Kerry Arthur Danes (a former Australian Army soldier born 21 October 1958 Longreach, Queensland) and wife Kay Frances Danes née Stewart (born 20 October 1967 Wynnum, Queensland) were imprisoned in Laos as civilians on 23 December 2000 and later convicted of embezzlement, tax evasion and destruction of evidence. They were ordered to pay fines and compensation of $AUD1.1 million.
After the Australian government intervened on their behalf, Kerry and Kay Danes were provisionally released on 6 October 2001. The pair signed a formal agreement to pay their fines by instalments, and a presidential pardon was granted on 6 November 2001, which enabled their return to Australia.
Kerry Danes
Kerry Arthur Danes was born in 1958 at Longreach, Queensland and joined the Australian Army in August 1976 at age 17. He took extended leave without pay in 1998 (aged 40) to try his luck in a civilian job in poverty-stricken Laos and enjoyed a relatively opulent comfortable expatriate lifestyle. His wife, Kay, and their three pre-teen children followed. After three years away, Danes returned to Australia in late 2001 (aged 43) and resumed paid military service sometime thereafter. In 2018, he reached the compulsory retirement age of 60 for Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, and was serving part-time with the Army Reserve as at December that year. According to Danes, his overseas military postings included Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank and Yemen.
Danes' online professional profile describes him as a Director of a private security company (with his wife), and "a specialist in risk identification and crisis management, governance, safety and business continuity planning" since January 2002. Prior to that, Danes managed Lao Securicor, a company that provided a security guard for the Vientiane office of the country's biggest sapphire mine, Gem Mining Lao (GML).
Gem Mining Lao
Background
In 1994, Bjarne (Bernie) Jeppesen (Denmark) and his wife Julie Bruns (New Zealand) founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong. They were granted a fifteen-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai, a small city located in the north, which lies on the east of the Mekong just over the river border from Chiang Khong, Thailand near the Golden Triangle. In May 2000, Jeppesen and his wife fled Laos amidst charges of embezzlement. The Lao Government terminated GML's mining concession and then nationalised GML's sapphire mines. Jeppesen's caretakers, Kerry and Kay Danes, were arrested later the same year.
Kerry and Kay Danes
By the end of 2000, Kerry Danes, a soldier on extended leave from the Australian Army, had been living for two years in the capital city Vientiane. According to American gem expert Richard W. Hughes, Danes was general manager of Lao Securicor (a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited), a company that provided a security guard for the Vientiane office of the country's biggest sapphire mine, Gem Mining Lao (GML). Amidst allegations of missing gems, the registered owners and founders/executives of GML had been prohibited from leaving Laos. Security contractor Kerry Danes formally agreed to handle all affairs for GML prior to two of their founders fleeing Laos on 28 May 2000 to Bangkok, Thailand (and later Denmark). More than 450 Laotian employees of GML lost their jobs. The Lao government later convicted the fugitive GML pair (who never returned) in absentia for theft and misappropriations related to GML, and sentenced them to twenty years imprisonment. According to Bernie Jeppesen (GML), Danes' subsequent problem resulted from his association with Gem Mining Lao.
Detainment
Kerry Danes formally agreed to handle all affairs for GML when two of its founders, Jeppeson and Bruns, unlawfully fled Laos to Thailand on 28 May 2000. Danes also co-signed a letter from Jeppesen accusing members of the Lao government of corruption. Two months after the departure of Jeppeson and Bruns, quantities of Huay Sai sapphires allegedly appeared at Chanthaburi gem markets in Thailand. Danes was the managing director of Lao Securicor, a security company in charge of shipping gems for GML. In December 1999, the Lao government had ordered GML to suspend exports of all raw and semi-finished sapphire products.