The Bulletin has such a good “gotcha” today it has splashed the word across its cover – and it’s cringe material for ASIC and the DPP.

The
magazine’s reporters Eric Ellis and Preston Smith managed to do in a
couple of weeks what ASIC and the DPP had failed to over a dozen years
– track down fugitive Melbourne rag trader Abe Goldberg. Dishonest Abe
did a runner after the $1.3 billion collapse of his Linter Group in
1990, leaving several warrants outstanding but taking unknown millions
with him.

While Christopher Skase was relentlessly pursued until
both he and Laurie Connell beat their wraps by dying, and Alan Bond
served time and his henchman Tony Oates was eventually dragged back
from Poland to face court, Goldberg has happily gone about building a
property empire in Poland. The Australian Embassy in Warsaw even
renewed his passport for him.

The Bulletin scribes couldn’t quite resist a touch of le Carre shtick, but it’s a good read. Check it here.

So how is that The Bulletin
can find a fugitive who has been on the run from Australian justice for
14 years in just two weeks on a magazine’s meagre editorial budget,
when the full financial and legal force of the Australian legal and
regulatory system cannot?

It looks like the watch puppies haven’t been dozing – they’ve been in a coma.

The
interview with Goldberg displays his crooked nature best when he claims
the butler did it – or rather, his assistant, Katy Boskovitz. She
copped a stiff five-year jail sentence from Justice Shillington in the
NSW District Court, serving three, for doing Goldberg’s bidding. The
only money she made out of it was her salary, and The Bulletin has a worthwhile side interview with her as well.

The
various authorities will shuffle and mumble for a while, point to
Goldberg’s Polish citizenship and hint that 15 years is a long time
ago. But however they dissemble, it looks like they just didn’t try
very hard.