News

Australian police search for body of ATM fraud suspect

August 27, 2003

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Police vowed to find a man linked with the nation's biggest bank ATM fraud, despite an unsuccessful attempt to locate his body at an Adelaide home on Aug. 28.

According to a report in the Melbourne Herald Sun, detectives and forensic services officers spent six hours ripping up the floor and digging up the backyard of a house in Kilburn in Adelaide's north, acting on information that led them to believe missing person Quyen Tu Au was buried there.

Police searched the same address three years ago and found $4.2 million out of $6.3 million stolen from National Australia Bank ATMs in 2000.

A number of men were arrested, and two were convicted of using a stolen Bank of East Asia card to access the ATMs. Although Au was a suspect and was believed to have used the card himself on a number of occasions, police never interviewed him.

He was last seen by his family in August 2000, and police have been unable to find him.

Tiles had been laid over floorboards in almost every room in the house since police last searched, prompting concerns they were covering the disposal of a body.

Officers used industrial equipment and probes to break up the tiles and remove floorboards, but nothing was found. A search of the backyard unearthed bones later found to be from an animal, according to the Herald Sun.

Detective Inspector John Venditto said he believes Au is dead. "Given the information that has come to our attention at Major Crime, the inference is he has been murdered," he said.

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