KEY POINTS:
Patrick Gower and Greg Bowker are in LA covering the Xue search for the Herald
A New Zealand police officer has arrived in Los Angeles to assist in the hunt for fugitive Nai Yin Xue, but does not yet have any meetings arranged with US authorities.
Superintendent Neville Matthews, the New Zealand police international liaison officer based in Washington DC, flew in to LA this morning NZ time.
He said the decision to send him was taken last night and he intended to meet with the Regional Fugitive Task Force, which is run by the US Marshalls.
Asked why it had taken until today for a New Zealand officer to arrive, Mr Matthews said: "There hasn't been any need until now."
He denied the reason he has gone to LA is because there is pressure on the New Zealand end of the investigation to catch Xue.
He said he had been on holiday in Rome last week, "and unfortunately I am a one-man band".
Asked if another officer should have been sent from New Zealand to liaise in his absence, Mr Matthews said that was not required.
He hopes to meet with the US Marshalls, Interpol, and ICE - the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency - but the meeting has not yet been arranged.
Mr Matthews said he did not believe there had been diplomatic confusion last week. There were conflicting reports of the communications between New Zealand, Australian and US authorities and criticism from some quarters of the amount of time taken to issue an international arrest warrant.
Mr Matthews was met by several news crews from New Zealand and Australia on his arrival in LA, with some complaining of being shut out of information from the US Marshalls.
Mr Matthews said he believed the hunt was a high priority for the United States authorities as it has become "quite personal" to some officers. "They want to get this guy."
Xue abandoned his three-year-old daughter Qian Xun in Melbourne before taking a flight to Los Angeles. The body of his wife was found in Xue's car parked outside the family home in Auckland last week.
