John Friedrich

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John Friedrich (possibly also known as Friedrich Hohenberger), born in Germany or South Australia, was Managing Director of the National Safety Council of Australia during the 1980s.

On April 6, 1989, John Friedrich was arrested after borrowing vast sums of money from Australian banks. He was later described as Australia's greatest conman when it was exposed he had faked career qualifications and was living in Australia under a false passport. On July 23, 1991 he appeared in court to face 91 fraud related charges involving over AUD$293 million.

On July 27, 1991, he was found dead on his farm near Sale, Victoria with a single gunshot wound to his head. His death was ruled a suicide.

[edit] Article Extracts

Sourced from Gerard Henderson's Media Watch Website...

Note: This extract references the organisation as the Victorian National Security Council - this is incorrect.. Although I was there & lived through 'Freddo's Airforce' build up - I will have to check with some insiders as to its official name(s) during that time. Also as far as I remember - he was in Western Australia when he committed suicide (DeafCom)

"Remember John Friedrich (alias Johann Friedrich Hohenberger)? The late Mr Friedrich stole money and then faked his death in Europe. Subsequently, he gained entry into Australia under an assumed name. An inveterate liar and serial thief, Friedrich became managing director of the Victorian National Security Council (VNSC). The VNSC went bust due to massive managerial incompetence. Mr Friedrich committed suicide in July 1991 – shortly before he was due to stand trial in the Victorian Supreme Court for fraud and shortly after he was interviewed at some length for a George Negus special on Channel 7.

All in all it was a sad case. John Friedrich became chief of the VNSC at a time when some banks were willing to lend on little security. In this case the (former) State Bank of Victoria (SBV) lent the VNSC around $300 million. The security was some 100 containers which Friedrich claimed were full of rescue gear but which, in fact, were empty. As journalist John Silvester pointed out at the time, the SBV "allowed the VNSC to make just $10 million a year but spend about $60 million".

It was a straight-forward case of fraud and megalomania. However sections of the Australian media, along with some left-wing conspiracy theorists, could not resist the temptation to label it all a gigantic conspiracy. For example, early on, the (then) Victorian Labor MP Joan Coxsedge told ABC Radio AM (28 March 1989) "you could imagine that the CIA would be rather attracted to" the VNSC. Well, you certainly could imagine this.

George Negus was heavily into this particular conspiracy theory. He maintained that Friedrich's scam on the VNSC was all part of a huge international intrigue. He told The Sunday Age's Paul Daley that the likely co-conspirators should not be confined to the CIA:

To make a connection alone between Friedrich and the CIA is limiting it. If there is a conspiracy theory that could be advanced, the red herring would be to restrict it to the CIA. The intelligence community is very broad (Sunday Age, 28 July 1991).

George Negus also told Paul Davey that he was almost certain Friedrich and Hohenberger were not the same person. The fact is that there was no evidence of any kind to link Friedrich's fraud with any intelligence agency, including the CIA. Moreover, it is clear that Hohenberger changed his name to Friedrich – as he himself conceded to Australian immigration officials before his death. Yet as late as September 1994 – when he published a collection of his newspaper columns in By George!: Twenty Years behind the typewriter (ABC Books, 1994) – Mr Negus was still alleging "governments and police" were covering up the Friedrich case.

The truth was quite hum-drum. As John Silvester wrote at the time:

If you believed everything you've heard about Friedrich since he shot himself last Friday, he worked for the CIA, KGB and ASIO and was probably a pen pal to Anthony Blunt. A lot of mystery that surrounded Friedrich was fanned by the man himself… The truth is that the National Safety Council Friedrich headed was not a front for any clandestine intelligence organisation. (Herald Sun, 1 August 1991).

It turned out that the CIA/ASIO allegations grew from the fact that, in one instance, the Australian Federal Police hired a helicopter from the VNSC to monitor a demonstration against the Australian/United States Joint Facility at Pine Gap. That's all. But it was good enough for your man George."

From the City of Sale Site..

The National Safety Council of Australia (NSCA) was established at the West Sale aerodrome in 1980. By 1989 a staff of 430 had developed. The inventory of the NSCA included a fleet of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, a flag ship, mini-submarine, training yacht, divining tender and all kinds of rescue boats, cars, trucks and all terrain vehicles.

The NSCA became a world-class search and rescue organisation, setting the world standard for pararescue and set the world benchmark for hyperbaric services involving the use of portable decompression chambers for patients such as divers suffering from the bends.

The rapid growth and expertise of the NSCA did not save it from its collapse in 1989. Somehow Chief Executive John Friedrich (later identified as John Friedrich Hohenberger) had founded the whole of the NSCA on a deception. Money lenders were happy to finance his dream, believing that large steel containers were anything but empty! A man hunt ensued after Friedrich disappeared. In 1991 shortly before he was about to plead guilty in the Supreme Court to obtaining property by deception, Freidrich was found dead on his Seaton property with a revolver by his side.

It was discovered that Friedrich had entered Australia on 20 January 1975. Two days later, he completed departure forms but walked back in through the airports departure gates. It was determined that he had died at his own hand - a psychologist stating that he had been living in a world of total fantasy, the organisation supporting his self-delusion of importance and superiority.

It was never investigated as to how one man, acting alone, in a real world, was able to build up a world-class rescue organisation through such fantastic deceit!"

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