Fugitive fraudster nailed

By Simon Hendery

A fraudster who escaped from a British jail after masterminding a multimillion-pound satellite television rort is now behind bars in Auckland after private detectives tracked him down.

Police arrested flamboyant former Surrey radio station boss Chris Cary outside a Parnell restaurant on Thursday night - almost five months after he walked out of an open prison in West Sussex.

Cary, aged 52, faces being sent home to serve the remainder of a four-year sentence he began last April.
His lawyer, Roger Chambers, said Cary had not yet decided whether to fight extradition.

Cary admitted selling pirated satellite decoder cards over the Internet in a scam which the British pay-TV giant Sky TV said cost it millions of pounds in lost revenue.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned company - annoyed that Cary was on the run - hired the Auckland corporate security and investigation specialists The Couper Group after a tip that he had fled Down Under.

Sky TV was forced to spend œ30 million upgrading its system to get round the fraudulent smartcards. The Kingston Crown Court heard that Cary's Dublin company took in œ20,000 a day selling the cards before authorities closed in on the scam.

Cary called himself "Spangles Muldoon" when he worked as a disc-jockey for the ship-based pirate radio station Radio Caroline in the 1960s.

As a successful businessman, Cary led a flamboyant lifestyle before his arrest. He owned a Rolls-Royce with personalised "THE 60S" numberplates and owned a œ3 million mansion.

He walked out of the Ford open prison in West Sussex on August 11 and allegedly entered New Zealand five days later using a false passport.

He has been living in St Johns, Auckland, under the assumed name of Chris Broady, sharing a rented home with his de facto wife and their two children.

In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Judge Stan Thorburn remanded Cary in custody without plea until next week. He faces one charge of travelling on a false passport.

Detective Nevil Shirley of the Auckland police organised crime squad said the details on a passport allegedly held by Cary belonged to a dead British man.

The Couper Group's investigations manager, Mark Templeman, said the firm had watched Cary for several weeks while staff waited for British police to finalise an extradition application.

Mr Templeman said inquiries showed that Cary had been buying assets and setting up businesses in Australia and New Zealand.