The Perth Mint Swindle is the popular name for the robbery of 49 gold bars weighing from the Perth Mint in Western Australia on 22 June 1982. The bullion was valued at A$653,000 at that time (). , the value of of gold would be in excess of A$6.4 million. According to police at the time, three brothers—Ray, Peter, and Brian Mickelberg—orchestrated the robbery. The three went to trial and were found guilty of the conspiracy and sentenced in 1983 to twenty, sixteen and twelve years in jail, respectively.
All three convictions were overturned in 2004. To date, the case remains unsolved and continues to be fought by the Mickelbergs who maintain their innocence and allege a conspiracy by the Western Australia Police to frame them.
Mickelberg brothers
Soon after the robbery police, investigations focused on the Mickelberg brothers. According to the police, the brothers stole cheques from a Perth building society and then fooled the mint into accepting those cheques in exchange for gold bullion which, it was alleged, the brothers had a courier pick up. The gold was picked up by a security company who delivered it to an office in Perth and then to Jandakot Airport, from where it seemingly disappeared.
In a separate matter, in September 1982, the three brothers, their parents and another man, Brian Pozzi, were charged over a matter relating to a manufactured gold nugget known as the "Yellow Rose of Texas". Perth Businessman Alan Bond had purchased the nugget for $350,000 in November 1980. It was later found to be worth less than $150,000, and Raymond Mickelberg and Brian Pozzi pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to fraud at their June 1984 trial.
After serving nine months of his jail term and having his conviction overturned on appeal, Brian was released from jail but died in a light aircraft crash on 27 February 1986 when the twin-engined Aero Commander he was flying ran out of fuel near Canning Dam on the outskirts of Perth. Whilst in prison, Ray and Peter embarked on a series of seven appeals against their convictions, essentially on the grounds that their confessions had been fabricated by police investigators. Ray and Peter served eight and six years of their sentences, respectively, before being released on parole.
In 1989, of gold pellets, said to have been from the swindle, were found outside the gates of TVW-7 (currently Channel Seven Perth), a Perth television station, with an anonymous note addressed to one of the station's reporters—Alison Fan—protesting the Mickelbergs' innocence and claiming that a prominent Perth businessman was behind the swindle.
Police officers
Don Hancock
The senior investigating officer in the case was Detective-Sergeant Don Hancock, who was later promoted to head of the State Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB). Hancock and a friend, Lou Lewis, died in a bomb explosion outside Hancock's home in Lathlain in September 2001.
Tony Lewandowski
In 2002, midway through a State Royal Commission into police corruption, a retired police officer, Tony Lewandowski, who had been at the centre of the case, made a confession of his involvement in fabricating evidence which was used to help frame the brothers. Lewandowski's senior officer during the investigation was Don Hancock. The two were the only people present at the brothers' interviews following the Mickelburgh arrests. "(On that day), Don Hancock came into the room and told me to make Peter strip naked. Don then went up to Peter and gave him two or three quick punches in the solar plexus. The statements purportedly taken from Peter Mickelberg on 26 July 1982, were in fact not taken in Peter's presence that day, but were a fabrication made by Don Hancock and myself shortly after 2 September 1982. I gave evidence at the trial and numerous appeals. All that evidence in relation to the so-called confessions was false." —Statement of Tony Lewandowski
Lewandowski was subsequently charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, making false statements, fabricating evidence and perjury. In May 2004, just before facing trial, Lewandowski apparently committed suicide. Although now dead, Lewandowski's confession directly implicated Hancock in fabricating evidence in the Mickelberg case.