Hunt over for Crocodile Dundee adviser
A BRITISH tax adviser known as the “Bowler Hat Englishman”, who is accused of stealing £20million from the star of Crocodile Dundee, has been arrested after 13 years on the run.
Philip Jepson Egglishaw, 63, has been wanted by Australian authorities since fleeing the country in 2004.
It is alleged he was the mastermind behind a £200million network of tax avoidance schemes and lured prominent Australians into them for more than three years.
His most high-profile alleged victim was Paul Hogan, the star of the hit Eighties film Crocodile Dundee, who settled a longrunning financial dispute with the Australian tax authorities in 2012.
In 2013, an international arrest warrant was issued after Mr Egglishaw was accused of stealing the money, which was being held in a Swiss account for the actor.
Mr Hogan has been trying to track him down ever since. His advisers took legal action in the US, alleging Mr Egglishaw had “absconded with or spent all” of the actor’s millions. The funds had been in an account at the Corner Bank in Lausanne run by Geneva-based Strachans, an accounting firm in which Mr Egglishaw was involved and was previously based in Jersey.
Mr Egglishaw has been living in Switzerland and it is thought local law enforcement had been unwilling to execute the international warrant.
However, it is understood that last month, after trying to leave the country to go on holiday in Italy, he triggered an Interpol Red Notice, notifying border officials of his wanted status.
According to the notice, Mr Egglishaw faces a total of 10 charges, including conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud.