Details of an audacious planned international gold robbery , involving five planes from New Zealand , is included in the 1994 memoirs of West Australian mining identity , Sir Laurence Brodie-Hall , a copy of which Little Darwin picked up while prospecting through Darwin op shops over the Christmas period . It is a deluxe edition , limited to 250 numbered copies, this 213, signed by Brodie-Hall .
He tells how in 1980 he received a sensational Melbourne telephone call from John Howard, secretary of Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie,(WA) , who had been informed from London of a plot to fly out stolen gold from Australia .
A pilot , claiming to be a disgruntled member of a gang planning to steal 64,000 ounces of gold , worth $650 an ounce at the time , had offered to provide details for a reward .
A detective sergeant was sent to London where a meeting was arranged with the informant , named Johanssen , with authorisation for the payment to him of 20 percent of gold recovered as a result of the information . After a legal deal was signed , Johanssen, " spilled the beans ."
It was proposed to airlift the gold out of Australia by a company registered in Nigeria , using five ex-Royal New Zealand Air Force DC3s, on which an option to purchase had been entered into with the NZ Government . Investigations confirmed the option on the planes . Furthermore, five RNZAF veterans had been engaged to fly them .
There was to be a "grand flyover " from Auckland by the DC3s then onto Sydney, Alice Springs, Broome, Rangoon, Colombo, Bombay , Bahrain and across to Africa .
The stolen gold , said to include smelter gold , 400 ounce bullion bars and assorted items of carat jewellery (robbed from shops ?) , was to have been transferred from somewhere in the Kalgoorlie district by four wheel drive vehicles to Broome . There the new air transport company executives -"the crooks"- and the pilots were to be entertained at a dinner hosted by the Broome Shire Council .
One key man would supervise refuelling the planes and the transfer of the bullion and stowage within . It is not known why the caper did not go ahead.
Sir Laurence speculated that an aviation fuel shortage which extended to New Zealand at the time threw a giant spanner in the works. He did , however , wonder what happened to the stolen gold , stealing and illicit dealing in gold well known , there being a Gold Stealing Detection Squad in WA .
