, through which the Burmese, who are found wherever there are gems, sink large pits some 10 feet square. A sharpened bamboo will be often first driven down to ascertain if the gravel underlies the spot, it having been found very capricious.
Explorations were made in the neighbourhood for many years before—about two years ago—the first paying gravel was found; the Burmese relying all the time on the presence of what is known as nin, small black stones which have turned out to be black spinel, and are always to be found in close proximity to the sapphire. When washing gravel in a stream these little water-worn crystals are found; it will only need industry and time to find the gem gravel, which will be somewhere near, although in part perhaps denuded away. The nin have been followed for years, and now there are over two hundred men reaping the reward of their indefatigable patience. I found nin and struck gravel in all the streams flowing in on the left bank between Nam Ngau and Hoay Pakham, which is the main scene of the operations at present, and lies about 1 mile below Chieng Kong. On the right bank there are apparently no signs whatever, except at Hoay Duk, a stream exactly opposite Hoay Pakham; but only a few nin are to be seen here, and there is no water for washing purposes. East and north of Hoay Pakham, again, are half a dozen more streams flowing, from that side of the range I have spoken of as the source of the gravel, into the Nam Hau, which eventually reaches the Mekong. Some of these have been found to be rich, and on one the Burmese built their bamboo villages and made their clearings; but after a fortnight's work the places were abandoned as being terribly unhealthy, sunk deep in the jungle valleys, and very difficult to get stores to….
With regard to the rubies I had expected to find, from my own observation, and subsequently from conversation with the diggers, I soon saw that not only have none been ever found, but none of the signs of the ruby as known at Chantabun or in Burma have been seen. A Siamese official who had been sent here a year ago by the Government to test and report on the place, seeing some small garnets, thought they must be rubies, and thinking to advance himself at head-quarters, bought a very fine Burmese ruby for 70 Rs., and sent it down with his report as having been found in Chieng Kong! From this, of course, very large hopes of the character of the find had been entertained: I fear now he is somewhat in disgrace.
H. Warington Smyth, 1895, Notes of a Journey on the Upper Mekong, Siam
The gem-bearing gravel is not found until several basalt sheets are encountered below Nam Ngau, a largish tributary flowing in from the north. The hills on the left bank then become lower and more distant, and these, consisting of a dark crystalline rock, the exact mineralogical character of which has not yet been determined, seem to be the source of all the stone-bearing gravels which are found deposited in the streams flowing from them. The average thickness of the gravel is 5 to 20 inches, and consists of quartz and fragments of the crystalline rock above mentioned. The overburden is a reddish clay soil of an average depth of 10 feet, through which the Burmese, who are found wherever there are gems, sink large pits some 10 feet square. A sharpened bamboo will be often first driven down to ascertain if the gravel underlies the spot, it having been found very capricious.
Explorations were made in the neighbourhood for many years before—about two years ago—the first paying gravel was found; the Burmese relying all the time on the presence of what is known as nin, small black stones which have turned out to be black spinel, and are always to be found in close proximity to the sapphire. When washing gravel in a stream these little water-worn crystals are found; it will only need industry and time to find the gem gravel, which will be somewhere near, although in part perhaps denuded away. The nin have been followed for years, and now there are over two hundred men reaping the reward of their indefatigable patience. I found nin and struck gravel in all the streams flowing in on the left bank between Nam Ngau and Hoay Pakham, which is the main scene of the operations at present, and lies about 1 mile below Chieng Kong. On the right bank there are apparently no signs whatever, except at Hoay Duk, a stream exactly opposite Hoay Pakham; but only a few nin are to be seen here, and there is no water for washing purposes. East and north of Hoay Pakham, again, are half a dozen more streams flowing, from that side of the range I have spoken of as the source of the gravel, into the Nam Hau, which eventually reaches the Mekong. Some of these have been found to be rich, and on one the Burmese built their bamboo villages and made their clearings; but after a fortnight's work the places were abandoned as being terribly unhealthy, sunk deep in the jungle valleys, and very difficult to get stores to….
With regard to the rubies I had expected to find, from my own observation, and subsequently from conversation with the diggers, I soon saw that not only have none been ever found, but none of the signs of the ruby as known at Chantabun or in Burma have been seen. A Siamese official who had been sent here a year ago by the Government to test and report on the place, seeing some small garnets, thought they must be rubies, and thinking to advance himself at head-quarters, bought a very fine Burmese ruby for 70 Rs., and sent it down with his report as having been found in Chieng Kong! From this, of course, very large hopes of the character of the find had been entertained: I fear now he is somewhat in disgrace.
H. Warington Smyth, 1895, Notes of a Journey on the Upper Mekong, Siam
While the occurrence at Huay Xai has been known since the 1890s, due to the small size of the gems recovered, the promise was never fully realized. Little serious mining occurred until the 1960s. Like many another sapphire mine, modern heat treatments make salable what was once too cloudy or dark. Thus the 1970s and 1980s saw a small-scale revival of sapphire mining at Huay Xai.
Since the 1960's, a variety of companies have rolled the dice, including Czechs, Koreans and Thais, with one French miner even diving into a sinkhole in the nearby Mekong River to recover gems. But most Lao sapphires were small, and with larger blue heated geuda sapphires from Ceylon flooding the market, little attention was paid to the Lao stone.
In 1994, Bjarne Jeppesen and his wife, Julie Bruns, founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong. They were granted a 15-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai. But this was to be a star-crossed venture, one that ended with Jeppesen and his wife fleeing the country amidst charges of embezzlement. His caretakers, Kerry and Kay Danes, were later arrested in a high-profile case that nearly caused a break in diplomatic relations between Laos and Australia (they were eventually released) (Hughes, 2002). In 2000, the Lao Government terminated GML’s mining concession and then nationalized GML’s sapphire mines.
Lao Sapphire • Max Green, Ted Doyle, Gary Shugg • Looted Millions • Love & Hate
From outside, the Madrid Bar looks no different than any other watering hole on Bangkok's Patpong Road. But step inside and one enters a dark world of societal misfits, heat-seeking mercenaries, out-and-out spooks and the merely semi-diaphanous. If you wanted to make an in-depth tour of the bars and bordellos of Thailand, any of the Madrid regulars would make a perfect guide.
The Madrid was that kind of place. You couldn't stay too long without losing a few brain cells. And if you did leave with halo intact, you had no business being there. But no matter how twisted, how crazy the night became, regulars knew the drill – never drop your guard. With feline or friend, never forget to feel for the Adam's apple.
In 1995, Ted Doyle was just one among many Madrid raconteurs. Each with a song about the Cong. But Teddy was different. He was a man with a mission – helping Melbourne lawyer Max Green launder millions from a looted trust fund account – and in the process, helping himself to a quid or two, too.
That night, Doyle took a seat at the Madrid bar, next to American gem dealer, Joseph Schall. The bearish Doyle naturally attracted attention, with "Love" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand and "Hate" on the other. And just to reinforce the image, a 25-ct. sapphire watched his back from a ring on one finger. It was that sparkle that caught Schall's eye. "Nice Ceylon," Schall remarked. Without a word, Doyle yanked the ring off and slid it down the bar. Over the course of a few drinks, Schall explained he had an office in one of Bangkok's biggest gem houses and the pair made a date to meet the next day.
And show he did – with plenty of dough. Over the next few months, Doyle was a regular, plucking out one fine gem after another, but always paying in cash installments of US$50–75,000 each.
Eventually, the odor of Doyle's money reached stench level. It wasn't as though Schall didn't want to sell to Doyle, but having been in the business for years, the situation reeked of money laundering. And so Schall stepped back, watching to see what would happen next.
A replacement was not long in coming. In November 1995, Doyle ran into Lee Wolf.
Understand. Doyle never lacked for lip. But over the course of the next five hours, he was reduced to nods and monosylabic grunts as Wolf waxed ecstatic on how he, with his fluent Thai, held the key to Bangkok's gem kingdom. Doyle swallowed it whole – hook, line, sinker – and angler's elbow.
Thus it happened. Amidst the Patpong banter of building bank accounts for distressed damsels, the ill-fated duo of Doyle and Wolf parried the Jesus of all gem deals. Within just two short years, US$20 million of Max Green's money would wash across their palms – some flowing up to Laos, all ebbing back out again – like a mekong whisky-nam-soda mix – pissed slowly out to sea. And as that water reached Phnom Penh, it blended with the blood of Max Green's lifeless body. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Max's millions
Just who was Max Green? Here was a man with the moxie to loot millions from a trust account, but so ordinary looking that he couldn't have attracted the attention of a good waiter in a good restaurant. Perhaps that was his secret. Nobody ever dreamed he could do what he did.
Green was born in 1952, growing up in Sydney, Australia. He graduated from law school and in 1976 moved to Melbourne, where he took a job as solicitor in a respected law firm. That same year, he married Louise Giselle Baron, daughter of a wealthy Melbourne property developer. 1981 saw him join the board at the fashion jewelry company, Emma Page. By 1984, he had left the bar and taken a full-time position at Emma Page. 1985–89 were spent in Austin, Texas, handling the company's US operations.
Upon returning to Melbourne, Green went back to practicing law. On 1 April, 1991, Max was brought in as a partner at the private law firm of Gary Vernon Shugg. In 1992, Shugg also hired Ted Doyle, whom he had met years earlier, to develop a computer system.
Doyle allegedly brought in another associate, Alex Hoffman. In 1994, Hoffman opened a Kiev office for Shugg & Green, but in November 1995, was arrested amidst allegations of money laundering, document fraud and arms smuggling, with some of the weapons heading for Cambodia. The workings of the Kiev office remain a mystery to this day. While Hoffman was later acquitted, one witness told police: "The idea was quite clear that [the office] was to attract clients for money-laundering purposes."
Shrug and Grin
The august firm of Shugg & Green was not long for this world. In July 1995, Shugg was found guilty of 17 counts of misuse of clients' funds and disbarred for five years. The company was placed into receivership with debts of A$2 million. Shugg later set up business in London. Max Green was never charged. Shugg later told an associate he had "gone patsy for Green."
The "beaut" project
Shortly after the demise of Shugg & Green, Max learned from his brother, Phillip, of a loophole in Australian tax law that allowed inexpensive equipment purchases to be entirely depreciated in the first year. And so he pitched a scheme whereby investors would buy such equipment and lease it to Melbourne's City Link tollway project. For every dollar invested, a further $4 would be borrowed from a Hong Kong finance company, allowing investors to claim 100% of the interest payments as a tax deduction. The suggested result was that investors would recoup in both profit and tax advantages well in excess of 15% of their original investment each year. This caused one to declare: "It looks like a beaut!" More than A$42 million was eventually sunk into the scheme.
Clients' money was placed into a trust fund. But Green secretly moved the dough into another account he controlled. From there, funds were transferred abroad to accounts in the Bahamas, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, etc., a veritable who's who of financial tomfoolery. To hide his tracks, Green paid interest into the trust fund, while producing forged documents that showed "purchase" of construction equipment.
Over $10 million headed straight into the Bangkok accounts of Lee Wolf. Some believe Doyle's name was not used on the transfers because his name was in police databases worldwide.
Mud from a stone
Doyle later claimed that Green spent US$20 million on gems, stones that Doyle said were later sold by Max in Israel. But no trace of either the money or Green's gem sales in Israel has ever been found.
The operation could have gone something like this: a few million in illegal cash is sent to Thailand for the purchase of gems. But since gems are not liquid assets, most likely the quid pro quo was for the newly purchased gems to be bought back after a decent interval, perhaps by a third-party cutout seemingly unconnected to the original seller, with a small percentage as the trade. Say $1,000,000 in gems is sold to the moneyman, and later sold back for $800,000, the difference being the "rental fee" for the period between their sale and the buyback. The seller is happy, with a nice percentage for the rental. The moneyman is also happy, since his money is now seemingly clean and can be moved abroad without fear.
Ted Doyle
Trevor John "Ted" Doyle was born in 1946 in Melbourne, Australia. At age 17, he joined the Australian Army, where he was reputedly a member of the elite Special Air Service (SAS). While in the army, he claimed his duties included spying on Vietnam War protesters. He also acquired a taste for heroin, which eventually led to his imprisonment and military discharge in 1966.
Ted Doyle continued to raise police attention. His photograph and fingerprints were first posted with Interpol in 1969. In 1974, Doyle left Perth for Bali, learning the local language and eventually marrying the daughter of a high-ranking Indonesian general, a connection that he later used in his attempts at gem dealing. By 1977 Doyle was back in Melbourne, and later reported destitute in Europe, where he contacted the Australian embassy for repatriation. He was also placed on a watch list because of his habit of losing his passport.
Back in Australia, he got into journalism, working on a variety of papers, including The Age, the Melbourne Times, and ABC radio. 1985–86 saw him working for smaller papers. At some point in the 1980's, he ran into lawyer Gary Shugg. Shugg led to Green, and after that, nothing was ever the same.
…and the Wolf Man
Lee Wolf
Lee Wolf was born in 1956 and grew up on a farm in Clifton, Texas. After graduating high school, he became a hard-hat diver, first in the Gulf of Mexico, then in Singapore and the Gulf of Thailand. His diving ceased following a severe case of the bends. By the early 1980's, he was in Bangkok, enrolled in a strict six-month Thai language course operated mostly for Christian missionaries. Although the Thai language training was to come in handy later on, Lee was never again known to associate with missionaries.
In the mid-1980's, Wolf's cousin asked him to be the Thai agent for his jewelry business. This led to the establishment of Pacific East Trading Co. in 1986. But the company did little until Max Green and Ted Doyle entered the picture.
Let the good times roll
When Max's millions hit Bangkok, Doyle and Wolf quaffed life from a Maxie-sized mug. The bell at the Madrid never stopped ringing. Not only did they buy rounds for the entire bar, but the pair thought nothing of spending US$10,000 a night to hire an entire Patpong nightspot in which to entertain friends. So easy was the money that one time, US$50,000 cash literally spilled out of a hole in Teddy Doyle's suit coat pocket as he hopped on the back of a motorbike.
Sources reported that once when a safe was opened at Pacific East Trading Co., it contained a bundle of US$100 bills the size of a small television. Doyle allegedly received parcels from Max Green containing travelers' checks from a Melbourne travel company. One contained $49,400 in 257 checks, wrapped in bundles of $5000. Each bundle had a different name on the checks. Doyle allegedly signed each check twice and then cashed them at a local bank. But giving money to Teddy Doyle was like asking a rabbit to deliver a carrot. There was bound to be a bit of nibbling along the way.
In April 1997, Doyle and Wolf set up Gem Houses of Asia to spend Green's cash. At a presentation at Bangkok's exclusive Oriental Hotel, they outlined plans to create a market niche for black and boulder opals. The project involved a cutting factory in Khao Yai. On one occasion, Australian police say, an Australian opal company brought opals worth millions for an exhibition to their Bangkok shop, staffed by bar girls as assistants. Along with so many other projects, funding for this dried up shortly after Max Green's death. The duo was also involved in high-profile charity events in Thailand.
Pandora's jewel box
Someone once described a mine as "a hole in the ground owned by a liar." That certainly applies to the Huay Xai mine in Laos, for these backwater sapphire diggings have had a troubled history indeed.
Lying along the Mekong River, the Lao mines were first discovered in 1890. Along with small dark blue gems, red garnets were also found. Taking them to be rubies, a Thai official went out and bought the best ruby he could find. This he sent to the Thai king, with a note saying it came from Huay Xai. Alas, the deception was eventually discovered; his fate is not recorded.
Flash forward a few decades. Since the 1960's, a variety of companies have rolled the dice at Huay Xai, including Czechs and Thais, with one French miner even diving into a sinkhole in the nearby Mekong River to recover gems. But most Lao sapphires were small, and with bright blue heated geuda sapphires from Ceylon flooding the market, little attention was paid to the Lao stone.mine definition
In 1994, Bjarne Jeppesen and his wife, New Zealand national, Julie Bruns, founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong. They were granted a 15-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai. Until then, Jeppesen, a Danish citizen, had had a career as a builder in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), along with stints hunting crocodiles and chartering ships. His experience with mining was limited to a brief go at gold mining in PNG, and poking for amethyst in southern Laos.
I first visited Huay Xai in 1996. Taking a small boat across the Mekong from Chiang Khong in Thailand, I hired a trishaw out to the mines, a few kilometers south of town. Along the way, my driver related that a farang (foreigner) was operating the mine. However, locals didn't like the situation much, since they had lived on the land for generations, but were now not permitted to work it.
My arrival at the mines was greeted by suspicion. Jeppesen was on site, and not the least bit happy I was taking pictures. But after a short chat, he accepted my academic credentials and agreed to show me around, explaining that they were just doing test diggings and would have a full processing plant up shortly. As I returned to town, I thought about Jeppesen's paranoia. This was certainly a curious sapphire mine.
Back in town, one answer was waiting. The manager of the small hotel where I was staying offered to sell me sapphire, and the next morning laid a few kilos of rough out on the table. This was obviously not GML's official sales arm. The material may have been poached by locals digging illegally on the concession property. More likely, it was stolen by someone working at the mine.
June 1997 saw me back for a further foray to the mines with my wife and daughter. First we visited GML's Huay Xai offices, where we asked about Jeppesen, but were told he was away in the Lao capital, Vientiane, and could not be contacted. When we asked about visiting the mines, the company official said it would be impossible. So I did what I always do when someone tells me I can't go somewhere. I go anyway. We piled into a nearby trishaw and again headed out to the mines.
This time, however, our arrival was expected. While I snapped a picture or two from a distance, a rifle-toting guard approached and made it clear that if I did not cease and desist, a bullet from his weapon would be shortly headed my way. Not wishing to destroy a perfectly good lens, I obeyed. As we drove back to town, an uneasy feeling again gnawed at me – this was one curious sapphire mine. And in the words of the immortals, it was to get "curiouser and curiouser."
All in the family
While all this was occurring, the Doyle/Wolf axis was busy with Max Green's money, as well as selling rubies and sapphires to Indonesia's military elite. According to Wolf: "…there was a lot of 'mad money' being spent by Indonesia's wealthy. They did not care what anything cost as long as the quality was top and the size or carat weight was larger than their peers."
Wolf and Doyle were also involved in the Lao sapphire mine. They had negotiated a royalty agreement with Bjarne Jeppesen's Gem Mining Lao (GML) whereby gems were sent from Laos to Wolf and Doyle's Pacific East Trading Co. for sale in Bangkok. But few sales took place.
At some point, Wolf and Doyle were reported to have loaned between US$2.7 million and US$3.5 million to GML. The investment was not necessarily "mad money." While the Huay Xai deposit never produced the big flash stones of Mogok or Sri Lanka, it was unmatched in the bread-and-butter jewelry sizes of half carat and below. Better yet, the paydirt layer was a relatively shallow six to eight meters. Mining at Huay Xai was like scooping up coffee beans, with sapphire everywhere in the drainages. The vast majority would cut 1–5 mm stones, with 20% requiring no heat treatment. Even with a large-scale mining operation, reserves were said to be sufficient for 25 years.
By 1998, through a series of transactions, GML was supposedly acquired by Asia Sapphires Ltd. (ASL), a company then listed on Canada's Vancouver Stock Exchange. Executive directors were Bjarne Jeppesen and his wife, Julie Bruns, but the public float was actually the creation of Gary Shugg, who lurked quietly beneath the surface. Shugg, who by now had purchased Belize citizenship for A$60,000, had become involved in the mine via his old mate Ted Doyle.
ASL was no mere shell. According to Australian geologist, Brian Senior, who did a detailed mapping of the sapphire reserves, many of the people involved were sincerely interested in developing what promised to be a world-class sapphire deposit. But Shugg, prevented from open participation due to his disbarment in Australia, really held the reins.
And all was not well in sapphire land. Brian Senior described to the author how an entire size sampling of sapphire rough went missing from a locked concrete building overnight during his initial geologic study and Jeppesen confirmed that theft was an ever-present problem.
In February 1999, ASL announced a US$1.99 million investment by Swarovski, a large Austrian gem company. But the whole project was already falling apart. When Jeppesen and Bruns did not receive their promised shareholding, they quit ASL, just about the same time that Gary Shugg's London-based "dissident" group attempted a board takeover. Each side traded charges, with Shugg and his proxy, Ian Webb, suggesting that Jeppesen was mismanaging the company. As evidence, Shugg cited the fact that one of Jeppesen's advisors, Harold Christensen, had earlier been sentenced to eight months' jail in Western Australia in 1995 for his role in a share-price support scam with a gold-mining company, Paragon Resources. He failed to mention his own tarnished past.
For their part, Jeppesen and Bruns claimed that they were being subject to a hostile takeover, with Shugg illegally diverting millions of shares to a Liechtenstein-based company. About this time, equipment at the mine turned up sabotaged. Sorting jigs were sliced up with cutting torches and the Lao sapphire project was in similar tatters.
The heat reached its peak on 28 May 2000, when Jeppesen and Bruns fled to Thailand amidst allegations of missing gems. Renting a house in Bangkok, the couple stayed eight months, then departed for Denmark.
The Lao government later convicted the couple in absentia for theft and misappropriations related to GML and sentenced them to 20 years. Perhaps two months after their departure, quantities of Huay Sai sapphire allegedly appeared in Chanthaburi's gem market.
When Jeppesen and Bruns fled Laos, they left behind unpaid bills, few friends and a letter appointing their security chief, Kerry Danes, to handle all GML's affairs. Danes agreed. He also cosigned a letter from Jeppesen accusing members of the Lao government of corruption. With our 20–20 hindsight, we can safely state something that even Danes would now agree to – this was not a good move.
Going Dane-ish
On December 23 2000, the husband-and-wife team of Kerry and Kay Danes was detained and accused of involvement in the theft of 130 kg of rough sapphire from the Vientiane office of GML.
Mr. Danes was general manager of Lao Securicor, a company that provided a security guard for GML's Vientiane office. Shortly after his detention, his wife Kay Danes was nabbed attempting to walk into Thailand with over US$50,000 in cash stashed in her bag, something she later described as the couple's life savings. Another US$98,000 was later frozen in local bank accounts. Despite the fact that Danes had declared the money (which was returned six months later) and was in the presence of an Australian Embassy official, she was arrested.
At the time of their arrest, Kerry Danes was reportedly on "leave without pay" from the Australian Army, where he had served many years, most with the elite SAS. The arrest of the Danes became a cause célèbre for many Australians, who demanded their country sever diplomatic relations unless the couple was immediately released. But the Lao government stood firm, and on 28 June, 2001 fined the couple and sentenced them to seven years in jail. The charges notably did not include gem smuggling or theft. By this time, Christensen, too, had seen the writing on the jailhouse wall, and had fled to Thailand.
Eventually, months of diplomatic pressure paid off. The Danes were released from jail on 5 October 2001. Still not permitted to leave the country, they decamped at the residence of Australian ambassador to Laos, Jonathan Thwaites. The Lao government issued a pardon on 6 November 2001 and they exited the same day.
As a condition of their release, the Danes agreed to pay A$1.1 million in fines and compensation, the payments to be made in four equal installments. Few, however, expected the Danes to pay. This was largely a face-saving exercise for the Lao government, who could then show to the world that they had not unjustly imprisoned the couple.
With the release of the Danes, the Huay Xai mine remains in limbo. French, South Korean (Buhae Industrial Corp.) and Lao companies are said to be operating concessions today (2002).
I know what you're thinking. Who axed Max? But in a question such as this, what is important is not who did the deed, but who bought the bullet. The $42 million-dollar question.
Certainly there were a number of people who had good reason to speed Max Green's departure to the next lifetime. From ex-partners to ex-investors to ex-lovers, those with a motive could fill a city phone book.
When asked, Lee Wolf suggested that "in the end [Max] had double crossed and taken money off the wrong people; Mafia types usually have only one answer for this type of behavior." Ted Doyle dismissed speculation that he was involved in Max Green's murder: "Yeah, I'm always in lao sapphire, lao sapphires, sapphires from Laos, Huay Xai sapphire, Max Green, Ted Doyle, Lee Wolf, Joe Schall, Gary Shugg, Bjarne Jeppeson, CIAfor killing people who give me money. Meanwhile there's a foolscap sheet of people Max took money off who nobody seems interested in. Some of them are not very nice people.
"I have been offered some flaky arrangements during my time but Max beat them all…. A very fine piece of monofilament was attaching Max Green to the planet. You are talking about a very sick soul who played with the wrong people…
"In the course of trade, Max got killed before he could pay his last bill. It makes it rather difficult for people to pay their bills. Not breathing affects your ability to write checks."
If you had to pick a kill zone, you could do no better than Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh. Thirty years of civil war had left a country teetering on the brink. This is the Wild Wild East. Guns as common as pencils, law enforcement MIA and lives bought and sold for little more than a pack of fags.
In March 1998, Max Green planned a visit to Singapore and Hong Kong. At the last minute, he added a stopover in Phnom Penh. We do not know why, but whoever played travel agent probably also acted as undertaker.
On 24 March, Max Green checked into Room 511 at the Sofitel Cambodiana. Between the hours of 3:57 and 5:57 PM, he made a number of calls. The first was to Ted Doyle's mobile phone in Thailand. Next he rang his business associate, Bill Lewski's home in Australia, but did not get through. He then tried Lewski's office, but again could not get through. At 4:53 PM he reached Lewski at his home. At 5:55 PM, Max again rang Doyle's mobile phone, but did not get through. He then called Doyle's office in Bangkok.
A hotel maid saw Green in his room at 6:10 PM. Two hours later he dined alone in the hotel's first-floor restaurant. The next morning at 7:30 AM, he passed the front reception desk and headed upstairs for a cup of coffee in the coffee lounge. This was the last the world saw of Max Green.
Between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM, someone entered Max Green's room. We do not know who because, although the hotel did have security cameras, either the tape went missing or the floor wasn't yet hooked up. His visitor was apparently expected.
The next day at 2:20 PM, a maid approached Room 511. It should have been empty, its occupant on an 11:00 AM flight to Hong Kong. But beneath the brass room number plate, the privacy light still glowed red. The cleaner rang the doorbell. There was no answer. Opening the door, she saw the key in the power box and heard the television. Gingerly, the maid entered, but stopped after seeing a man's feet on the bed. Assuming him to be asleep, she retreated.
At 3:00 PM she returned with her supervisor. They rang the bell again and entered. The lifeless body of Max Green lay face down on the bed, rouge staining the pillow with something that once was, but was no longer. The back of his head had been smashed against the floor, his face bashed against a stone table, so badly disfigured as to be unrecognizable. A necktie twisted around his throat delivered an apparent coup d'grace. On the floor was Max Green's gold Cartiér watch. Cash, credit cards and passport remained in the room safe. All that was missing was his laptop computer – that, and his life.
Outside the hotel, visible from Max's window, muddy water flowed down Mekong River. All the way from Laos, pissed slowly out to sea…
Maxie – poor, poor Maxie – you forgot the first rule – you let your guard down. You forgot to feel for the Adam's apple.
Postscript
Shortly after speaking to Max Green in Phnom Penh, Ted Doyle boarded a flight from Bangkok to London. In 2001, he was said to have suffered a serious motorcycle accident while on his way to Khao Yai with his son, Arta. One associate said: "Doyle was a terrible driver, and in Thailand, that ain't a good thing."
Gary and Veronique Shugg were said to be living in the West End of London.
Lee Wolf took the ups and downs in stride. As he told a friend, "You figure when you get a million or two, you'll be set for life. In reality, it don't take long to spend that." He told the author in late 2002 that he was trying to "put the wheels back on my wagon."
Following his death, Green's body was brought back to Melbourne for burial. Shortly after the funeral, his remains were exhumed under court order, just to make sure it really was Max buried in that grave. Yes, the body was that of Max Green. The location of Max's millions, and his laptop, remains a mystery.
Acknowlegements
A big tip of the hat to Joseph Schall for hours of conversations and background info. Also to Lee Wolf of Bangkok, who for the first time has spoken publicly about the Max Green affair. My buddies William Larson and Edward Boehm pulled yeoman editorial duty. Other private sources helped, but prefer to remain anonymous. And thanks to all those who continue to contact me with further clues to the Max Green mystery.
About the author
Richard W. Hughes is one of the world’s foremost experts on ruby and sapphire. The author of several books and over 170 articles, his writings and photographs have appeared in a diverse range of publications, and he has received numerous industry awards. Co-winner of the 2004 Edward J. Gübelin Most Valuable Article Award from Gems & Gemology magazine, the following year he was awarded a Richard T. Liddicoat Journalism Award from the American Gem Society. In 2010, he received the Antonio C. Bonanno Award for Excellence in Gemology from the Accredited Gemologists Association. The Association Française de Gemmologie (AFG) in 2013 named Richard as one of the fifty most important figures that have shaped the history of gems since antiquity. In 2016, Richard was awarded a visiting professorship at Shanghai's Tongji University. 2017 saw the publication of Richard's Ruby & Sapphire: A Gemologist's Guide, arguably the most complete book ever published on a single gem species and the culmination of nearly four decades of work in gemology.
Source: Ruby-Sapphire.com
See also: Ruby-Sapphire.com
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