Philip Egglishaw arrested due to INTERPOL red notice in Italy over alleged tax-avoidance scam
PHILIP Egglishaw thought he had nothing to fear when he checked into the luxurious Villa d’Este hotel on the banks of Lake Como in northern Italy.
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PHILIP Egglishaw thought he had nothing to fear when he checked into the luxurious Villa d’Este hotel on the banks of Lake Como in northern Italy.
An INTERPOL arrest notice had been issued against him in 2008 by Australia for allegedly masterminding a $2.2 billion tax fraud, but had never been acted on.
Indeed, Englishman Egglishaw, 63, and his partner, British citizen Sheila Jordan 52, had a house in Geneva, Switzerland, right above a police station.
The police had never shown any interest in him — they played with his Saint Bernard dog, and turned a blind eye when he parked his $277,000 convertible white Bentley with its French registration plates in the waiting area on the nearby road.
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Egglishaw was the key person of interest in the inquiry known as Project Wickenby, an investigation into a sophisticated tax-avoidance scam which eventually saw 46 people convicted, music promoter Glenn Wheatley jailed and led to a decade-long dispute between the Tax Office and Crocodile Dundee actor Paul Hogan and his business partner John Cornell.
But since leaving Australia in 2004, Egglishaw has been travelling freely between Monaco, where he has a villa, and Geneva, driving one of his fleet of luxury cars across the continent.
He played golf in France and went on regular holidays.
On May 2, he and Ms Jordan checked into the finest hotel in Italy, taking the keys to room 560, a gorgeous suite with a balcony and views across Lake Como, furnished with antiques.
It cost $2500 a night.
But Egglishaw’s luck had run out.
That night, the hotel uploaded the passport details of each of its guests to a police database, as every hotel in Italy is required to do.
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The computer picked up the arrest warrant, known as an INTERPOL red notice.
At 9.30am the next day, four police in two marked cars drove through the manicured grounds of the Villa d’Este, in the medieval village of Cernobbio, just outside Como.
They arrived unannounced at Egglishaw’s room, in the Queen’s Pavilion, tucked in behind the hotel’s jaw-dropping floating swimming pool, which is suspended in Lake Como.
Neighbours George and Amal Clooney motor past the pool when they arrive by private boat to dine in the hotel’s Veranda Restaurant, where guests dress in dinner jackets and designer gowns, and the waiters wear white tuxedos.
The four officers from the Como Squadra Volante — the flying squad — were quick, but efficient.
Armed with an “order of arrest,’’ dated November 25, 2008, the officers informed Egglishaw he was under arrest for 11 offences of fraud and money-laundering, allegedly committed between 1994 and 2005.
Some of the charges allege offences of more than $1 million at a time.
In 30 minutes, they had searched the room, seizing Egglishaw’s laptop, eight USB sticks, three smart phones and two external hard-drives.
They found the keys to his beloved Bentley convertible, parked in the hotel’s underground garage.
Police also found Egglishaw had the keys to three other cars — a Lamborghini, an Audi and a Mazda 6.
They escorted the Englishman downstairs to their cars and took him to the Como police station, where he was interviewed, and taken to the Bassone jail.
The hotel’s general manager, Massimo Dorino, was present during the police raid, and acted as an interpreter between Egglishaw and Jordan, who both speak fluent French as well as English, and the Italian-speaking police officers.
Mr Dorino declined to comment when approached by News Corp, saying he did not have any further information to share on the matter.
“We are not authorised to release any information due (to) the privacy and regulation of our past and present guest(s),’’ he said in an email.
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THE CASE CIRCONDARIALE AT BASSONE
Villa d’Este and Bassone Prison are 16 kilometres and a million miles apart.
The prison, officially known as the Case Circondariale at Bassone, is a medium-security facility set in a dusty outer suburb of Como, and incarcerates up to 180 male prisoners and up to 50 female prisoners at any one time.
This has been Egglishaw’s home since May 3.
Prison regulations state all inbound prisoners must arrive in handcuffs, and undergo a search and pat-down.
He was probably spared the indignity of a strip-search.
His first few days were spent on suicide watch, standard for all prisoners, before he was moved into the general prison population in a cell on the second floor.
High-profile lawyer Luca Marafioti, from Rome, represented Egglishaw for a number of weeks, although has since resigned.
He told News Corp it was his opinion that the statute of limitations — the time period in which
prosecutors can charge Egglishaw — had expired.
“He was arrested under INTERPOL warrant,’’ Mr Marafioti confirmed.
In a brief and private appearance in the Corta d’Appello, or the Milan District Court, Egglishaw told the judge the same thing — that the prosecutors had run out of time, and he did not believe he ought to be returned to Australia.
Egglishaw is thought to have told the judge he had been living and working freely in Europe and was not on the run at the time he was arrested.
Italy’s Procuratore Generale, which is handling the case, will argue to the court he should be
returned to Australia.
In the meantime, Egglishaw will wait inside the prison, his request for home detention rejected by the court, even after he offered to rent a house nearby, in Italy.
Italy has already received the papers to begin the extradition proceedings, from Australian Attorney-General George Brandis.
A date has yet to be set for the hearing, which will not be held in an open court.
LIVING THE QUIET LIFE
The home address Egglishaw gave the Italian police when he was arrested was a rental flat in an apartment building on Rue Adrien-Lachenal, a quiet, up-market street near the city centre in Geneva, the wealthy banking city in Switzerland.
Egglishaw and Ms Jordan had lived there for years, but according to neighbours, it was their second home, with their main address being a villa in Monaco, the principality on the Mediterranean which, like Switzerland, is considered a tax haven and a highly-desirable place for international banking due to strict secrecy provisions.
The pair are thought to have children — a girl aged about 14 and a boy aged about 20 — who did not live in Geneva and are thought to have lived in Monaco.
The apartment is in a modern building in a small square just outside the Geneva CBD, opposite a sushi restaurant, with an organic cafe and a small beachwear shop nearby.
News Corp spoke to several neighbours who said the pair lived quietly, with Egglishaw often seen out walking with his dogs, usually wearing a distinctive hat.
The couple had a large, friendly Saint Bernard dog which the police at the station in the bottom of their apartment building would play with, while Ms Jordan was often seen walking a pair of poodles.
Neighbours said she sometimes took a taxi to go shopping, and the children would occasionally come to Geneva, shopping for thongs at the beachwear shop across the square.
Egglishaw would exercise on an elliptical machine set up in the window of the apartment and was often seen driving his white Bentley, which would not have looked out of place among the luxury cars in the neighbourhood.
He also owned a four-wheel drive, and built a ramp to allow the Saint Bernard access to the rear of the car.
He made trips into France to play golf and the pair travelled frequently between Geneva and Monaco, a trip of about six hours, either through France or Italy.
Ms Jordan, who did not return calls from News Corp, is understood to have abandoned the flat after Egglishaw’s arrest, and a new tenant has moved in.
Egglishaw was able to move freely between the countries due to the Schengen agreement, a decades-old deal struck with European countries that allows free movement of people, and essentially abolished passport checks at the borders.
While Italy, France and Switzerland are Schengen members, Monaco is not, but, like the Vatican, allows open travel with its neighbours.
Egglishaw would have known the chances of him being pulled up by border police were remote.
The most obvious way for him to have travelled from Geneva is through the Brogeda crossing between Chiasso in Switzerland and Como in Italy, a busy, open border point which averages 40,000 vehicles a day.
Even his flashy car would not have stood out in this wealthy part of the world — in just a five minute period News Corp counted six Audis, 12 Mercedes, eight BMWs, a Range Rover, a Porsche, a Ferrari and a Maserati pass through.
Now, his only transport is a prison van, and if Australian authorities get their way, a tax-payer-funded one-way plane trip to Australia.
Originally published as Philip Egglishaw arrested due to INTERPOL red notice in Italy over alleged tax-avoidance scam
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