Australian collar bomb hoax arrested in Kentucky

A heavily armed US FBI SWAT team picked up a 50-year-old Australian man at his ex-wife's Kentucky home at about 4.45pm local time.

FBI special agent Elizabeth Fries said Paul "Doug" Peters was arrested without incident at the home, near La Grange, Louisville.

Two NSW Police officers accompanied the armed US SWAT team when they raided the residence.

[link to news.brisbanetimes.com.au]

I wonder if his 'ex' missus knew?

"...There was nothing unusual about Mr Peters when he returned to La Grange a little over a week ago, another neighbour said.

He continued to walk the streets in pressed khakis and neat button-downs.

His three teenage daughters appeared to suspect nothing of the crime over which he is now accused.

"He was very passive," the neighbour said. "Always threw his hand up. Always said: 'G'day.'"

"He was a really unassuming, nice person," the neighbour said. "He just looked like he fitted into the neighbourhood. He wasn't scary at all."

The Peters family moved to La Grange about four years ago – although it wasn't until about two years ago that Mr Peters started to appear regularly.

Neighbours assumed he was semi-retired but did not know what he did for work.

Sometimes he would look after the house and his daughters while his former partner stayed with family in New Jersey. Sometimes they would stay together.

"I don't think there was any personal relationship there," the neighbour said...."

[link to www.brisbanetimes.com.au]

He's a gutless wonder by the sounds of it - what if someone did that to HIS daughters :-(

the mystery deepens

"...Those who know Mr Peters from his days at the now defunct Allco Finance Group - he was chief executive of the company's Malaysian joint venture - say he left for the US about a year ago in an apparently futile bid to reconcile with his second wife...."

"...The house had been put on the market six weeks ago, with an asking price of $US400,000.

Mr Peters was also discouraged in his business. A colleague said he became increasingly disillusioned that his passion for raising investment funds that obeyed Islamic laws had failed to gain a wider foothold.

''He was disappointed that people didn't grasp what he was trying to sell,'' the colleague said. ''For him to have done what he's alleged [to have done], he would have had a massive nervous breakdown.''

After Allco collapsed in Australia, Mr Peters bought out its Malaysian arm, to create Douglas Corporation. But it too foundered and was dissolved some time after 2009.

Mr Peters was born in Hong Kong, the son of a Cathay Pacific pilot, and was sent to board at Scots in 1973 along with his two brothers.

''I am absolutely flabbergasted,'' said one of his classmates from the 1970s at Scots College. ''Paul was a fabulous part of our tight-knit crew,'' he said. A former girlfriend recalled him being part of a Scots gang known as the Muppets. ''They drove round in a white van and crashed people's parties and caused mayhem,'' she said.

''There was never anything in his psychology to suggest he might have done something like this,'' said another friend.

He was unlike his older brother Brent, nicknamed ''Brentos'' who was well known as the school bully.

Brent left school to become a bouncer in Kings Cross. At 25 he was charged with attempted murder of two police officers and at 28 he was arrested over a major heroin distribution racket based in Kings Cross.

Brent Peters was acquitted of both charges but school friends still joke about Brentos being famous for occupying ''a seat at the GPS table at Long Bay jail.''

Another brother, Wayne, 54, is a successful investment banker who was managing director of Swiss Banking Corporation in Australia, before heading to Hong Kong where he ran fund manager Allard Capital Asia.

Mr Peters went on to study economics and law at Sydney University and, according to his entry on the business networking site LinkedIn, his ''passion for Asia'' led him to return to Hong Kong in 1988.

He moved into investment banking, becoming a specialist in tax-advantaged leveraged leasing in overseas jurisdictions.

Though it seems the Pulvers do not know Mr Peters, their lives have taken oddly parallel tracks.

Mr Pulver went to school at Shore, just across the harbour from Scots, and was one year ahead of Mr Peters.

n 1998 Mr Peters moved to the US, to Connell Finance Company, based in New Jersey, from where his wife Debra hails.

In 2001 the Pulvers moved to New York, where Mr Pulver was president of an internet ratings company.

And the Pulvers own a beach house at Avoca Beach, minutes drive from Copacabana, where Mr Peters was well known...."


[link to www.brisbanetimes.com.au]