Aust, legal difficulties in seizing Clark’s assets

Press, 16 July 1983, Page 14

Aust, legal difficulties in seizing Clark’s assets

NZPA Melbourne A Federal Government task force was having difficulty trying to take over the assets of Terrence John Clark, also known as Alexander Sinclair, the leader of the “Mr Asia” drug syndicate, the “Melbourne Age” has reported. The task force faced legal difficulties, and the report said the Federal Government could be forced to strengthen legislation on the seizing of assets of drug traffickers. Investigators estimated that Clark’s international syndicate smuggled at least ?113 million worth of heroin into Australia between 1976 and 1979. But they believe his known remaining assets are worth little more than $700,000, the report said.

Clark is serving a life sentence in Britain for the murder of an associate, Christopher Martin Johnstone, in October, 1979. A confidential report to the Federal Government in August last year from the Stewart Royal Commission into the “Mr Asia” syndicate recommended the seizure of Clark’s assets in Australia and overseas. The most valuable assets were overseas but investigators said they were bought with profits made from drug trafficking in AusIncluded are a luxury beachfront house in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and property in Fiji. The New Zealand Inland Revenue Department has halted any resale of the house.

Investigations in Australia are continuing but the Stewart Royal Commission has identified minimal assets in Australia. Jewellery and bank accounts worth only several thousand dollars were found in Sydney. Industrial land in Brisbane, which the Royal Commission said Clark had largely paid for, was sold late last year for $300,000. “It is only now after 50 investigators took more than two years to unravel a portrait of the Clark empire that some of the massive wealth accumulated in less than three years can be charted,” the report said. “It was not until Clark and almost all of the profits from his crimes had left Australia that he was caught.”