SCMP article - The original A Scalers
 

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this... Check out the red text...

Suspect in Sydney collar bomb hoax a former HK expat
FBI arrest Asia-based businessman accused of terrorising schoolgirl in extortion bid

Staff Reporter and Agence France-Presse in Sydney
Updated on Aug 17, 2011

A former member of Hong Kong's expatriate Australian community has been arrested by an FBI special weapons and tactics team in the United States over an extortion incident in which a fake bomb was strapped around the neck of a Sydney schoolgirl.

Part of the Asian finance scene, Paul "Doug" Peters is accused of being the masked man who subjected Madeleine Pulver, 18, to a horrifying 10-hour ordeal earlier this month after breaking into her home and locking the device around her neck. Pulver is a member of one of Sydney's richest families.

The FBI arrested Peters on Monday without incident at his ex-wife's house in a well-heeled suburb near Louisville.

US judge Dave Whalin yesterday ordered the 50-year-old jailed pending an extradition hearing set for October 14 in Louisville. The defendant's ex-wife, Debra Peters, sat alone in the front row, weeping quietly.

"I will tell you that he will contest these charges" in Australia, his lawyer, Scott Cox said on the courthouse steps following the hearing.

Peters' profile on the LinkedIn website says he is managing director of the Douglas Corporation, formerly Allco Finance Group Malaysia, for which he has divided his time between Malaysia and Hong Kong, working on structured finance deals.

The website says he worked in Hong Kong for six years in total, including a stint as a partner and director of Asian Capital Partners. His other former employers included private US financier the Connell Company.

Peters, the son of a Cathay Pacific pilot, went to Kowloon Junior English School from 1966 to 1972 before completing his schooling at Sydney's exclusive Scots College, along with his brothers Wayne and Brent.

Wayne, 54, is now an investment banker. Brent, his other older brother has a colourful past. At 25, Brent was charged with the attempted murder of two police officers. Three years later he was arrested over a major heroin distribution racket.

A friend who used to play schoolboy rugby with Paul Peters told the Herald that after his studies in economics and law at the University of Sydney, Peters returned to Hong Kong to join the finance world.

A friend who knew Peters as an adult in Asia said: "He liked the finer things in life - French wine, French champagne, horse-riding."

Australian police said Peters had indirect links to the Pulver family - but was not known to them - and had family and business ties in both the US and Australia.

However, his primary residence was now in Sydney.

"It was a fairly detailed chain of circumstantial evidence that led to the arrest this morning," New South Wales police assistant commissioner Dave Hudson said at a press conference with New South Wales police commissioner Andrew Scipione.

According to US court documents released yesterday, authorities showed a trail of clues leading to Peters, including credit card charges and computer IP addresses.

They say the teenager was in her bedroom when she saw the intruder walk in carrying a black aluminium baseball bat and wearing a striped, multi-coloured balaclava over his head. The man told her to sit down and no one would get hurt.

The girl sat on her bed and the intruder forced a black box against her throat and looped a device similar to a bike chain around her neck.

The man locked the box into position around her neck and placed a lanyard and a plastic document sleeve around her neck. It contained a handwritten note with demands and an e-mail address and a USB digital storage device. The note was signed "Dirk Struan", the name of a character in James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan who uses ruthlessness to rise to the top of a business empire in 19th century Hong Kong.

Australian authorities determined that the G-mail account was established in May from an IP address linked to a Chicago airport. Travel documents showed that Peters had been at the airport that day.

The account was accessed three times on the afternoon of August 3, almost two hours after the hoax device was placed around the teenager's neck. The device was found to contain no explosives.

Three days after Peters took a one-way flight from Sydney to Louisville on August 8, a Louisville FBI agent spotted him in the back yard of his ex-wife's house.

Madeleine's father, Bill, said he hoped the arrest marked the beginning of the end of his family's ordeal. He said his daughter was "a bright, happy young woman who had her life turned upside down".

Yep CX, Kowloon Junior School & Scots was big in the 70s and 80s.

Peters
 

So what's your point?

bad to see KJS dragged into this, a great school with many fine graduates leading the industry in many fields.

Flying Mechanic

Couldn't agree more. But at least he didn't tarnish the name of KGV as well!

There must be more to this story than meets the eye, as I assume will be revealed in due course.

If one looks at how this was executed one you could only conclude that he desperately wanted to be caught. One explanation is that he has gone off the reservation and will spend the rest of his days in a straight jacket but there is another far more plausible explanation.

While his career as a so-called 'high achiever' was more self-promotion than reality, he is no man's fool. That said seems to have struggled these past 4 years to maintain the image. His life basically fell to pieces and through a healthy dose of delusion and fantasy he envisaged writing and getting his novel published. Well he wrote it but couldn't get it published.

Nothing like a bit of publicity to get over that little speed bump.

Being delusional, he probably expects to do 18 months and get on with being a (in)famous murder mystery novelist. Sadly the reality is that he could face 25-30 years porridge although as a first time offender with no minors involved he may get away with 10 years.

Certainly if the beak believes his motivation was self-publicity, a very large book will be hurled in his direction.:(

Based on states, Peters was found due to an email address he'd left on the collar bomb ransom note. That fifty-year-old Paul Douglas Peters, the suspect in the Aussie teen collar bomb case, has been captured by federal authorities - Aussie teen collar bomb suspect nabbed by FBI, reports the Guardian. Peters was captured at his ex-wife's house by a joint task force consisting of an Federal Bureau of Investigation Swat team and Australian law enforcement.