Fugitive's life of squalor

By ANGELA GREGORY, SCOTT INGLIS and BRIDGET CARTER

Fugitive drug smuggler Brian Curtis was living in poverty and had not paid his rent for months when a posse of police officers burst in on him this week and ended his eight years on the run.

The chief lawyer for Interpol in Manila, Ricardo Diaz, said his officers had conducted surveillance and tracked Curtis down with the help of the New Zealand police.

After gaining a summary deportation order, the police surrounded Curtis' rented apartment in a poor area of the San Andres Bukid district of Manila and kicked the door in.

"He was surprised. I said to him, 'Mr Curtis, it is over'."

Mr Diaz said Curtis became angry. "He said to me, 'I am Peter Coutts, an Irishman'."

But Mr Diaz replied, "It's over. You're going back to jail'."

When Curtis realised the game was up, he went with the officers peacefully.

Curtis had been renting a "poor man's one-door" apartment and his landlord said he had not paid his rent for four months.

He was alone when police arrested him but an upset 34-year-old woman later arrived at the National Bureau of Investigation.

"She was crying and crying ... Seemed to be his common law wife, his partner ... although with their ages they seemed more like father and daughter," said Mr Diaz.

He said Curtis had been living a miserable existence.

"There were no appliances, no nothing, and he was only wearing a T-shirt."

He said Curtis later told him he did not mind going back to New Zealand as he had had enough of being a fugitive with no money.

He asked Curtis how he had managed to escape from a high-security prison.

"He told me that with the help of another inmate, he had for four months kept unscrewing grilles in the prison."

Mr Diaz also asked Curtis how he got an Irish passport.

"He said, 'Please don't ask me that. It will be an injustice to those who provided me with it.' However, he told me he had not got it in the Philippines."

Curtis, described as a ruthless, dangerous drug baron, escaped from Auckland Prison at Paremoremo on August 18, 1993.

He was serving an 18-year term for importing 35,000 tabs of LSD, worth up to $1.5 million on the street, and had previous, serious drug convictions.

He arrived back in New Zealand under police escort yesterday morning.

Although handcuffed, he assaulted a photographer and a television cameraman moments after he emerged from the Auckland Airport international terminal.

First he hit Herald photographer Brett Phibbs in the mouth with his right fist and then he kicked a television cameraman who had tripped and fallen over.

The melee lasted just seconds before detectives bundled a cursing Curtis into an unmarked police car and took him to the Takapuna police station.

Nearly four hours later, the 67-year-old was in front of a North Shore District Court judge charged with escaping from custody. He was remanded without plea to reappear on Thursday.

The beginning of the end of Curtis' life on the run happened in 1994 in Amsterdam, when the fugitive - claiming to be Irishman Peter Coutts - was caught with a forged traveller's cheque.

It was a small-time crime which set off a chain of events that ultimately led to the arrest of a big-time criminal.

Dutch police fingerprinted him and released him, but those prints and the fact that he continued to use the same false Irish passport in the name of Peter Coutts eventually led to his downfall.

Three years later, in 1997, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Bush, then based at Interpol, sent Curtis' fingerprints around the world to police agencies, and in 1998 a match was returned from Amsterdam.

For the past three years, Detective Senior Sergeant Bush, who picked up the file again when he joined Takapuna CIB, has led a painstaking search, sending Curtis' details to hundreds of police forces around Asia and Europe, asking if they had him on their files.

This week, that determination paid off when police in Manila matched the identity and photograph to a house in Mercurio St in a rough, poor part of the San Andres Bukid district.

"He only had one passport and ... tripped up by being arrested [in Amsterdam.] We had a bit of luck on our side," Detective Senior Sergeant Bush said.

He questioned Curtis yesterday and helped to build a picture of the fugitive and his time on the run.

During the past eight years, Curtis had been based mainly in Manila and made regular trips throughout Asia and to Europe, including Amsterdam.

He did not hold down a regular, legitimate job but Detective Senior Sergeant Bush would not say if he had been involved in any criminal activity or how he had been funding his life.

"We're just commencing that investigation and he's given me a story which I'll look at. He's given me a rundown of how he was surviving - but that's pretty much between him and me at this stage."

The inquiry will examine if Curtis has committed any crime with a New Zealand connection.

Asked if he had thought this day would ever come, Detective Senior Sergeant Bush replied: "I was pretty open minded about it ... A lot of people suggested we were wasting our time and he was long gone, but I thought he was gettable, so to speak.

"You have to survive, he has to communicate with other people and we knew his possible identity."

Asked what sort of man Curtis was, he replied: "All I'd say is there are many sides to the man. Some people might say he's a personable, grey-haired gentleman.

"Some judges might say he's a greedy, ruthless person. Someone else might say something else.

"I'd say they're all right."

When Curtis arrived at the North Shore District Court yesterday, up to 60 people filed into the courtroom. Some were there just to see the infamous villain.

"I'm just here to see that man," one man said outside.

About 2.40 pm, the court registrar called for Curtis and police brought him in, still handcuffed.

The instant Curtis walked into the court, he quickly scanned the public gallery.

After stepping into the dock, with Detective Senior Sergeant Bush and two other detectives beside him, he continued looking at the public, flicking his head up as if acknowledging someone.

The appearance lasted less than two minutes, and he spent some of that time tapping his fingers along the wooden top of the dock.

Police then led him out to the waiting car and took him back to Paremoremo prison, where he has been placed in solitary confinement.

One person who was not in court was his wife, Georgina.

Eight years on, Mrs Curtis doubts whether she will try to contact the man she described as "a very loving father and husband."

"It has been eight years. I have got on with my life."

She comments that "he has aged a lot" and looked remarkably white for someone who had supposedly been living in the Philippines.

But just seeing him alive was a big enough shock.

For a long time Mrs Curtis thought he was dead.